People, Places & Things of the 60's

A-Bomb:

Atomic bomb, or nuclear bomb. First developed during World War II as the outcome of the massive scientific and military mobilization known as the Manhattan Project – a mobilization spurred by a fear that German scientists were working on the same kind of weapon, which if successful may have altered the outcome of a war that had begun to go in the Allies favor. The Manhattan project was so highly classified that even Vice-President Truman only learned of its existence when President Roosevelt died in April, 1945 and Truman assumed the duties of president. In July, 1945, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated in the Nevada desert; the following month (with the war in Europe having ended), two nuclear weapons were used against Japan, prompting that country to surrender sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

For the next four years, the U.S. held a monopoly on nuclear weapons worldwide, which officials in the new Cold War era saw as counter-balance to the Soviets’ greater numerical military strength. By 1949, the Soviets successfully detonated their own nuclear weapon, and the arms race went into a kind of nuclear overdrive. Over the years, other countries, notably France, China and Great Britain, would seek to develop nuclear weapons of their own, even as the U.S. and Soviet Union lavished extravagant sums on developing ever more powerful bombs and ever more efficient delivery systems (which would come to include not only long-range bombers, but bombs capable of being delivered by ICBM, or inter-continental ballistic missile, as well as from nuclear armed submarines). As the development of more lethal weaponry continued, military and state officials wrestled with plans over scenarios for their possible use. Should the weapons be used only in retaliation, held as a deterrent to another country employing their use? But what if another country launched a first strike, and decapitated much of the nation’s ability to retaliate? In answer to the latter question, some officials argued that the U.S. should reserve the right to strike first, even as they also lobbied for greater stockpiling of nuclear weapons, to insure their survivability in the light of an enemy first-strike; and for weapons systems deployed on submarines where they would be less vulnerable to detection and attack.

In the decades since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear weapons have not been detonated in a time of war. Nevertheless, the fact of their existence and implied (or direct) threat of their use has loomed ominously in crises ranging from Berlin to Korea to Suez to Vietnam to the Middle East.

Aaron – Hank Aaron:

Hall of Fame baseball player who played most of his career for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves. Known for his strong, quick wrists, steady production and high batting average, Aaron wasn’t as famous for tape measure home runs like a Mickey Mantle or Willie Stargell, but by the time he’d finished his career, it was Aaron who eventually eclipsed Babe Ruth’s once ‘unbreakable’ record of 714 home runs. Aaron went on to log 755 round-trippers, a record that would stand until slugger Barry Bonds – under a cloud of suspicion for alleged steroid use – hit 762.

ABA: American Basketball Association.

Started in 1967, the A.B.A. was formed to compete with the established N.B.A. The upstart league would fold in 1976, but the ABA not only introduced a red-white-and blue basketball, it also pioneered the use of the 3-point shot, for longer shots made behind an arc over 20 feet from the basket. Though the league would ultimately last less than ten years, four of its teams would join the NBA in the merger season; in addition NBA Hall-of-Famers Rick Barry, George Gervin, Connie Hawkins, Moses Malone and Julius Erving all played in the ABA (though not all would wait until the league merger to join the NBA).

Abernathy – Ralph Abernathy:

Abernathy was a minister, leader of the civil rights movement, co-founder of the Southern Leadership Coordinating Committee, and close friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. During his career, Abernathy and King collaborated on organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott; supporting the Freedom Riders Campaign; helping get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed; and was with King in April, 1968, introducing MLK before his last speech on April 3, and in the motel with King when the latter was assassinated on April 4th. After King’s assassination, Abernathy would continue spearheading the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington that summer.

The following year, on the eve of the July 15 Apollo 11 launch, Abernathy lead a group of poor people to the NASA site, in protest of misguided spending priorities, saying that funds being spent on space should instead be used to “feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the sick, and house the homeless.” Though Abernathy would remain committed to civil rights and social justice causes throughout his life, he drew criticism for his eleventh hour endorsement of Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, a move he said was done as a tactical movement to help increase African-American political viability in light of what was expected to be a resounding electoral victory over embattled incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

After pictures of the self-immolation were published around the world, support for the increasingly unpopular Diem waned even further. (Diem himself, during the course of a coup, would be killed under murky circumstances in November, three weeks before the Kennedy’s assassination.)

Alcindor – Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

Before becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer over the course of 20-year Hall-of-Fame career that saw him be a member of six championship winning teams, Lew Alcindor (who would change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971) was a standout player at Power Memorial High School in New York, leading the team to a 71-game winning streak and a national title. After accepting a scholarship to UCLA, Alcindor lead the bruins to the first of three national championship titles in 1967, his sophomore year (freshman were not eligible to play varsity games in the NCAA at the time). In large part because of the 7’2” center’s dominance, the NCAA would ban the dunk after the 1967 season, eventually reinstating it during the 1976-77 season. In the summer of 1968, while still attending UCLA, Alcindor converted to Sunni Islam, though not changing his name till later. This same summer, he decided not to join the U.S. men’s basketball team in the Olympics as a protest over unequal treatment of African-Americans in the United States (the same year which saw medal winning Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith raise gloved fists in a black power salute during the playing of the national anthem at the Mexico City games). After graduating from UCLA in 1969, Alcindor went on to his stellar NBA career. After retiring as and eighteen-time All Star and the league’s all-time leading scorer, Abdul-Jabbar landed an impressive number of roles in TV and movies; and remained active working to promote greater understanding in matters of race and religion.

Ali – Muhammad Ali:

Heavyweight champion boxer from Louisville, KY. Born Cassius Clay in 1942, he won a gold medal in the light-heavyweight division during the 1960 Rome Olympics before turning pro and moving up to the heavyweight division. Even with a gold medal under his belt, Clay was a 7-1 underdog when he moved up a weight division and went against reigning heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, but that didn’t stop the brash talking 22 year-old challenger from predicting victory, saying he’d ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.’ In the end, Clay stunned the boxing world with a knock-out victory, the first of three times he would gain the heavyweight crown. Known for his fast feet, toughness, superior reflexes, lightning quick jabs, and propensity for trash-talking, he became even better known outside the ring. Shortly after winning the title from Liston, he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali, saying that Clay had been his slave name. Then, in 1966, with the U.S. sharply escalating the number of troops being sent to Vietnam, his draft classification was changed to 1-A (able to serve), and Ali stated that he would refuse to serve if called, saying “I ain't got nothing against no Viet Cong; no Viet Cong never called me n*****.” The following year, Ali did indeed refuse induction, was prosecuted in court and stripped of his title. After being found guilty, Ali remained free pending appeal of the verdict, but didn’t fight from 1967-70. The verdict would eventually be overturned by the Supreme Court, and Ali would return to the ring, winning the heavyweight championship title two more times while engaging in memorable battles with such top heavyweights as Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and George Foreman.

Alpert – Richard Alpert/a.k.a. Ram Dass:

Along with Harvard University colleague Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert was an early pioneer in the use of LSD and other psychoactive drugs as a vehicle form mind expansion and spiritual growth. After personally ingesting and performing a number of experiments with the drug, both Alpert and Leary would be dismissed by university officials – Alpert for allegedly giving psilocybin to an undergraduate student. While Leary would continue to be closely associated with the drug, Alpert began to grow frustrated with the yo-yo like effect of getting incredibly high and experiencing profound insights while under the influence of psychoactive substances, and the inevitable return to mundane reality when the effects of the drugs wore off. Disenchanted with the up-and-down cycle and looking for a deeper wisdom, Alpert traveled to India in 1967. There, in a series of incidents he felt to be even more mind-blowing than the effects of LSD per se, Alpert met his guru, changed his name to Ram Dass, eventually returning to the United States where he wrote, among other books, the best-selling Be Here Now, which chronicled his personal journey through Harvard, psychoactive drug use, and study with his guru; and which offered a kind of smorgasbord of information on meditation and eastern philosophy which many in the counter-culture would eagerly devour.

Baez – Joan Baez:

Folksinger, songwriter and social activist, Joan Baez began performing in the late 1950’s, including a performance at the 1959 Newport folk Festival. She recorded her first album the following year, and in 1961, her second album went gold, as did subsequent albums released in each of the next two years. At this time, Baez introduced her audiences to the not-yet well known Bob Dylan; appeared on the November 23, 1962 cover of Time Magazine; and helped lead a quarter-million people in singing verses from ‘We Shall Overcome’ at the 1963 March on Washington. In addition to a prolific singing career which included an appearance at Woodstock in 1969 and which has spanned more than fifty years, Baez has been an outspoken proponent for civil rights and human rights generally; and was a high profile critic of the Vietnam War, frequently leading and joining anti-war demonstrations, withholding personal income taxes in protest of the war, and eventually journeying to North Vietnam in 1972.

Bay of Pigs:

Site of an April, 1961 invasion of Cuba by a force of CIA-backed Cuban exiles seeking to overthrow the government headed by Fidel Castro, who had himself lead a band of revolutionary guerillas in overthrowing the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista in January, 1959. After taking power, the Castro government made enemies with powerful interests on the island when he expropriated large tracts of land from foreign corporations and local elites, offering compensation that the landholders deemed inadequate (even though compensation offers were often based on valuations that had previously been made by the landowners for tax purposes). In the months and years after Castro took office, as his land reform measures alienated more and more powerful interests among Batista aligned exiles and in the U.S. business and government spheres, high level planning began for operations seeking to remove Castro from power. Ironically, clandestine planning for the secretive Bay of Pigs operation began during the Eisenhower Administration, when Richard Nixon was Vice-President. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democrats’ presidential nominee, attempted to burnish his anti-Communist foreign policy credentials by charging that the Eisenhower Administration was taking too much of a hands-off approach in its dealings with the Castro government. Kennedy’s Republican opponent, Vice-President Nixon, was well aware of the Bay of Pigs planning, but unable to divulge information about a highly classified, legally questionable operation whose success depended upon the element of surprise, it was left to Nixon to charge Kennedy with being reckless in suggesting a more aggressive approach to intervening in Cuban affairs. Thus it was that after Kennedy squeaked by with a victory in the November 1960 general election, he would inherit the plans hatched by his predecessors. After taking office, Kennedy came to realize he had a dilemma. On the one hand, he was very much in favor of seeing the Castro regime toppled; but on the other, he felt it was important that any overthrow of the Cuban government be achieved in a way that allowed the U.S. government to reap the benefits of such overthrow while also maintaining a level of plausible deniability, particularly in the event that something were to go awry. In this context, Kennedy signed off on a plan that allowed the invasion to proceed, but in the end chose not to allow U.S. marked planes to provide air cover for the operation. When the exiles’ expeditionary forces were pinned down by troops loyal to Castro, request for air cover was withheld, with more than a thousand exiles either captured or killed. In the wake of the debacle, the Castro government, if they hadn’t been convinced of it before, knew its superpower neighbor to the north was intent on his overthrow; while the anti-Castro exiles felt betrayed by Kennedy for refusing to authorize the air support they felt was needed to insure the operation’s success. In the months thereafter, an amalgamation of secretive governmental and extra-governmental groups continued to plot the overthrow of the Castro government and/or the assassination of the Cuban leader himself; while Castro, fearing future U.S.-backed incursions, became more amenable to increasing his preparedness for such an event by developing ever closer ties to the Soviet Union – ties which would help bring the three countries to the brink of nuclear holocaust the following year during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Beatles:

Premier English rock band originally formed in Liverpool in 1960, the Beatles were a part of the so-called British musical invasion of the early and mid-60’s. While their style in the early years featured works lean toward love song and pop hits, by 1965-66 the band was evolving and their work came to feature more rock/psychedelic rock. Though the band would be dissolved in 1970, their popularity is attested to by the fact they are said to have sold over 600 million records world-wide, including a record twenty number-one hits on the top 100 chart. Their popularity and influence was such that, when they came under scrutiny for the use of illicit drugs, including LSD, and for a well publicized trip to India, where members of the band began exploring eastern religious traditions, the attention lavished on them was far greater than it might have been had they enjoyed less musical success.

Bell Bottoms:

Fashion style featuring pants legs that flared out from the calves to an opening at the feet far wider than found with traditional straight-leg pants. By 1967, the bell bottom style, being increasingly adopted by people in the anti-war movement and counter-culture, became associated with the growing hippie movement in much the same way as love beads, granny style glasses and headbands. Though bell bottom or flare bottom pants would become nearly ubiquitous in the early- to mid-70’s, there was nevertheless a time in the late 60’s when bell bottoms were considered a sign that the wearer was an anti-war hippie, which sometimes prompted jeering or even the occasional ‘de-pantsing’ by a more adamantly conservative contingent.

Black Panthers:

Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which would later publish its Ten Point Program for social change, is founded in October, 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, CA. The Black Panther Party, a revolutionary socialist organization became known for its armed neighborhood patrols set up to monitor police practices – with members wearing black berets and leather jackets – as well as for instituting community social service initiatives, including a free breakfast program for children and community health clinics. From the outset, the Panthers’ militant stances put them in conflict with local police, as well as the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), with Huey Newton arrested for the shooting of an Oakland police officer in 1967, and Black Panther member Bobby Hutton being killed in a police shootout in April, 1968 – a battle that also resulted in the arrest of Eldridge Cleaver.

Boston Marathon:

The world’s oldest annual marathon, first run in 1897 (in the wake of the 1896 Summer Olympic marathon race held in Greece), the Boston Marathon is held on the third Monday in April, Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts. It is run on a point-to-point course beginning in the town of Hopkinton, going east through the rolling hills outside of Boston, and finishing at Copley Square in Boston. It would be 1972 before women were initially permitted entry in the prestigious race, in keeping with a consensus of the times that women were not built to withstand the rigors of such a demanding event. Pressure to make the change and allow women participants grew out of the changing and times and the growing women’s liberation movement, as well as by the fact that a number of women had already successfully run the course, albeit unofficially. In 1966, trailblazer Bobbi Gibb snuck into the race and completed the course in three hours and twenty-one minutes. Gibbs ran again the following year, and was joined, in a manner of speaking by Katherine Switzer, who had registered under the name K. Switzer, and in so doing became the first woman to run the entire course with a number, despite efforts by a race official to physically remove her from the course. The following year, in 1968, the race was won by Amby Burfoot, who became the first American to win the event in a decade. Interestingly, Burfoot’s time of 2:22:17 would be slower than the time run by the women’s winner in 2014, Rita Jeptoo of Kenya who completed the course in 2:18:57, one year after the 2013 finish-line bombing that killed three people and injured more than two hundred others.

Buffalo Springfield:

American and Canadian fold-rock band which included Stephen Stills, Rich Palmer, Dewey Martin, Neil Young and Richie Furay. The band’s biggest single was ‘For What Its Worth,’ released in January, 1967. Though written in response to police breaking up protests of curfew laws in the Sunset Strip area of L.A., the song was quickly adopted as kind of anti-war anthem of the counter-culture. Though ‘For What It’s Worth’ enjoyed success, an such singles as ‘Bluebird’ and ‘Mr. Soul’ were well received, stresses from infighting, drug arrests and personnel changes prompted the band to break up in 1968. Later that year, Stephen Stills recruited David Crosby and Graham Nash to form Crosby Stills & Nash, with Neil Young coming into the group the following year, with CSNY enjoying considerable commercial success in the years ahead.

Carlos - John Carlos:

Best known for winning a Bronze Medal in the 200 meter dash at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where Carlos and Gold Medalist Tommie Smith stunned the sports-watching public with their black-power salute during the playing of the national anthem following the 200 meter race. Appearing on the medal stand in bare feet to call symbolic attention to conditions of poverty which millions of African-Americans had been relegated as a result of ongoing racism, the two bowed their heads and raised gloved fists overhead during the playing of the anthem. Also on the medal stand was the event’s silver medalist, white Australian sprinter Peter Norman. Norman stood stoically on the medal stand during the playing of the U.S.’ national anthem, neither bowing his head nor raising his fist overhead; but Norman nevertheless stood in silent solidarity with his medal winning competitors, wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights path on his warm-up jacket.

Carson – Rachel Carson:

American writer, biologist and ecologist best known as the author of the seminal work ‘Silent Spring,’ a book published in 1962 which challenged the view that humans could manipulate the environment for positive gains through liberal use of chemicals, exposing the harm done to wildlife and ecosystems through the application of deadly pesticides like DDT which made their way up the food chain to wreak havoc on species other than those targeted.

Castro – Fidel Castro:

After playing a key role in the Cuban Revolution which overthrew U.S. backed dictator, Castro served as prime minister, then president of Cuba, effectively being the country’s leader from 1959-2008, when he began stepping aside and ceding more and more power to his brother Raul Castro. To his supporters, Castro is lauded for standing up to the Yankee imperialists in the face of U.S. backed invasions and numerous attempts on his life; as well as for bringing about needed land reforms, and impressive upgrades in the country’s education and health care systems. To his critics, Castro quickly became an oppressive dictator in his own right, embracing Communism; allying himself with the Soviet Union; fomenting revolution in other parts of the world; and confiscating land, and suppressing dissent by jailing and/or killing political dissidents in Cuba itself.

Catonsville Nine:

Activist group arrested for publicly burning draft board records in Catonsville, MD in May, 1968. Prior to the action, the group, which included two Catholic priests and a former Maryknoll nun, notified reporters of an imminent event. After carrying nearly 400 draft records to a nearby parking lot, the group set them on fire with a batch of homemade napalm they’d brought along for the occasion. One of the members, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, later wrote, “our apologies good friends, for the fracture of good order, for the burning of paper instead of children . . .” All nine members of the group were arrested, tried and found guilty on three counts, including destruction of U.S property; destruction of Selective Service records; and interference with the Selective Service Act of 1967. Hardly an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment act, the group had been planning the action weeks in advance. Tom Lewis, for example, a 28 year-old artist, teacher, peace activist and member of the “Baltimore Four,” – a group which had poured blood on draft files at the Baltimore Customs House in 1967 – had been scouting the building weeks in advance under the pretense of wanting to rent the Knights of Columbus basement for his wedding reception. While doing so, he took note of the location of files housing draft records with ‘A-1’ classification, as well routes into and out of the building. Another member, Marjorie Melville, a former Maryknoll nun who had worked extensively on peace and justice issues in Latin America before being expelled from Guatemala in 1967 for being involved in the “internal politics” of the country, was assigned the task of preventing clerks from telephoning for help while other members of the group took the draft record files. Phillip Berrigan was a Catholic priest who had served in World War II prior to being ordained, was active in the civil rights movement, and had a history of being at odds with the Church for speaking out against militarism and the arms race. Daniel Berrigan, Phil’s older brother, was a Jesuit priest, activist and early opponent of the Vietnam War, and had gone to Hanoi earlier in 1968 with Boston University professor Howard Zinn to accept the release of three U.S. prisoners of war. Another member, David Darst, was a Christian Brother as well as teacher, activist and writer on peace and justice issues who, after reflecting on the morality of the war, had sent back his draft card. This resulted in his losing his clerical deferment, and was drafted but refused induction. During the raid, Darst served as lookout man. John Hogan was a Maryknoll Brother who had been recalled from Guatemala for his work with the Christian Guerilla Movement in that country, and joined the Catonsville Nine as a way of protesting U.S. policies in Guatemala and Southeast Asia. Before marrying former nun and fellow Catonsville Nine activist Marjorie Bradford (Melville), Thomas Melville had been a Maryknoll priest working for peace and justice in Guatemala, Melville also hoped the draft-card action would bring greater attention to U.S. policies in Guatemala and Southeast Asia. George Mische was another peace activist who had spent time abroad and become disenchanted with U.S. policies, and helped recruit other members to the Catonsville Nine action. The last member of the group, Mary Moylan, was a friend of George Mische, and had spent years working in Uganda before being part of the Catonsville Nine. During the raid, Mary Moylan had held her hand on the telephone receiver button to prevent employees from making calls for assistance. After hauling the draft records to the parking lot and dowsing them with homemade napalm, the nine clasped hands and recited the Lord’s Prayer, later noting that their purpose was to stop the flow of soldiers to Vietnam, and that they’d chosen this form of direct action because nothing else had been working. During their trial, the Catonsville Nine defendants admitted to burning the draft records, but argued that they were not guilty of any crime, as they had been acting out of respect to a higher power in their efforts to help bring an end to an immoral war. “I wanted to do a tiny bit to stop the machine of death I saw moving,” defendant David Darst said. When the trial concluded, the jury found all nine defendants guilty on all charges after two hours of deliberation. Phil Berrigan and Tom Lewis received three-and-a-half year sentences, to be served concurrently with time they had received for their participation in a previous action; while Daniel Berrigan, Tom Lewis and George Mische each received three-year sentences. The other four – David Darst, John Hogan, Mary Moylan and Marjorie Melville were not considered to be planners in the raid and were given two-year sentences. When the appeals process was exhausted, the Melvilles and John Hogan went to jail, while David Darst was killed in a car accident before he could serve time. The other defendants – Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Tom Lewis, George Mische and Mary Moylan decided not to cooperate and went underground. All but Mary Moylan were eventually captured, with Moylan surrendering in 1978. While the Catonsville Nine action clearly didn’t bring an end to the war, it did succeed in casting a brighter light on what activists considered the dark side of U.S. foreign policy, and particularly since the defendants, with their strong religious backgrounds and adherence to non-violent tactics, did not fit the stereotype of the scruffy, unkempt college protestor.

Chamberlain – Wilt Chamberlain:

Before becoming one of the most dominant players in the game of basketball, Wilt Chamberlain also distinguished himself in track and field, running the quarter-mile in 49 seconds, high jumping six feet six inches, long jumping twenty-two feet, and putting the shot over fifty-three feet, all while still in high school. While playing basketball at Kansas, the 7’1” Chamberlain was a dominant presence on the floor, racking up impressive statistics in scoring, rebounds and blocked shots. Indeed, his level of dominance was such that opposing teams frequently resorted to double- and triple-teams in an effort to contain him, and often went into a stalling technique (in the days before there was a shot clock) on offense if they were fortunate enough to get the lead. Frustrated with the college game, Chamberlain wanted to turn pro, but the NBA had a rule barring players from being drafted before their class graduated from college. Thus, during what would have been his senior year in 1958-59, Chamberlain played for the Harlem Globetrotters before being joining the Philadelphia Warriors the following year. What followed was a remarkable rookie season in which Chamberlain averaged 37 points and 27 rebounds per game en route to winning both Rookie-of-the-Year and MVP honors; and a remarkable career, in which Chamberlain averaged over 30 points per game (including one season, 1962, when he averaged 50.4 points per game); over 20 rebounds per game; and saw two of his teams win the NBA Championship (in an era dominated by the Boston Celtics, who were lead by center Bill Russell and a supporting cast that included, in different years, the likes of Bob Cousy, K.C. Jones, Sam Jones, Tommy Heinsohn and John Havlicek.)

Chavez – Cesar Chavez:

Labor activist and social justice advocate, Chavez, along with Dolores Huerta was a co-founder of the United Farm Workers in 1962. A strong proponent of non-violent tactics, Chavez worked tirelessly to organize workers, and participated in numerous demonstrations, boycotts and fasts to promote migrant and worker rights. His influence was such that after his passing, his birthday, March 31, was made a state holiday in California, and an optional holiday in Colorado and Texas. Somewhat less known, Chavez was also s believer in animal rights and a vegan.

Chicago:

In the late 1960’s, the large metropolis on the shores of Lake Michigan gained notoriety for being the site of the Democrats’ August, 1968 riotous presidential convention. Earlier that spring, the increasingly unpopular President Lyndon B. Johnson – being pressured by the insurgent anti-war campaign of Eugene McCarthy, the surprise TET Offensive, and the announcement to Bobby Kennedy to seek the party’s nomination – announced his withdrawal from the race. Thereafter, the Democratic primaries featured an intense rivalry between McCarthy and Kennedy, even as Democratic insider Vice-President Hubert Humphrey belatedly threw his hat into the ring, seeking to secure the nomination not so much through the primaries (most of which he was too late to enter), but through securing the support of delegates appointed by party officials. Because he was closely associated with the Johnson administration’s increasingly unpopular policies of escalation in Vietnam, Humphrey was not viewed favorably by supporters of either anti-war candidate. After the June, 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy, Humphrey further solidified his support among party stalwarts, and the stage was set for a contentious affair at the party’s Chicago convention. Despite the fact that the anti-war candidates had won a majority of delegates chosen in the primaries, Humphrey entered the convention the odds on favorite to win the nomination by virtue of his stranglehold on a majority of non-primary delegates. Objecting to what was perceived as the non-democratic nature of the selection process, angry protestors gathered in Chicago, where they were met by a phalanx of policeman equipped in full-riot gear. While Humphrey was indeed nominated inside the convention hall, demonstrations escalated into riots in the streets outside, with police claiming it was the demonstrators who had turned the protests in riots, while protestors claimed that the police’ aggressive behaviors had transformed the demonstrations into what amounted to a series of police riots.

Chomsky – Noam Chomsky:

Linguistics professor at M.I.T., Chomsky is a prolific author and activist who was an early and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Along with historian Howard Zinn, Chomsky helped edit and annotate documents which RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg copied, and which would become known as The Pentagon Papers. In addition to his Vietnam era anti-war activism, Chomsky has been an outspoken critic of American (imperialist) foreign policy, and of media complicity in propagating said policy.

Cleaver – Eldridge Cleaver:

Influential member of the Black Panther Party, who wrote the controversial best-selling autobiography “Soul On Ice.” Cleaver, who advocated armed struggle against the white establishment, was involved in a shootout with Oakland, CA police that lead to his fleeing the U.S., first to Cuba, then to Algeria. Cleaver would split with the Black Panther Party over tactics, and eventually returned to the U.S., where he would face outstanding charges against him. Prior to his death in 1998, Cleaver changed directions a number of times, becoming a born-again Christian for a time; a conservative Republican; and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Clemente – Roberto Clemente:

Hall of Fame right fielder and MVP who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates between 1955-72. A winner of 12 Gold Glove Awards who was known for his rifle arm, Clemente was also extraordinarily productive at the plate, batting winning four National League batting titles and hitting .317 during his career. Three months after notching his 3,000th career hit in the final game of the 1972 season, Clemente was killed in a New Year’s Eve plane crash, in which he’d been aboard a plane seeking to bring relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, where he’d been distressed to learned that previous relief aid supplies had been diverted by corrupt officials in the Somoza regime for their own personal gain. His death while on a mission of mercy was only the latest in a long history of efforts on the part of Clemente to help those less fortunate, and as a result, Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s Award – begun two years earlier to honor a player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement – was renamed the Roberto Clemente Award.

Conscientious Objectors (C.O. status):

According to the Selective Service, a conscientious objector is “someone who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles." While Mennonites or Quakers were able to qualify for C.O. status, measures were taken during the Vietnam years to ensure that applicants were not granted deferrals simply because their conscience precluded from them from wanting to participate in that war; their objection needed to be based on deep religious convictions and include all wars. In years past, exemptions during the Revolutionary War varied by state, as state governments held greater sway than any early federal body. During the Civil War, conscientious objection was not part of the draft law, but individuals could pay the sum of $300.00 and have someone perform their service for them; i.e., they could essentially buy their way out of the draft. During World War I, conscientious objectors were permitted to perform non-combatant military roles; if they refused this, they could be and were imprisoned. During World War II, approximately 12,000 conscientious objectors who refused to perform any military service were required to perform work of national importance in Civilian Public Service camps.

Counter-culture/anti-war movement:

As the 1960’s progressed, and the civil rights movement grew and the war in Vietnam escalated, so too did the anti-war movement grow. Along with this came an impetus by many to reject significant aspects of the dominant culture permeating much of the country. That said, neither the counter-culture nor the anti-war movement were well-organized, homogenous entities. And, while most of those who identified with one aspect or another of the counter-culture were against to the war, not everyone who opposed the war was part of the counter-culture. Even within the growing anti-war movement, there was significant variation, and to be sure, not everyone in 1960’s America came to oppose the war. Indeed, after he became president, Richard Nixon referred to a ‘silent majority’ of Americans, the millions of hard-working, mostly middle-class (mostly white) people who still supported their government’s goals in Southeast Asia; who believed civil rights demonstrators were demanding too much, too quickly; and who looked on the growing counter-culture – with its rejection of middle-class mores, and embracing of long hair, mind-altering drugs and new music – with disdain. But within the anti-war movement, there was significant variation among those opposed to U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. For those who might be classified as being in the hard-core of the anti-war movement, objections to the war were highly political. For these people – who likely comprised but a minority of those opposed to the war – their country was engaged an illegal imperialist war, flexing its military muscle behind a veneer of Cold-War rhetoric, devastating a distant country and its people and culture in order to maintain American hegemony in that part of the world. At the other end of the anti-war spectrum were those for whom doubt about the war was more personal than political. In short, many of draft age simply wondered why their lives should be uprooted and they should be conscripted in a military intent on sending them off to fight in a war they didn’t understand, and which was taking place halfway around the world. For others, doubts about the war centered not so much on doubts regarding U.S. aims in Southeast Asia – to varying degrees, they accepted the official rationale that the U.S. was helping the South Vietnamese resist the aggression of North Vietnamese Communists supported by the Soviet Union and/or Communist China – but on the efficacy of meeting these war aims. For millions, the stated goals of the war were laudable, but the price of winning a guerilla war too high, both in terms of dollars spent and lives lost. Even a half-century later, significant differences of opinion remain concerning the aims and lessons of the war.

If objections to the war spanned a wide spectrum, then the manifestations of the counter-culture were more varied than the colors in a tie-dyed tapestry hanging from a hippie’s apartment in Haight Asbury. Among the smorgasbord of

Cronkite – Walter Cronkite:

Cronkite was a broadcast journalist best known for being the anchorman for the CBS Evening News from 1962-1981. During this time, Cronkite was on the air breaking the story of President Kennedy’s assassination, and gained a reputation as being among the most trusted men in America. Indeed, in February, 1968, when Cronkite delivered an opinion piece in the midst of the Vietnam War’s TET Offensive declaring that America seemed to be ‘mired in a stalemate,’ President Johnson was said to have remarked that ‘if I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.’

Cuban Missile Crisis: October 1962.

When aerial reconnaissance photos taken by U.S. planes revealed Soviet missile sites being installed in Cuba, the world was brought to the brink of nuclear war. For its part, the U.S. objected to the prospect of Soviet missiles being deployed so close to the American mainland. For Cuba, which had been subject to an invasion by a U.S.-backed exile force the previous year, the introduction of Soviet missiles onto Cuban soil may have seemed to offer a kind of insurance against future Yankee incursions. For the Soviets, engaged in geo-political posturing and an ever escalating nuclear arms race with the U.S. and the West since the close of World War II, the opportunity or invitation to establish missile sites so close to the U.S. mainland may have seemed like a kind of tit-for-tat, insofar as the U.S. had long since had nuclear-armed missiles aimed at the Soviet homeland in, among other places, Turkey. In the event, for U.S. officials, the presence of Soviet missiles so close to American shores was unacceptable, and long days and agonizing nights ensued as top members of the Kennedy administration debated strategy for getting the missiles removed. A number of hard-liners, convinced that the U.S. had long been on a course for war the Soviet Union anyway, was in favor of an invasion of the island and/or bombing the missile sites themselves. Because such a course would undoubtedly provoke a Soviet reaction and likely escalate into a nuclear exchange between the two superpowers and their European allies, Kennedy urged the group to continue to search for responses that wouldn’t be deemed as capitulating or weak, on the one hand, but not guaranteeing an escalation leading to an all-out nuclear exchange on the other. During the tense thirteen days in October, U.S. and Soviet officials engaged in a long and arduous series of internal debates, as well as a complex and sometimes conflicting web of discussions between the two countries, some of which were privy to the larger advisory groups of the two respective countries, others that were more secret ‘backchannel’ proposals. In the end, Kennedy refrained from taking the hardline route of ordering an invasion or missile strike, instead opting for a naval quarantine of vessels going into and out of Cuba. While this course of action entailed significant risk of triggering a confrontation at sea and included at least one near-miss, the U.S. chose to accept a proposal in which Soviet missiles would be withdrawn from Cuba in exchange for the U.S. pledging that it would refrain from invading the island, and that it would also remove missiles from Turkey (the latter provision being one that was not made public as being part of the deal, lest there be the appearance of U.S. capitulation in the face of Soviet pressure, despite the fact that U.S. officials already had plans to remove the Jupiter missiles in Turkey and in favor of more modern delivery systems). While the U.S. and Soviet Union had brought themselves and large parts of the world to the brink of a large scale nuclear exchange that officials estimated would have resulted in casualties numbering in the tens and even hundreds of million, the crisis is felt by many scholars to have prompted Kennedy and Khruschev to begin reassessing aspects of the arms race and consider taking steps to limiting nuclear proliferation. In terms of Cuba, despite the U.S. non-invasion pledge, during the remainder of the Kennedy administration, the U.S. would continue its search for ways to depose Castro, up to and including various assassination plots, even as it left a kind of back door open to the possibility of a rapprochement between the two countries. With the assassination of Kennedy in November 1963, Castro was said to have expressed his fear – not unfounded – that efforts would be made to pin the blame for the U.S. president’s assassination on Cuba; and that the prospects for a rapprochement between the two countries had lessened.

Dean – James Dean:

Actor who starred in three movies – ‘East of Eden,’ ‘Rebel Without A Cause,’ and ‘Giant,’ – before dying in a car crash at age 24, Dean compelling portrayals of disaffected youth helped him become a kind of cultural icon for adolescents coming of age in the late 50’s and 60’s.

Domino Theory:

After World War II, with East-West tensions on the rise between Soviet bloc countries, on the one hand, and the U.S. and NATO bloc countries on the other, the ‘Domino Theory’ asserted that if a Soviet brand of communism were to gain a foothold in one country, then the danger increased that it would spread to an adjoining country. The theory really gained traction after the 1949 Communist takeover in China, with fears that revolutions with communist style economies and governments would, in turns, be fomented or exported by Russia or China; or at the least, the spread of such revolutionary forms of government would occur by virtue of example. Indeed, fear of revolution and the emergence of socialist or communist forms of government spreading to both established and developing nations throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America would guide U.S. governmental policies that waffled between containment and confrontation, and which frequently lead to the support of pro-Western, pro-investment regimes that promised stability, albeit a stability often achieved through repressive measures.

Draft avoidance:

During the Vietnam War era (1964-75), from a pool of approximately 27 million service aged men, it is estimated that 8.7 million served in the armed services, with 3.4 million being deployed to Southeast Asia at some time. Of the 8.7 million who served, approximately 2.2 million were drafted, though some portion of the remaining servicemen were no doubt prodded by the draft to enlist voluntarily and perhaps receive a more favorable placement. For those trying to avoid military service, a variety of tactics were employed. For those who were qualified and whose families could afford it, obtaining a student deferment – a classification of II-S, which would defer eligibility – by going to college was one option (though the criteria for securing student deferments would change a number of times during this period). This option was criticized because it prompted military service to fall disproportionately upon lower income families less able to afford college. Others seeking to avoid service sought medical exemptions – real or exaggerated – that would confer IV-F status, ‘not qualified for military service.’ Others petitioned to obtain one of three different conscientious objector classifications – 1-O, 1-AO, or 1-W; though many draft boards were cracked down on this tactic, requiring extensive documentation of an applicant’s demonstrated objection to all wars based on religious beliefs, as opposed to opposition to a particular war on political grounds. A smaller number employed more dramatic means of avoiding the draft. A few may have enrolled in a seminary to secure the II-D or IV-D status conferred on those studying for the ministry. Others resisted the draft outside the law, sometimes by fleeing to Canada, Sweden or other country with favorable laws for gaining entry; while others simply refused to go to the induction center. In 1969, a lottery system was put in place based upon birthdate in the eligible year. By this time, Richard Nixon had been elected president, and was attempting to implement a process known as “Vietnamization” of the war – essentially an effort to reduce American troop presence in favor of increased reliance on bombing sorties as well as increased participation on the part of the South Vietnamese armed forces. Somewhat ironically, Nixon was also in favor of eliminating the draft, preferring an all-volunteer army, but on the grounds that many draft-aged men opposing the war would lose interest in protesting the war if the specter of being caught in the draft no longer loomed.

Full list of draft classifications in place during Vietnam War era:

I-A

Available for military service

I-0

Conscientious objector available for civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest

I-A-0

Conscientious objector available for noncombatant military service only

I-C

Member of the armed forces of the U.S., the Coast and Geodetic Survey, or the Public Health Service

I-D

Member of reserve component or student taking military training

I-H

Registrant not currently subject to processing for induction

I-S

Student deferred by statute (High School)

I-W

Conscientious objector performing civilian work

contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest

I-Y

Registrant available for military service, but qualified for military only in the event of war or national emergency

II-A

Registrant deferred because of civilian occupation (except agriculture or activity in study)

II-C

Registrant deferred because of agricultural occupation

II-D

Registrant deferred because of study preparing for the ministry

II-S

Registrant deferred because of activity in study

III-A

Registrant with a child or children; registrant deferred by reason of extreme hardship to dependents

IV-A

Registrant who has completed service; sole surviving son

IV-B

Official deferred by law

IV-C

Alien

IV-D

Minister of religion or divinity student

IV-F

Registrant not qualified for any military service

IV-G

Registrant exempt from service during peace (surviving son or brother)

IV-W

Conscientious objector who has completed alternate service contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest in lieu of induction into the Armed Forces of the United States

Draft Cards:

See also Selective Service. Officially known as a young male’s Registration Certificate and Notice of Classification, these two cards came to be known colloquially as draft cards, and contained information about a draft eligible person’s registration status and their eligibility to service. As opposition to the Vietnam War grew, an increasing number of draft eligible men opposed to the war registered this opposition by sending their draft cards back to the Selective Service, or more dramatically, by burning the card publically, and illegal act which ignited passions on both sides of the issue. Although most draft card burners were not apprehended, a number were arrested, with several of them challenging the validity of the law in court, arguing that their burning of a draft card was protected as a First Amendment act of free speech, and argument which the courts eventually ruled against.

Drive-in theater:

In the days before VCR’s, DVD’s, big-screen TVs and in-home theater systems, a popular – and economical – way to see the latest Hollywood offerings was to pile in a car and spend a relaxing weekend evening enjoying a double-feature at the local drive-in. For the growing suburban families with young children, loading the kids – along with blankets, pillows and pajamas –into the family station wagon was a cheap way to get out of the house for an evening’s entertainment. Most drive-ins offered a per-car admission fee which made if more affordable than going to the theater, and it was an easy matter to pull the family car into one of the parking slots in front of the big outdoor screen, roll down the window, and hook the speaker into the window to get the audio. Along with the movie itself, the drive-ins were also noted for their intermissions, during which time the mobile, movie going hordes could descend upon the snack bar to purchase candy, popcorn and soda, while giving the kids a chance to stretch their restless legs. Often time, the double-feature would include a kids movie to lead off the evening, then – as the kids grew weary and dozed off in the backseat of the car – a more adult oriented film would follow. As much as the drive-in was a draw for families with young kids, it was just as much, if not more of a magnet for teens with dates. After all, what could be better than a cheap place to park – with entertainment and away from the prying eyes of inquisitive parents? And so it was, with the profusion of surfer movies, Elvis films, or James Bond offerings, many a drive-in theater filled with sporty muscle cars whose windshields began to fog over as the teens inside explored their first kiss, or more, giving rise to the drive-in theater getting nicknamed the ‘passion pit.’

Drysdale – Don Drysdale:

Hall of Fame pitcher who played for the Dodgers between 1956-69. During his career, Drysdale was a feared power pitcher who racked up 209 wins and lead the National League in strikeouts three times. His career stats may have been higher had he not retired at the relatively young age of 33, due to a torn rotator cuff. In 1968, Drysdale set was then a major league record by pitching six straight complete game shutouts. His record setting sixth game was pitched at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium on June 4, 1968 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, just hours before Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. California was shot after winning the make-or-break California primary. (Drysdale’s streak would be broken in his next game, on June 8 against the Philadelphia Phillies, who were able to score a run in the fifth inning, ending his consecutive game streak at six, and his consecutive inning streak at 58-2/3.)

Dylan – Bob Dylan:

Best known as a folk singer associated with the anti-war and counter-culture movement of the 1960’s, Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman in 1941) has enjoyed a musical career spanning more than fifty years, exploring a wide variety of musical genres. Early works like ‘The Times They are a Changing,’ and ‘Blowing in the Wind,’ served as kind of anthems for large segments of the anti-war and civil rights movements; while his hit song ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was listed by Rolling Stone Magazine as number one on its “500 Greatest Songs of all Time.” In all, Dylan’s records have sold in excess of 100 million copies, earning him induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Edwards – Harry Edwards:

San Jose State University Sociology professor (in 2016, Professor Emeritus @ University of California Berkeley) who established the Olympic Project for Human Rights, an organization whose aim was to protest racism in sports and society. The organization was also instrumental in organizing a boycott of the 1968 Olympics by black athletes. A full boycott did not occur, but the OPHR was a driving force behind the John Carlos’ and Tommie Smith’s infamous raised fist, black power salute on the podium during the playing of the national anthem during the medal ceremony for the 200 meter race at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Edwards is the author of The Sociology of Sport and The Revolt of the Black Athlete, as well as numerous articles and essays.

Eisenhower – Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Before becoming the 34th president of the United States, Eisenhower, whose military service began prior to World War I, rose through the ranks to become a five-star general during the Second World War, serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. After the war, he served as president of Columbia University and Supreme Commander of NATO. By 1951, Democratic President Harry Truman, nearing the end of his second term, tried to persuade Eisenhower to throw his hat into the political ring and seek the Democratic nomination for president the following year. Eisenhower declined however, having decided he was more closely aligned with the Republican Party, which soon began their own ‘Draft Eisenhower’ campaign. After agreeing to seek the Republican nomination, Eisenhower resigned his NATO command, and proceeded to beat out Robert Taft for the nomination, and selected Richard Nixon to be his running plate. In the November election, the popular ex-general defeated Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson in the electoral college 442-89, with the Democrat only winning states in the then ‘Solid South.’ The only general to be elected president in the 20th century, Eisenhower presided over a country which – after the 1953 armistice in Korea – enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity. There were plenty of foreign policy hot spots as countries from Africa to Asia endeavored to throw off the yoke of colonial rule, and civil rights unrest grew in a country where a de facto apartheid was more the rule than the exception, but for a predominantly white and growing middle class, it was also a period of relative peace and prosperity, and Eisenhower was re-elected in another landslide victory in 1956, once again defeating Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson. Among events that would foreshadow crises of the coming decade, the Eisenhower years saw an escalation with the Soviet Union in the nuclear arms and space races; the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina/Vietnam in what a war that had become heavily subsidized by the U.S.; and the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista by Cuban revolutionaries lead by Fidel Castro. Domestically, increased resistance by civil rights protestors to decades of racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws in the American South in particular, and in the nation as a whole lead to Eisenhower needing to send federal troops to protect black students attempting to integrate Little Rock High School in 1957. By the end of his presidency, the U.S. had added its 49th and 50th states, (Alaska and Hawaii, respectively); and the growing influence of the military and its network of supporting corporations in the Cold War lead the ex-general, in his farewell address to the nation, to caution the country against the growing influence of what he termed the “military-industrial complex.”

Farmer – James Farmer:

A civil rights activist, Farmer was a co-founder of C.O.R.E., the Committee on Racial Equality in 1942, and a primary organizer of the 1961 Freedom Rides which helped bring about an end to legal segregation in public transportation. In 1963, Farmer would be one of the primary organizers of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. A fervent believer in non-violent approaches to social change, in later years, Farmer worked briefly in the Nixon Administration as an Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and taught at Lincoln University and Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington).

Flower Power:

A phrase or symbol prevalent in the counter culture and anti-war movement encouraging people to recognize and include positive, non-violent symbols like flowers in protests and demonstrations as a kind of affirmation of another way.

Further:

Name given the celebrated school bus which was converted into a colorful mural-on-wheels by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest author Ken Kesey and his counter-cultural band of pot-smoking, acid-taking ‘merry pranksters.’ The bus was known for its wild party atmosphere, and for appearing at concerts like the Monterrey Pop Festival and other major ‘happenings’ during the period.

Goldwater – Barry Goldwater:

Five-term senator from Arizona, Goldwater was the Republican’s nominee for president in 1964, running against Democrat Lyndon Johnson, who had assumed the presidency after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963. During the general election, Johnson (who’d once earned the nickname ‘Landslide Lyndon’ after winning a razor-thin race for the U.S. Senate amid a campaign replete with allegations of dirty politics and voting irregularities) won in a landslide over Goldwater, receiving 61% of the popular vote, and an electoral victory of 482-52. In the run-up to the general election, Goldwater, who came to represent the GOP’s more conservative faction, was portrayed as an extreme conservative in domestic and foreign policy issues. Though he supported earlier civil rights legislation, he opposed the 1964 legislation that LBJ had signed into law, saying that such matters were better handled by the individual states, leaving him open to charges of racism. His suggestions that Social Security be transformed into a voluntary system, at a time when New Deal legislation and Great Society programs enjoyed largely favorable views, further cemented his reputation for advocating extremely conservative positions on domestic issues. On foreign policy, Goldwater had advocated for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam before the sharpest escalations in U.S. involvement were underway, and once joked that the U.S. military should lob a nuclear bomb into the men’s room at the Kremlin. Though he adopted a campaign slogan ‘In Your Heart You Know He’s Right,’ even this was used against him, as the Johnson campaign responded with such counter slogans as “in Your Guts You Know He’s Nuts,’ and ‘In Your Heart, He’s Too Far Right,’ or ‘In Your Heart, You Know He Might’ (as in might use the bomb). Though Goldwater was decisively beaten, in hindsight, his campaign were in many ways a portent of things to come. Of the six states that Goldwater won, for example, five were in the Deep South, which had previously been considered Democratic strongholds. With the Johnson Administration’s passage of landmark civil rights legislation, however, large blocs of white conservative began shifting their party allegiances to the GOP, a trend that would show itself during the 1966 off-year elections, and again in 1968, when Republican Richard Nixon won a close election after running a law-and-order, peace-with-honor (in Vietnam) campaign that appealed to conservatives and contained important elements of the ‘Southern Strategy.’

Great Society:

Set of domestic programs launched in 1964-65 during the early years of the Johnson presidency whose aim was to combat poverty and racial injustice. In declaring a ‘War on Poverty,’ legislation was passed to bolster federal spending in education through programs such as Head Start, aimed at boosting the skills of pre-school aged children; in health care through the passage of Medicare and Medicaid legislation; and in civil rights, most famously through the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The ambitious initiative, which also included provisions in the environmental, transportation and housing sectors, came at a time when the War in Vietnam was being escalated, leading many anti-war critics to charge that Great Society funding was effectively being choked off by increased military expenditures.

Green Berets:

Elite, special operations force of the U.S. army whose five primary missions are unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, and counter-terrorism. Though founded and widely known before the 1960’s, the force gained more widespread visibility after the Barry Sadler’s song ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ earned number one song honors in 1966 (even as ‘The Green Berets’ movie, starring John Wayne and released in 1968, proved to be more of a lightning rod for controversy).

Green Berets:

In addition to being the popular name for The United States’ Army Special Forces - an elite division trained in unconventional warfare and guerilla operations, ‘The Green Berets’ was also the name of a 1968 film starring John Wayne. The film, mostly shot in 1967 before the TET Offensive was launched, lauded the brave and heroic role of the Special Forces, while also portraying U.S. involvement in Vietnam in a positive light. Also going under the title ‘Green Berets’ was a hit single ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets,’ written and sung by Barry Sadler, who was featured on The Ed Sullivan Show in January, 1966. At the time, opposition to the war in Vietnam had yet to reach a fevered pitch - according to a Gallup poll, only 1 in 4 Americans believed U.S. involvement in Vietnam to be a mistake. Following Sadler’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, his song would rise to the number one position on Billboard’s weekly top 100, and would later be selected as Billboard’s #1 song for 1966. By September, 1968, a Gallup poll would show that more than half the population (54%) thought it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam. By 1971, the percentage of Americans thinking the war was a mistake had grown to 59%; by 1995 (twenty years after the last American forces withdrew from the country), 71% thought the war was a mistake.

Gregory – Dick Gregory:

Writer, actor and comedian, Dick Gregory set school records in the half-mile and mile before being drafted into the army in the 1954. As a comedian, Gregory attributed the launch of his career to High Hefner of ‘Playboy Magazine’ fame, who was impressed by a routine Gregory did for a mostly white audience that included the following segment:

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.”

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, "We don't serve colored people here." I said, "That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken."

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, "Boy, we're giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you". So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, "Line up, boys!"

During the 1960’s Gregory was active in the civil rights and anti-war movements; and wrote an autobiography title “Nigger,” telling his mother that from then on, anytime she ever heard the racial slur uttered, it just meant that someone was promoting his book. Since that time, Gregory continued his career as an outspoken advocate for a variety of civil rights and social justice causes.

Guevara – Che Guevara:

A major figure in the Cuban Revolution which brought Fidel Castro to power in January 1959, Che was an Argentinian physician, guerilla leader and Marxist revolutionary who became radicalized by the hunger, poverty and disease that he saw as a medical student, and sought to spread political revolution around the world. Before meeting Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico and joining their revolutionary 26th of July Movement, Che had been involved in land reform efforts instituted by Jacobo Arbenz’s government in Guatemala before Arbenz, having made enemies with the powerful United Fruit Company, was overthrown in a CIA-assisted coup. After joining forces with the Cuban revolutionaries, Guevara rose to be second in command during the two-year guerilla campaign, then occupied a number of key roles in the new government, including spearheading a nationwide literacy campaign, instituting agrarian land reform, and reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted of war crimes by the revolutionary tribunals. In addition, Guevara helped train the Cuban forces which repelled U.S. backed exile forces during the April, 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, after which he sent a ‘thank-you’ note to President Kennedy, indicating his gratitude for the failed invasion inadvertently strengthening the revolutionaries’ resolve. Thereafter, Guevara played a key role in the Soviet-Cuban relationship that resulted in the Russian missiles being brought to Cuba, an action which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. By 1965, Guevara – having previously delivered fiery speeches to the Organization of American States and at the United Nations – had become increasingly interested in fomenting revolution in developing nations, and in 1965 journeyed to the Congo, where the popular leader Patrice Lumumba had been assassinated several years earlier. After running into stumbling blocks in organizing revolution there, Guevara went to Europe for a time, before going to Bolivia in late 1966. There, he would again work to foment revolution. Thinking the Bolivian Army to be poorly equipped – but having difficulty gaining the trust of local inhabitants, who sometimes informed authorities of his whereabouts, and perhaps not realizing that Bolivian forces were receiving aid from the CIA and U.S. Army Special Forces – Guevara didn’t enjoy the success for which he’d hoped, and in October, 1967 was captured in a battle with Bolivian forces and executed two days later. In death as in life, Che was alternately revered and reviled, depending the person’s point of view. In addition to authoring a manual on guerilla warfare that reflected his Marxist-Leninist ideology and postulated much of the reason for the Third World’s undeveloped state was the result of neo-colonial capitalist policies that systematically exploited the people and resources of these nations, Che’s name and iconic image on posters and flags became a rallying point for many would-be revolutionaries of the time.

Guthrie – Arlo Guthrie:

The folksinger and songwriter is the son of Woodie Guthrie, and is best known for his first album ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ an eighteen minute ballad detailing the absurdity of his encounters with registering for the draft at the height of the Vietnam War. The album became a classic hit among those in the anti-war movement, while his later cover of Steve Goodman’s ‘City of New Orleans’ proved to be his only single to chart in the top 40.

Guthrie – Woodie Guthrie:

Legendary folksinger and songwriter who grew up in Oklahoma and, with his Dustbowl background, devoted much of his career to pouring his heart into the plight and hopes of working people throughout the nation. Best known for his song ‘This Land is Your Land,’ Guthrie was the father of singer Arlo Guthrie, and had a profound influence on such performers as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Bruce Springsteen, among others.

Haight Ashbury:

Taking its name from the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets, this San Francisco neighborhood became a Mecca of the late 60’s counter-culture, with the first ever head shop opening in January, 1966, and the neighborhood, with its high concentration of groups like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin in residence, became a destination during the Summer of Love in 1967.

Hamer – Fannie Lou Hamer:

Civil rights activist who gained national attention in 1964 when, as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, she gave moving testimony that was aired on national television as to why the Freedom Democrats should be seated at the national party’s presidential nominating convention. Prior to this, Hamer, born in 1917, had lived and worked as a sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation since the time she was six years old, and able to pick two to three hundred pounds of cotton per day by the time she was thirteen. In the 1950’s, Hamer, then married but still working on the plantation, attended meetings of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and panels on civil rights and voting rights. Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony in 1964 proved to be so moving because of the brutality she brought to light. In addition to the day-to-day work on the plantation, in 1961, while having surgery to remove a tumor, the doctor also performed an involuntary appendectomy, in keeping with state policy to reduce the number of poor blacks in the state by sterilizing black women. After this, Hamer was credited with coining the term ‘Mississippi Appendectomy,’ for the forced sterilization of poor black women. The following year, in 1962, after attending a voter registration meeting organized by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer volunteered to be the first to register. Upon returning to the plantation after a bus trip on which she had made a name for herself leading other participants in the singing of spiritual songs, Fannie Lou Hamer was fired from her job by the plantation owner, who had warned her against registering to vote. The following year, 1963, while returning from a literacy workshop, the group Hamer was with were stopped in Winona, Mississippi and taken to a local jail, where they were told by police that they were going to make them wish they were dead, and were subsequently given near-fatal beatings. Though it took a month to recover from the vicious beating, Hamer was refused to be deterred, and became a delegate with the Freedom Democrats that traveled to Washington by bus in 1964. In concluding her speech to the committee as to whether the Freedom Democrats should be seated, Hamer said, “All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings — in America?” Later, when speaking with Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, considered a leading Democrat, who was angling for the vice-presidential spot on the Democratic ticket and had been charged with helping to persuade the Freedom Democrats to compromise their positions so as not to alienate racist delegations from other southern states, Hamer told Humphrey, who had implored that his position on the Democratic ticket was at stake: “Do you mean to tell me that your position is more important than four hundred thousand black people's lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote. I had to leave the plantation where I worked in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help the MFDP, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I'm going to pray to Jesus for you.” In the end, the Freedom Democrats were highly disappointed with the two token, non-voting seats awarded their delegation, but Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony on national television played an important role in thrusting segregation and racism further into the national spotlight, thus helping promote passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Hanoi:

Capital of Vietnam and the country’s second largest city, Hanoi was also the capital of North Vietnam between 1954-1976 when the country was divided and engaged in what is termed by Vietnamese as ‘The American War’ (to distinguish it from wars fought at different times against occupiers from France, Japan, and China). During the war, Hanoi sometimes referred to the city itself, and other times was a kind of shorthand reference to the communist government headquartered there.

Hawkins – Connie Hawkins:

Basketball standout who first dunked at age 11, Hawkins lead his Boys High team to two undefeated seasons in the New York Public School Athletic League before accepting a scholarship to the University of Iowa. There, his collegiate career was derailed when he was questioned by New York detectives who were investigating a point-shaving scandal at the school. Though Hawkins was never directly tied to the point-shaving incident – as a freshman, under NCAA rules of the period, he was not even eligible to play in the team’s varsity games – he was expelled from the university and effectively blackballed from playing at other colleges. Tainted by the scandal, there followed a period of years when Hawkins played in the short-lived American Basketball League, for four years with the Harlem Globetrotters, then in the upstart American Basketball Association. After two years in the ABA, the National Basketball Association settled a lawsuit Hawkins had filed during his years with Globetrotters, and was drafted by the expansion Phoenix Suns. Despite having undergone knee surgery, Hawkins hit the ground running in the NBA en route to becoming a four-time NBA all-star.

Hayes – Bob Hayes:

The only athlete with an Olympic Gold Medal and Super Bowl ring, Hayes was a two-sport athlete excelling in both track and football. Attending Florida A & M University on a football track, Hayes also excelled in track and field, and was selected to represent the U.S. in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, where he won the Gold Medal in the 100-meter dash, and anchored the U.S.’ gold medal winning 4 x 100 meter relay team. After the Olympics, Hayes left track and field for a career in the NFL, primarily with the Dallas Cowboys, where he was a member of the 1972 Super Bowl winning team that defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-3.

Head Start:

Launched in 1965 as part of the ‘Great Society’ initiative, Head Start is a program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services that seeks to provide early childhood education, along with health, nutrition and increased parent involvement services to low-income children and families.

Hendrix – Jimi Hendrix:

Electric guitarist widely considered to be one of history’s best, Hendrix, with his group the Jimi Hendrix Experience, had seen his singles ‘Hey Joe’ and ‘Are You Experienced’ enjoy success on the top singles charts in England, but had not yet broken through in the U.S. market. When organizers of the 1967 Monterrey Pops Festival were putting together the lineup of performers, the Beatles’ Paul McCartney, who’d already seen and been highly impressed by Hendrix’s performances, agreed to join the board if Hendrix was included on the list of performers. At a concert notable for its abundance of big name groups, Hendrix electrified the audience, first with his playing, then by setting his guitar afire in one of the iconic moments of rock and roll history. His genius recognized and popularity cemented, Hendrix then became one of the biggest names in rock and roll, being one of the headline groups for the 1969 Woodstock concert, closing the festival with a memorable, and somewhat controversial, rendition of the national anthem. Even more so than many other performers of the era, Hendrix – a user of alcohol, marijuana and LSD – was associated with the drug culture; and in 1970, died at age 27 after overdosing on barbiturates.

Hippies:

Name loosely given to people who identified with a counter-culture movement in the U.S. in the mid-60’s to early 70’s, derived from the ‘hipster’ term sometimes used to describe beatniks from an earlier era. Outward symbols of the hippie movement included such fashion statements as wearing long hair, beads, bellbottoms, headbands, bare feet, tie-dyed clothing, leather vests and, for the men, sideburns, beards, and/or handle-bar moustaches. Politically, hippies could often be counted upon to be against the war in Vietnam, but there was a wide range of sentiment within this spectrum. Some hippies were interested in the use of marijuana, LSD or other mind-altering drugs as a way of expanding the human potential, while others were more interested in taking the drugs simply for thrills, and still others were wary of drug use as being a distraction from the more important work of ending the war and building a more just and equitable society. Similarly, some hippies were against the war as a pragmatic issue – it didn’t make sense to risk life and limb in a little understood war being waged 10,000 miles from home. Other hippies were opposed to the war on the grounds that the conflict was essentially a civil war best left to the Vietnamese to decide, while those inclined toward greater political activism viewed the war as an illegal invasion of Vietnam being wrought by American imperialism.

Ho Chi Minh:

Vietnamese nationalist who was a leader in the nation’s fight for independence against France, Japan, France again, and the United States. Popular and well educated, Ho was a Communist, but primarily interested in ending colonial rule. Indeed, when a Declaration of Independence was issued in 1945, it borrowed from the French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen as well as the American Declaration of Independence. Despite the eloquence of their cause however, the French sought to re-establish control in their former colony; when the French effort ran into trouble, the United States – especially after China was “lost” to Communism in 1949 – began helping the French underwrite the cost of their war in Vietnam. When the French withdrew after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the U.S. was instrumental in establishing what became known as the Republic of South Vietnam. Throughout this time, Ho was the acknowledged leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, and hoped that elections to unify the country would be held, as called for by the 1954 Geneva Accords. Objecting on the grounds that elections would not be fair and free, Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem, a Vietnamese Catholic who had been residing in the United States, as prime minister in an alternate government being established in the South, and with U.S. approval, was encouraged to resist calls for unifying elections. In his memoirs, however, U.S. president Eisenhower feared that, had elections been held, Ho might have won as much as 80% of the vote, this at a time when a 60% majority was considered to be a landslide in U.S. elections. By 1956, when it became clear that elections would not be held, years of warfare ensued – with Vietnamese fighting both a kind of civil war, and for those opposed to the U.S. presence, a struggle against foreign domination. During this time, Ho Chi Minh was the acknowledged leader of the North, where he served as president of the DRV until his death in 1969 at 89 years of age.

Hoffman – Abbie Hoffman:

Hoffman gained notoriety as an anti-war activist in the 1960’s and beyond, and was known for his media-savvy pranks and outrageous antics that were successful in garnering headlines. In one 1967 incident, he and other ’Yippies’ (members of the Youth International Party) went to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange and threw fistfuls of real and fake dollars onto the exchange floor below, reveling in the spectacle of some of the traders clamoring to get their hands on the money. In the fall of 1967, Hoffman garnered attention when, as part of a demonstration organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Hoffman was at the forefront of a march from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon, where Hoffman directed marchers to join hands, surround the Pentagon, and begin chanting to exorcise the evil war making spirits harbored within. The following summer, Hoffman, along with fellow activists David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner and John Froines, along with Black Panther member Bobby Seale (who would eventually be tried separately) was arrested on conspiracy charges in connection with demonstrations at the Democrats’ 1968 Convention in Chicago. Hoffman – after bringing his antics into the courtroom where he succeeded in grabbing headlines by dressing in judicial robes and taking the oath with his middle finger raised – was eventually found not guilty of the conspiracy charges, but guilty of intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines, though the latter charge would be overturned on appeal. Though Hoffman would go underground for a time after being charged with possession of cocaine in 1973 – charges which he claimed were based on entrapment – Hoffman would continue to pursue activist causes, as evidenced by his 1986 arrest for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as part of a protest against the CIA’s recruitment on campus.

Humphrey – Hubert Humphrey:

Before serving as vice-President under Lyndon Johnson, Humphrey served as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1949-1964, gaining a reputation as one of the Democratic Party’s staunch anti-communist liberals. When, on March 31, LBJ announced his decision not to seek re-election that November, the door swung open for Humphrey to enter the contest, which he did several weeks later. Having declared his candidacy too late to enter most of the primaries, where anti-war candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy were vying for delegates, Humphrey concentrated on securing the backing of party stalwarts and the majority of delegates not selected through the primary process. In this regard, Humphrey enjoyed considerable success, though the surging Kennedy campaign, climaxing in a crucial win over McCarthy in California, left the door open that RFK might secure the party’s nomination at the Chicago Convention. With the shooting of Kennedy just hours after his California victory, however, a majority of the Democratic party stalwarts, to the dismay of grass roots anti-war activists, circled their wagons behind Humphrey, who went on to secure the nomination at the riotous convention in Chicago that August, before losing a close election in November to the Republican’s Richard Nixon, who had successfully campaigned on law-and-order, and peace-with-honor platforms (and who was later alleged to have supported back channel negotiations with officials in Vietnam to scuttle any potential peace settlements or cease fires in the raging Vietnam War, and thus avert the prospect of an ‘October Surprise,’ in which the Democrat Humphrey might benefit from a late surge in popularity brought on by a lessening of tensions in the unpopular war). After his loss in the 1968 election, former vice-President Humphrey returned to Minnesota and a teaching position at Macalester College before deciding to run for the Senate again in 1970, winning the election and serving until his death in 1978.

Iron Butterfly:

American psychedelic rock band best known for their epic single ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,’ a seventeen minute song that took up the entire side of their second album. A shorter version, just under three minutes was released for on-air play, while the album itself would go on to sell three million by 1970, and up to 30 million in the years thereafter.

Iron Curtain:

The name given the boundary separating Soviet-dominated eastern Europe from western Europe from the end of World War II in 1945, when Soviet troops controlled countries overrun by Hitler’s armies on their way to invading the Soviet Union, and 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved.

Jefferson Airplane:

Psychedelic rock band from the Bay Area that was an integral part of counter-culture movement and 1967’s fabled Summer of Love. Living in the Haight Ashbury area at the time, the band, with lead singer Grace Slick, played at the Monterey Pops Festival that summer, with the songs ‘White Rabbit,’ – sometimes interpreted as an allegory of an LSD trip – and ‘Somebody to Love’ were among the group’s most successful songs.

Johnson – Lyndon B. Johnson:

The 36th President of the United States, Vice President Lyndon Johnson assumed office after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. During his time in office, Johnson became know for pushing his ‘Great Society’ legislation, which included the passing of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill; the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as legislation establishing Medicare for the nation’s senior citizens. At the same time, the Johnson administration presided over a sharp escalation of the American war in Vietnam – a war which would bitterly divide the nation, claim the lives of over 57,000 American soldiers and more than two million Vietnamese; and which would funnel money away from Johnson Great Society programs even as it undid his presidency. Prior to taking office as president, the Texas native served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and as vice-President under JFK. During his long career in public office, ‘Landslide Lyndon’ (a nickname he acquired after winning a razor-thin Senate victory in 1948 in a race fraught with allegations of widespread fraud and cheating on the part of the victor’s campaign) developed a reputation as being at once coarse, charming, hard-working, overbearing, ambitious, and thoroughly capable of working both sides of the aisle to advance legislation in which he was interested.

Joplin – Janis Joplin:

Port Arthur, TX born singer who spent a number of years after high school drifting between Texas and California while chasing the dream of becoming an established singer, Joplin rose to fame as the lead singer with the group Big Brother and the Holding Company during their June, 1967 performance at the Monterrey Pop Festival. Known for her passionate, blues-style vocals, Joplin, whose hits included such songs as ‘Piece of My Heart,’ ‘Ball and Chain,’ ‘Down on Me,’ and ‘Me and Bobby McGee,’ died on October 4, 1970 at age 27 of a drug overdose.

Kennedy – John F. Kennedy.

The 35th President of the United States, John Kennedy, the second of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s sons, endured a number of serious illnesses as a youth, but enjoyed a privileged upbringing, attending the elite Choate preparatory school and Harvard before joining the Navy in World War II. Originally, the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy hoped to see his eldest son, Joe, Jr. achieve a high level of political success, but when Joe Jr. died in a plane crash during World War II, the mantle fell to John Kennedy, now the oldest son, to full fill Joe Senior’s political aspirations. Prior to the 1960 election, Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946, to the Senate in 19xx, and authored the book Profiles in Courage, a compendium of men showing courage under stress – a worked which succeeding in helping to elevate Kennedy’s own profile. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy’s youthful good lucks, charm and charisma successfully masked a number of serious maladies that he had battled throughout much of his life, including chronic back pain and Addison’s Disease. After choosing Texan and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, his former rival, as his running mate in a move which balanced the ticket, but which nevertheless left many associates perplexed, Kennedy went on to win a razor thin victory over Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon, who had been Vice President during the Eisenhower administration. In one of the ironies of history, Kennedy – whose youthful good looks and relaxed demeanor served him well in the first ever televised presidential debate – ran to the right of Nixon on the issue of Cuba falling into the Socialist/Soviet orbit, but then inherited the Eisenhower/Nixon administration plan to topple the Castro regime in what would become the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April, 1961, shortly after Kennedy took office. Out of the failed invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles grew a nucleus of disgruntled CIA officials anti-Castro Cubans who felt that Kennedy had sold them out in not authorizing sufficient air power during the invasion; as well as the seeds of the October, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when a confrontation over the Soviet Union supporting Castro by deploying nuclear armed ballistic missiles in Cuba brought the world to the brink of full-scale nuclear war. After resolution of the complex crisis that is still the subject of considerable academic debate and research, Kennedy set about pursuing a two-track strategy with Cuba and the Soviet Union, exploring possible rapprochement with Castro even as his administration continued to seek ways to subvert the regime and dislodge Castro. At the same time, Kennedy worked to negotiate a partial test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union; wrestled with the question of how much support to provide an unpopular U.S.-backed regime in the south of Vietnam; and sent landmark civil rights legislation to Congress. In the end, Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dallas, TX, leaving such issues as Vietnam, the civil rights bill and implementation of the test ban treaty to his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson – as well as the hotly debated question of whether accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in shooting the 35th president.

Kennedy – Robert F. Kennedy:

RFK was the seventh child of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, and younger brother of Joseph Kennedy, Jr.; John F. Kennedy (who would be elected the 35th president of the United States); and older brother of Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy (who would serve as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts from 1962-2009). Prior to serving as the U.S. Attorney General during his brother’s presidency, Robert Kennedy served as an assistant counsel on Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Committee, a committee which would achieve a level of infamy for its ruthless – and many would say reckless – investigations of Communist subversion. Later, Kennedy served as chief counsel to the Senate’s Rackets Committee, where he gained notoriety for his tenacious and very public legal pursuit of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. From 1961-63, while serving as the U.S. Attorney General, Bobby became known as JFK’s right-hand man, the de facto #2 man in the Kennedy administration, offering counsel on such events as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the administration’s responses to the growing demands of the civil rights movement. After his brother’s assassination, Robert Kennedy resigned his position as Attorney General in the new Johnson Administration, then traveled to South Africa before being elected U.S. Senator from the state of New York in 1964. At the time of his own assassination in June 1968, Bobby Kennedy had joined Eugene McCarthy (and later Hubert Humphrey) in seeking the Democratic nomination for president that November. Debate continues over whether Kennedy, who waged an inspiring campaign which culminated in an important primary win in California just hours before he was shot, would have been able to wrest the party’s nomination from Vice President Hubert Humphrey (who, due to LBJ’s late withdrawal from the race, had not officially entered any primaries, but nevertheless enjoyed the backing – and delegate support – of many party stalwarts).

Kerouac – Jack Kerouac:

Author of ‘On The Road,’ published in 1951. The novel, a paean to the beat culture and later hippie movement of the 1960’s, chronicled a search for meaning amidst a series of often alcohol laden, sex-and-drug infused road trip adventures.

Kesey - Ken Kesey:

American author whose works included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his 1962 novel classically depicting patients in a mental institution as being not so much insane as driven mad by the demands of a crazy society, and Sometimes a Great Notion, considered by many to be a better work than the more well known Cuckko’s Nest. In addition to being an author, Kesey was known for being a leader of the ‘merry pranksters;’ and for hosting ‘acid-tests’ - LSD-fueled parties at his home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the Grateful Dead was frequently the house band.

Khrushchev – Nikita Khrushchev:

Soviet leader from 1953-1964. Khrushchev came to power after Stalin. In 1956, Khrushchev apologized for excesses of the Stalin era. As the Soviet leader during a portion of the Cold War, Khrushchev famously declared that the Soviet Union would bury the U.S., and presided over the country during critical years of the nuclear arms race and space race; during the Berlin Crisis; the Cuban Missile Crisis; and during negotiations for a Partial Test-Ban Treaty.

King – Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Civil Rights leader known for tirelessly espousing a belief in active, non-violent civil disobedience, a young Reverend Martin Luther King rose to prominence in 1955 during the Montgomery bus boycott, sparked when an NAACP secretary, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on a city bus. Thrust into a leadership role during the prolonged 381-day boycott, King later helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; wrote Letters from a Birmingham Jail; and delivered his impassioned ‘I Have A Dream’ speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the August, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Under electronic surveillance by the FBI, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964; was a key leader in the 1965 Montgomery-Selma marches; spoke out forcefully against the Vietnam in his April 4, 1967 ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech delivered at New York City’s Riverside Church; and was organizing a Poor People’s Campaign when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN. As was the case in the 1963 JFK assassination, heated controversy would ensue as to whether King’s murder was the act of a lone killer – in King’s case, James Earl Ray – or the result of a larger conspiracy.

Leary – Timothy Leary:

Psychology professor at Harvard where, during the early 1960’s, Leary began, with the collaboration of colleague Richard Alpert, began conducting experiments with the psycho-active drugs, and LSD in particular. Enthralled by what he perceived to be the mind-expanding capabilities of the drug – he claimed to have learned more about himself and his brain in the five hours he’d been high on psilocybin mushrooms than he had in 15 years of psychological research – Leary trumpeted its potential benefits, if used in a controlled setting, in applications ranging from assisting alcoholics and criminals overcome their problems, to helping people tap more deeply into their creative potential. As the number of participants interested in being involved in experiments with the drug which Leary was conducting, controversy swirling around the experiments grew as well, and in 1963 he was fired by university officials for failing to show up for scheduled lectures. Thereafter, with the 60’s in full swing, Leary was instrumental in popularizing the psychedelic LSD as a drug for personal and social betterment. While hardly the first person to experiment the drug – discover Albert Hoffman had noted its mind-altering capabilities a quarter-century earlier; author Aldous Huxley had trumpeted its virtues in the early 1950’s; and LSD had been one of many powerful drugs the CIA had tested in its extensive Cold War-inspired mind control experiments in the ‘50’s – Leary was credited with coining the counter-culture mantra “Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out.”

Lombardi – Vince Lombardi:

Best known as the demanding head coach of the dominant Green Bay Packers during the 1960’s, the Lombardi-coached Packers won five NFL Championships in seven years, as well as the first two Super Bowls (then known as the AFL-NFL World Championships). Prior to his accepting the head coaching position in Green Bay early in February 1959, Lombardi had been an assistant coach at West Point and with the NFL’s New York Giants, while the Packers had been a struggling 1-10-1 team during the 1958 season. During Lombardi’s first season as head coach, Green Bay posted a 7-5 record. The next year, the Packers enjoyed sellout for every one of their home games, as they would for more than 50 years thereafter. In 1960, Lombardi’s second season with Green Bay, the Packers won the Western Conference and were within one play of winning the NFL Championship, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles when they were stopped a few yards short of the goal line on the game’s last play. After the game, Lombardi told the team they would never lose another NFL Championship game, and in each of the next two seasons, the Packers defeated the New York Giants in the league’s title game. After that, the Packers won the championship again in 1965, 1966 and 1967, with Lombardi retiring after the 1967 season. Renowned for having once said that ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,’ Lombardi was also known for motivational saying like ‘It’s not whether you get knocked down, its whether you get up,’ and ‘Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.’

Mackenzie – Scott Mackenzie:

Singer and songwriter whose signature hit ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’ spent the entire month of July in the pop music top 10 singles list, and was a kind of symbolic paean to the hippie movement and 1967’s fabled Summer of Love.

Malcolm X:

Born Malcolm Little in May, 1925, Malcolm X grew up in Detroit. Though his early years were marked by poverty and a broken home – his father died when he was six, and his mother had a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum when he was thirteen, after which time he lived in a series of foster homes – Malcolm nevertheless showed considerable academic promise. He would drop out of high school, however, in large part as a response to being told by a white teacher that the law career to which he aspired was not a reasonable goal for a n***** to have. After moving to New York, where he was involved in drug dealing, gambling, robbery and pimping, he landed in jail, where he became a convert to the Nation of Islam, dropping his ‘slave name’ of Little and replacing it with an “X” to symbolize the unknown names of his African ancestors who had been sold into slavery generations earlier. An ambitious and intelligent student, Malcolm – who began using the name Malik el-Shabazz – rose to a position of prominence within the Nation of Islam, all while being deemed an increasing threat to the white power structure due to passionate speeches branding the white man as evil and devils, and his calls for downtrodden blacks to be willing to use violence and resist their oppressors ‘by any means necessary.’ His stance also put him at odds with civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, who he felt was misguided to seek integration rather than separation, and naïve to believe that non-violent tactics would work with an adversary so steeped in a culture of violence. As the 1950’s turned to the ‘60’s, Malcolm came to be seen as the second most influential person within the Nation of Islam, second only to NOI head Elijah Muhammad, and largely responsible for helping Nation of Islam membership to soar. By 1963 however, believing Elijah Muhammad had been engaged in scandalous conduct with NOI secretaries, tensions were on the rise and Malcolm began breaking with the Nation of Islam. After the JFK assassination in November, 1963, Malcolm observed that it was a case of the ‘chickens coming home to roost,’ since U.S. state-approved violence was evident in instances ranging from the lynching of civil rights workers in the U.S. to the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. These outspoken pronouncements earned Malcolm a 90-day speaking ban from the Nation of Islam, and in March, 1964 he broke with NOI, seeking to establish a rival organization. The next month, in April, 1964, Malcolm made a life-changing pilgrimage to Mecca, where he saw people of all colors worshipping the god of Islam, prompting him to re-evaluate his beliefs that all white people were by definition evil. Thereafter, Malcolm travelled and spoke extensively throughout Africa and Europe, meeting with prominent African leaders while linking racism and repression at home and abroad. In February, 1965, back in the United States, amid the ongoing split with the Nation of Islam, and in the wake of numerous death threats, Malcolm was assassinated while giving a speech in New York, with allegations – never conclusively settled - that his assassins had been NOI members, and that the Nation of Islam had been infiltrated by FBI agents intent on exacerbating the tensions between Malcolm and NOI

Mantle – Mickey Mantle:

Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with the New York Yankees, taking over the center field position when the legendary Joe Dimaggio retired. A naturally gifted switch hitter, it was said that Mantle got from home plate to first base as fast as anyone who played the game. Additionally, Mantle’s power at the plate was legendary, with any number of ‘tape measure’ home runs that left those who saw them marveling at the distance they traveled. One home run enshrined on a baseball card traveled 565’ from where it was hit. Other mammoth shots were estimated to have exceeded that one, including more than one that nearly made it out of Yankee Stadium (but resulted in estimates of how far they might have traveled had they not hit a façade, rather than where they actually landed). Throughout the 1950’s, when Mantle won two triple crowns (leading the league in home runs, batting average, and runs batted in), he was a perennial threat to be the league’s Most Valuable Player. After the 1961 season, when he and Roger Maris captivated baseball fans with their pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, chronic knee injuries and playing as hard off the field as on began taking their toll, and Mantle’s performance declined, even as National League rival Willie Mays was enjoying some of his most productive years.

March on Washington:

Following a long history of marches in the nation’s capital directed toward redressing grievances, the August 18, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom drew roughly 250,000 people who had gathered to demand greater civil rights and economic opportunities for African-Americans. Organizers Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph brought together a coalition of labor, civil rights and religious organizations, with an estimated 75% of attendees being black. Though occurring a full century after the Civil War and Lincoln’s issuing the Emancipation Proclamation declaring a formal end to slavery, blacks were widely barred from enjoying equal opportunities in education, housing, employment and even voting. Planning for the march began as early as December, 1962 with organizers meeting at various times with such disparate leaders as labor chiefs Walter Reuther and George Meany; James Farmer from CORE, John Lewis from SNCC, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, Martin Luther King of the SCLC, and Whitney Young of the Urban League; as well as with President Kennedy himself. During the planning stages, organizers debated, among other issues, whether acts of civil disobedience should be included in the march, eventually deciding to push for a peaceful assembly (a move which was among the decisions that prompted the more militant Malcolm X to christen the event the “farce on Washington”). In the end, organizers agreed that their agenda should push for passage of meaningful civil rights legislation; the elimination of segregation in schools; the outlawing of discrimination in hiring practices for jobs; and a raise in the minimum wage from the prevailing $1.00 per hour to $2.00 per hour. In the event, the program included musical performances by Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez; as well as a panel of speakers including Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, Whitney Young, and Floyd McKissick (substituting for James Farmer). While the march was criticized for not including any featured women speakers, it would long be remembered as the event where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his impassioned ‘I Have A Dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, replayed for millions of school children in subsequent decades.

Marijuana:

Popular name for the cannabis plant, whose active ingredient, THC (tetra-hydro-cannabinol) causes the user to get a kind of high or ‘stoned’ feeling. Known by a range of nicknames – including pot, weed, grass, reefer, etc. – marijuana can be ingested in a variety of ways. The most common way is smoking, but it can also be vaporized, eaten, or have the active ingredient extracted. While marijuana use has been around for centuries, in the U.S., prior to 1937 the substance was regulated through a variety of state laws, but the federal Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively made its cultivation, possession, and use illegal on a nationwide basis. As more people began smoking it in the 1960’s as part of the growth of the counter-culture, there were calls to reduce the penalties (until 1970, marijuana was classified as a narcotic); decriminalize it; or legalize it. Closely associated with the hippie subculture during the Vietnam War years, an increasing number of Americans reported using the drug as the 60’s gave way to the 70’s, though strong opposition remained to its being made legal. Over the years, as more groups advocated on behalf of the drug’s potential medical benefits (it has been said that cannabis can be used to reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy, to improve appetite in people with HIV/AIDS, and to treat chronic pain and muscle spasms), and its similarities to alcohol as a recreational drug, the overall trend has been toward decriminalization and legalization. In this, California became the first state to pass medical marijuana laws in 1996, with as many as twenty-four other states passing similar legislation by 2016. Similarly, in 2012 Colorado became the first state to allow adults to cultivate, possess and use small amounts of marijuana, with Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia passing similar legislation in 2014.

Maris – Roger Maris:

A two-time American League MVP, right fielder Roger Maris etched his name into baseball immortality when he broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record in 1961, slugging 61 round-trippers to eclipse Ruth’s total by one. Throughout the memorable season, Maris and teammate Mickey Mantle were both having monstrous seasons at the plate. As the two of them went after Ruth’s 34 year-old record, increased fan and media attention was devoted to the chase, with many in the press favoring Mantle over the more reticent, lesser known Maris. Though the increased scrutiny took its toll on Maris, by September he was able to pull ahead of Mantle, who would finish the season with 54 dingers, while Maris went on to hit his 61st home run on October 1st. By then, a clamor had arisen as to whether Maris’ new record should count or go into the books with an asterisk, as the legendary Ruth had clubbed his 60 home runs during the course of a 154 game season, whereas Maris had logged ‘only’ 59 home runs at the end of 154 games, with his next two home runs coming in the team’s final eight games. In the event, Maris’ record would stand for 37 years, until sluggers Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire went on a home run binge during the 1998 season. Though Maris’ record was eventually eclipsed by both Sosa and McGwire, and later by Barry Bonds, who hit 73 home runs, all three of the later efforts would subsequently be tainted by allegations that each of the sluggers had used PED’s, or performance enhancing drugs. As a result, more than half a century after Maris’ memorable 1961 season, no player free of the cloud of PED’s has hit that many home runs in a single season.

Marshall – Thurgood Marshall:

Prior to becoming the first African-American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court (Nominated by LBJ in June, 1967), Marshall had been a highly successful civil rights lawyer who had served as chief counsel for the NAACP, successfully arguing the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case before the Supreme Court, effectively undermining the legal basis supporting decades of legal segregation in reversing the 1898 Plessy v. Ferguson case, which had held that accommodations for blacks could be provided in ‘separate but equal’ facilities. After being nominated by Johnson for a seat on the nation’s highest court and being approved by Congress later that summer, Marshall spent 24 years on the bench, where he became known as a liberal stalwart on an often divided court.

Mays – Willie Mays:

Baseball Hall of Famer who began his Major League career in 1951 with the New York Giants, staying with the team when they moved to San Francisco in 1951. A classic ‘five-tool’ player (exceptional ability to throw, run, field, hit, and hit for power), Mays is widely considered one of the best players in the game’s history. During the course of his career, the ‘Say Hey’ Kid was a perennial Gold Glove winner in the field while amassing over 3,000 hits, 660 home runs, 300 stolen bases, and 2,062 runs scored – all while maintaining a lifetime batting average over .300.

Mazeroski – Bill Mazeroski:

Hall of Fame 2nd baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Mazeroski was long known for his Gold Glove fielding ability and adeptness in turning a double play. On October 13, 1960, however, Mazeroski cemented his place in baseball lore by hitting a walk-off, game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning in the World Series’ decisive 7th game at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, sending the heavily favored Mickey Mantle-Yogi Berra-Whitey Ford lead Yankees to defeat in front of 35,000 ecstatic Pittsburgh fans.

McCarthy – Eugene McCarthy:

A Congressman and Senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy became widely known for his decision to run for president during the 1968 election, making the bold decision to challenge incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson, a member of his own party, in the primaries. At the outset, McCarthy, running on an anti-Vietnam War platform, was given little chance of success when he announced his decision to run late in 1967. At the beginning of February, 1968, however, the Vietnamese launched what became known as the T.E.T. Offensive, a coordinated series of raids and attacks on South Vietnamese and U.S. bases throughout South Vietnam. While the offensive did not bring about a general uprising among the peasantry and the National Liberation Front incurred heavy losses, the escalation made it clear that the U.S. was in no way close to winning the war, even prompting respected TV news anchor Walter Cronkite to opine later that same month that the U.S. was mired in a stalemate – a remark which, in turn, prompted LBJ to muse that if he’d lost Cronkite, he’d lost the nation. In part because of TET, and in part because of the army of energized volunteers who’d cut their hair and gone ‘Clean for Gene’ while campaigning door-to-door in New Hampshire, McCarthy earned an impressive 42% of the primary vote in that state’s March 12th primary. Four days later, Bobby Kennedy announced his entry in the race, and in his presidential address on March 31st, President Johnson stunned the nation when he announced that he would not be seeking, nor would he accept, his party’s nomination for president. For the remainder of the spring, McCarthy and Kennedy, the two anti-war candidates in the Democratic primaries, vied with each other, as well as with Vice-President Hubert Humphrey for the party’s nomination. When Kennedy was assassinated in June, it was not only a blow to the nation in general, but also to both anti-war candidacies, as party loyalists who may have been willing to throw their support to RFK effectively circled their wagons around Hubert Humphrey, who eventually secured the nomination at the party’s riotous convention in Chicago before losing in the general election to Richard Nixon. For his part, McCarthy served out the remainder of his Senate term, and ran unsuccessfully for president in 1972 and again in 1976, as well as for another Senate term in 1982.

McCarthy – Joe McCarthy:

Before serving as a Senator from Wisconsin, McCarthy was a lawyer and member of the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. After the war ended, McCarthy won election to the Senate in 1946 after alleging during the primaries that his opponent, incumbent Robert La Follette, had engaged in war profiteering while he (McCarthy had been serving his country in uniform). Though he didn’t stand out during his first three years in the Senate, that changed in 1950 when he gave a speech in West Virginia alleging that he had the names of as many as 200 known Communists who were still serving in and making policy for the U.S. Department of State. It was the beginning of an anti-Communist witch-hunting era that later came to be known as McCarthyism. It was a time when tensions ran high: U.S.-Soviet Cold War relations were strained by the division of Berlin into east and west; as well as an arms race that had seen the Soviet Union break the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons with the successful detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949. That same year, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung had come to power during the Communist Revolution in China, causing U.S. officials to redouble their worries about other countries succumbing to the Red Menace. In short, just a generation after the ‘Red Scare’ following World War I, the country was ripe for McCarthyism. Using his power as Senator and later Chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, McCarthy launched investigations into governmental and non-governmental individuals and agencies that the Senator deemed guilty of one brand or another of subversion. Individual careers were ruined, and powerful figures ranging from Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy (who, like McCarthy was a staunchly anti-Communist Catholic, and whose younger brother Robert served a six-month stint as chief counsel for McCarthy) to President Dwight D. Eisenhower refrained from publicly criticizing the Senator from Wisconsin. In the end, McCarthy – whose litany of allegations were often based more on bluster than substance – overreached when he launched an investigation in to the U.S. Army, with televised hearings which eventually exposed the over zealous nature of McCarthy’s witch hunts.

McGuire – Barry McGuire:

Folk-rock singer best known for recording ‘Eve of Destruction,’ which hit the number one spot on the pop music charts in the summer of 1965 and became one of the anthems for the anti-war movement.

McNamara – Robert McNamara:

Before serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, McNamara had been president of the Ford Motor Company. As Secretary of Defense, McNamara was intimately involved in critical events ranging from the Cuban Missile Crisis to war in Vietnam. In the latter role, he would support the war’s escalation during the early years of the Johnson administration, believing that more firepower would eventually result in attrition of enemy forces, a view he would later come to question. After parting with the Johnson administration, in large part over his questioning of continued escalations at a time when more than 500,000 U.S. troops were stationed in Vietnam, McNamara resigned his post as Secretary Defense. After this, McNamara would serve for 13 years as president of the World Bank, where he would receive credit for trying to shift the Bank’s focus more in the direction of supporting programs to eliminate poverty.

Military Industrial Complex:

Term which gained popularity after Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation in January 1961, when the outgoing president warned against the dangers of the growing influence and interconnections between high level officials in industry and the military. Prior to Eisenhower’s address, sociologist C. Wright Mills put forth the claim that a powerful group of military, business and political leaders were the real leaders of the state, and largely beyond democratic control.

Mills – Billy Mills.

In 1964, Billy Mills became the first American to win an Olympic Gold medal in the 10,000-meter run. Not favored in the race, Mills hung with Australian world record holder Ron Clarke through the first part of the race, and on the final straightaway was able to summon a devastating kick which enabled to him sprint to the finish line with an improbable come-from-behind victory.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party:

Political party created in Mississippi in 1964 by blacks and whites seeking to challenge the legitimacy of the state’s regular Mississippi Democratic Party, which limited participation to white people at a time when 40% of the state’s population was black. After attempting to be seated at the Mississippi state convention, 64 members of the MFDP journeyed by bus to the Democrats’ National Convention in Atlantic City, demanding that they be seated at the convention instead of those from the regular party. Despite eloquent pleas about the undemocratic nature of the regular delegation, and a nationally televised speech of Fannie Lou Hamer’s moving testimony about the abuses she’d suffered in her life as a sharecropper and the subsequent threats she’d endured, threats from segregated delegations representing other Southern states to walk out of the convention prompted Democratic party leaders to offer a compromise amounting to two non-voting seats for MFDR delegates, with the others shutout. This compromise position was rejected by the MFDR delegation whose faith in working through the system was vanquished, though from the ashes of this defeat rose an increased national sentiment to rectify wrongs, and in 1965 Congress passed and President Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act, forbidding discrimination in voting on the basis of race.

Nation of Islam:

Also known as the ‘Black Muslims,’ the Nation of Islam was begun in 193o, with Elijah Muhammad assuming the organization’s leadership role in 1934. Begun with the goal of improving conditions for black people in the U.S., and for improving all of humanity, the Nation of Islam, or NOI taught that black people were not inferior to whites, and that the first people on earth were actually black, but white people created institutions, laws and social philosophy which relegated blacks to an inferior status. Because of the long history of oppression and exploitation of blacks in America, the Nation of Islam advocated for separation between the races. Among the high profile converts to the Nation of Islam were Malcolm Little, soon to be known as Malcolm X, and heavyweight champion boxer Cassius Clay, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Both of these high profile converts helped attract more people to NOI, though Malcolm X was excommunicated from NOI after a break with Elijah Muhammad, and after he’d made a trip to Mecca and seen blond haired, blue-eyed Muslims worshiping alongside black African and olive skinned Middle Eastern Muslims. After the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, his son Wallace Muhammad was appointed leader over the charismatic Louis Farrakhan (previously Louis Walcott). Over the next two years, Wallace Muhammad broke with his father’s teachings in an effort to align the NOI more closely with mainstream Muslims. In 1977, Farrakhan broke with Wallace Muhammad and set about reorganizing the Nation of Islam more along the lines of its original teachings.

Nearing – Helen and Scott Nearing:

During the 1960’s, a substrata of disenchanted young people became interested in distancing themselves from the tumult of modern life and getting back to the land. In this, Helen and Scott Nearing were early pioneers, as they had moved to Vermont in the 1930’s in pursuit of a simple, low-money homesteading life distant from the larger, acquisitive society which had recently brought on world war and severe economic depression. By 1954, the Nearings had co-authored the Maple Sugar Book and Living the Good Life, which would serve as inspiration and blueprint for thousands of aspiring young back-to-the-landers in later years. Not coincidentally, Scott – the older of the two by twenty years – had been an author and economics professor whose left-wing writings and radical critiques of capitalism had lead to his being fired from several university positions and essentially being blackballed in academe. While Helen and Scott would both continue to lecture and write extensively after moving to Vermont (and later Maine), they also sought to establish a simple, self-sufficient homesteading life featuring a healthy, organic vegetarian diet; a life that was as removed as possible from the money economy of the larger society; and a day that was divided among physical work (bread labor), creative/intellectual/spiritual development, and being of help to the larger community. Twenty years after moving to Vermont, they wrote about their beliefs and lifestyle in Living the Good Life, lauding the virtues of living in functional, aesthetically pleasing stone structures they’d largely built with their own hands, and eating food grown in their own organic garden. They also wrote of choosing maple sugaring for their cash crop, in order to have money to buy the items they couldn’t barter for or make themselves. The picture painted was of a demanding, yet uplifting and rewarding way of life to which any could aspire. Missing from the narrative, however, were a number of critical elements with which less advantaged back-to-the-land aspirants might not be endowed. When originally moving to Vermont, the Nearings were fortunate enough to be able to make several land purchases totaling over 900 acres without being strapped with mortgage payments. In this, some portion of their money came from an inheritance which Helen had received. Prior to meeting Scott, Helen, born in 1903, had not only been a talented young violinist, but had been deeply involved with the Theosophical Society and very much attracted to the young Krishnamurti (who leaders of the Theosophical Society felt was destined to be a messiah for the new age). During this time, Helen had formed a number of other close friendships, and though she would begin separating herself from the Theosophical group in the late 1920’s, she had been included in the will of one of the members who died in an accident in 1930. As a result, Helen was the beneficiary of a $35,000 inheritance, in an era when the minimum wage (which wouldn’t be established till later in the decade) was running at $0.25/hour, or approximately $500 per year if one worked a 40-hour week throughout the year. This windfall provided not only a measure of independence, but also a financial springboard with which to begin the homesteading life in Vermont.

Newton – Huey Newton:

Along with Bobby Seale, Newton was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party in 1966, a group which encouraged the right of armed self-defense on the part of African-Americans, and which set out a ten-poing program whose goals included better jobs, education and housing for black Americans. A year after the founding of the party, in October, 1967, Newton was arrested for the shooting of Oakland police officer John Frey during a traffic stop. In September of the following year he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 2-15 years in prison; in May, 1970 the conviction was reversed in appellate court, with two subsequent trials ending in hung juries. In subsequent years, Newton would visit China; continue his activism and further his education before being shot in an armed dispute in 1989.

Nixon – Richard Nixon.

At the dawn of the 1960’s, Nixon was selected by the GOP to be the Republicans nominee in the 1960 presidential election, running against John F. Kennedy. Elected to the U.S. Congress in 1946, Nixon won election to the Senate in 19xx before being chosen as Dwight Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952. After eight years a Vice President, Nixon ran against Kennedy in one of the tightest races in the nation’s history. The campaign featured the first televised presidential debates, thought by many to be a turning point in modern electoral politicis, as well as in the race itself. For viewers watching on TV, it was thought that a cooler and calmer looking Kennedy won over a more tired, haggard-looking Nixon who was visibly sweating under the TV lights – though radio listeners felt the contest even. In the end – and after Kennedy outflanked Nixon to the right, accusing the Vice President of being soft on Cuba (an ironic charge in the end, insofar as Nixon had been overseeing plotting of the top-secret Bay of Pigs Invasion, which he was not at liberty to discuss, but which Kennedy would famously inherit after taking office). In the end, the presidential popular vote was within xxx,xxx, and suggestions of electoral fraud favoring Kennedy were raised in Texas and Oklahoma, though not pursued by Nixon. Two years later, Nixon would run for governor of California, but was defeated by Democrat Pat Brown, after which Nixon famously declared the press wouldn’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore. Ever the statesman though, Nixon began to resurrect his political ambitions, and in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s landslide loss to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960 election, Nixon emerged as the Republicans frontrunner in the 1968 presidential election, eventually defeating Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey while running on a platform featuring a secret plan to end the divisive war in Vietnam, as well as a “Southern Strategy’ designed to appeal to conservative white voters, emphasizing law-and-order planks, and appeals to family values and the nation’s silent majority. After taking office in 1969, Nixon’s presidency became known for continuing the unpopular war in Vietnam; for pursuing diplomatic relations with China; and for his alleged role in the plotting, break-in and cover-up of burglaries at the Watergate Hotel – a scandal which eventually lead to Nixon resigning the presidency in August, 1974.

NLF: National Liberation Front (Vietnam):

Political organization in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought, in alliance with the People’s Army of Vietnam (or North Vietnamese army) against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam during the U.S. war in Vietnam. In the west, the group was more commonly referred to as the Viet Cong, or VC for short, as the ‘Liberation’ part of the group’s name might serve to draw unwanted questions as to which army could rightfully claim that it was fighting for freedom.

October Surprise:

A term often used in American politics denoting an important event or bombshell revelation that, were it to occur shortly before a November election, could shift the outcome of the election one way or another. In 1968, allegations were made by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who was later credited for his pivotal role in breaking the story of the My Lai Massacre, that officials in the Nixon campaign had undertaken secretive negotiations with both South and North Vietnamese officials, urging them not to accept any proposed deals at the Paris Peace Negotiations in the days and weeks before the U.S. elections, as any such deal would help the Democratic candidate, and both sides prospects would be better served by waiting for an incoming Republican administration. The term again surfaced in the wake of the 1980 election, when it was alleged that representatives of the Reagan campaign urged Iranian officials not to agree to the release of any of the 52 U.S. hostages being held in that country before the election, lest any such release benefit the re-election prospects of President Jimmy Carter, whose administration had been on the defensive about that issue since the hostages had been taken the previous November during the Iranian Revolution that had deposed the U.S.-backed Shah.

Oswald – Lee Harvey Oswald:

24 year-old ex-marine notorious for being charged with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In years prior, Oswald had been a U.S. Marine, at one time stationed in Japan with a security clearance that allowed him access to data pertaining to the highly classified, U-2 spy planes, then used in high altitude over flights of the Soviet union to gather intelligence information. Subsequently, Oswald announced his defection to the Soviet Union, where he worked for a brief period, married a Soviet citizen, then decided to return to the U.S.

In the months leading up to the assassination of the President, Oswald lived in Dallas, but left a trail of intrigue from New Orleans to Mexico. After the assassination, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald had acted as the lone assassin, a finding disputed by those claiming, among other things, that Oswald a patsy, or part of a larger conspiracy. Oswald himself remarked to reporters that he was a “patsy,” set up to the take the blame for the assassination, but he never stood trial, as Oswald himself was killed in front of live TV cameras by gunman Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Station on November 24, 1963, two days after the murder of the president. Assassination researchers disputing the Warren Commission findings point to Ruby’s mob connections in saying that Oswald’s shooting was a hit job designed to silence Oswald, who they say could not have fired all of the bullets (due to the timing of the shots, trajectory of the bullets, and the nature of injuries sustained by Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, a passenger in the front seat of the presidential limousine, also wounded in the shooting) from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building on Dealey Plaza in Dallas, where a “sniper’s nest” was found shortly after the assassination. More than 50 years after the assassination, thousands of classified documents bearing on the case have yet to be released.

Paterno – Joe Paterno:

Head coach of the Penn State football team from 1966-2011, Paterno had been an assistant coach at PSU under Rip Engle from 1950-1965. In the early years, long before he died of cancer in 2012 and was dismissed from the team in 2011 for his alleged role in the cover-up of the Penn State sex abuse scandal, Paterno gained a reputation as a head coach who fielded a quality team in a program boasting a high graduation rate. The team’s record was only 5-5 during his first season at the helm in 1966, but the next year they improved to 8-2-1, which earned the team a trip to the Gator Bowl. In 1968, Penn State finished the season with an undefeated 11-0 record, followed by a win in the Orange Bowl. By the end of his career, Paterno’s teams had won two national championships and compiled a won-loss record of 409-136-3, coupled with a post-season bowl record of 24-12-1.

Peace Corps:

Formed in March, 1961 during the early months of the Kennedy Administration, the Peace Corps was conceived as a program in which participants would volunteer to serve in different countries to help others learn more about America; to help participants learn more about the world; to offer expertise in areas of development; and, more broadly, to help win the hearts and minds of people in developing nations by combatting the image of ‘the Ugly American,’ out to spread a brand of neo-colonialism designed to exploit the people and resources of countries attempting to free themselves from the yoke of colonial rule.

Rolling Stones:

One of the premier rock bands that was part of the British Invasion during the 1960’s, the band featured guitarist Brian Jones, singer/songwriter/guitarist Keith Richards, and bad-boy lead singer/songwriter Mick Jagger, as well as Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, and several other members during the band’s early years. Like many bands, the Stones did not enjoy instant success, but 1965 proved to be a breakthrough year, with the release of several #1 songs in the U.K., as well as international #1 songs (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, Get Off of My Cloud. More #1 hits followed in 1966, including “Paint It, Black,” and “Mother’s Little Helper,” which included references to the abuse of prescription drugs. In 1967, the band released the double-sided single, featuring “Ruby Tuesday,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” The suggestive nature of the lyrics in the latter song lead directives from the Ed Sullivan Show to change the line to ‘Let’s spend some time together,’ before they would agree to allow them to perform on the show. Like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones would be hounded for their use of illicit drugs; though unlike the Beatles, who disbanded in 1970, the Rolling Stones would stay together for more than fifty years, despite the 1968 drug arrest and 1969 death of Jones.

Rubin – Jerry Rubin:

Social activist and ‘Yippie’ member during the 1960’s, Rubin dropped out of the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1964 ran for mayor of Berkeley on the basis of his opposition to the War in Vietnam, and his support for black power and the legalization of marijuana – winning 20% of the vote in the process. Like Yippie co-founder Abbie Hoffman, Rubin was known for such outrageous antics as appearing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee dressed, on different occasions, as an 18th Revolutionary War soldier; a Viet Cong guerilla; and Santa Claus. In 1968, Rubin, along with Hoffman and six others, was arrested as a co-conspirator in Chicago demonstrations outside the Democrats’ national convention, becoming a member of the notorious ‘Chicago Eight.’ In the 1970’s, after progressive Democrat George McGovern was soundly defeated by incumbent Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential election, Rubin quit politics and became an entrepreneur and businessman, investing in Apple Computer, and arguing that the revolution America needed was to be investing more capital in the country’s economically depressed areas.

Ruby – Jack Ruby:

On November 24, Jack Ruby wrote his name into the history books by shooting accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at point blank range in the basement of the Dallas Police Station two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As was the case with Oswald and the assassination itself, Ruby’s motives in shooting Oswald have been debated at considerable length – was he acting a lone gunman out to avenge the death of the president or spare the Kennedy survivors of the spectacle of an Oswald trial, or was he acting at the behest of others, possibly mob bosses, in silencing Oswald as part of a larger cover-up?

Russell – Bill Russell:

After an all-American basketball career at the University of San Francisco in an era when racism was still rampant throughout the country, the defensive standout Bill Russell was drafted by the Red Auerbach-coached Boston Celtics – a draft in which the Celtics also acquired tow other future Hall-of-Fame players, K.C. Jones and Tommy Heinsohn. What Followed was an era of unprecedented team dominance, lead by Russell’s rebounding and shot-blocking dominance on the defensive end of the court, and not-insignificant contributions on the offensive end of the floor. Over his course of his 13-year NBA career, the Russell-lead Celtics earned 11 NBA Championships. During his last three years, after Celtics coach Red Auerbach retired, Russell was named as player-coach, in the process becoming the first African-American to hold the head coaching position in a major professional American sport, though Russell was quick to point out that he was hired not because of his racial identity, but because it was thought he could do the job.

Rustin – Bayard Rustin:

Non-violent activist who worked for civil rights, social justice and gay rights. Rustin, a member of the non-violent Fellowship for Reconciliation and anti-war War Resisters League, Rustin was one of the primary organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Because he had been arrested for homosexual activity in 1953 – at a time when homosexual acts were illegal, and homosexuality was considered a form of mental illness – some in the civil rights movement were opposed to Rustin’s public involvement in the march; and indeed Rustin was railed against by Senator Strom Thurmond as “a Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual.” Despite these attacks, Rustin would remain active in the civil rights movement, helping organize a 1964 boycott of New York City schools protesting segregation; and becoming an advisor to the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party later that summer. Until his death in 1987, Rustin would continue to advance such social causes as civil rights, the rights of labor unions, and gay rights.

Ryun – Jim Ryun.

On June 5, 1964, 17 year-old Jim Ryun becomes the first high schooler to run a mile in less than four minutes. Though he finished last in a race that saw all eight runners dip beneath the four minute mark, Ryun would go on to have other notable performances, including a 3:58.3 mile the following year, run at the Kansas state meet against a field that included only high school runners; and two world records in the event, including a 3:51.1 in June, 1967. Post running, Ryun served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1996-2007, representing the 2nd District in Kansas.

Saigon:

The capital city of South Vietnam during the war years, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976, the year after ‘The American War’ ended. At that time, Saigon was combined with a number of adjoining districts and renamed Ho Chi Minh City, in honor of the revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, whose fight for independence spanned from before World War II through the American War. Currently, Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam, with a city population of 10,000,000, and a broader metropolitan area population almost double that.

SDS:

Known in the latter part of the 1960’s as an increasingly militant anti-war organization, the Students for a Democratic Society was originally founded in 1960 as a kind of collegiate branch of the ‘Old Left.’ In 1962, SDS leaders drafted a 64-page manifesto known as the ‘Port Huron Statement’ that articulated the group’s disillusionment with the academia’s complicity in the Cold War era’s segregated America. Despite the group’s radical underpinnings, or perhaps because of them, SDS supported LBJ in his 1964 election campaign against the decidedly more right-wing Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. In 1965, however, when the U.S. began bombing North Vietnam, SDS members began speaking out more forcefully against the now growing war, organizing an April, 1965 march that drew between 15,000 – 25,000 people to the capital to demonstrate against the bombings. Between 1965-68, as escalation of and opposition to the war in Vietnam grew, sectors of SDS – mirroring the trajectory the anti-war movement generally – shifted from protests and teach-ins to active resistance. On April 26, 1968, a student strike that saw over a million students stayed away from classes was largely overshadowed by a joint takeover of the administration building at Columbia University by an alliance that included activists from the local chapters of SDS and the school’s Student Afro Society. While this and other actions brought such media attention that SDS became a household name, even greater notoriety came in the following years when an even more radical faction split off from the main group to form the Weather Underground, a group that issued a Declaration of a State of War against the United States, and engaged in bombings of banks and government buildings in an effort to foment wider revolution.

Seeger – Pete Seeger:

Early folk singer and social activist whose career spanned from the days of the Spanish Revolution before the outbreak of World War II until his death in 2014. Over the years, Seeger played and sang as a solo act, as well as with such groups as the Almanac Folk Singers – a group that included singing legend Woody Guthrie – The Weavers, and The Kingston Trio. Ever the activist, many of Seeger’s songs and ballads took up the plight of union workers in their struggle for living wages and safe working conditions. A master of the twelve-string guitar and banjo, Seeger was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era, and was cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify on the basis that it would violate his First Amendment rights. As a result, he was required to keep the government informed of his whereabouts; in 1961, he was convicted for contempt, though the conviction was later reversed the following year. Seeger wrote or helped popularize such popular movement songs as ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone,’ ‘If I Had a Hammer,’ and ‘We Shall Overcome.’ At the height of the Vietnam War, Seeger lead 500,000 protesters in the November, 1969 Vietnam Moratorium March on Washington in singing John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance.’ In addition to his dedication to furthering the causes of peace and worker rights, Seeger also became an effective crusader for environmental causes, and was the founder of the Clearwater Festival, an annual benefit concert dedicated to helping clean up the Hudson River.

Selective Service:

Also known as conscription, or the draft, the Selective Service System in the U.S. came about as a result of legislation enabling the government to draft eligible men into the armed services. Mainly implemented in times of war, there have also been peacetime drafts, as occurred in the lead-up to U.S. involvement in World War II, after hostilities had broken out in Europe. During the Vietnam era, a minority of men who served in the armed forces entered by way of the draft; a substantial majority were enlistees. That said, those who enlisted did so for a wide variety of motives. While many signed up out of a patriotic desire to serve their country, others believed that by enlisting, particularly in a branch of the service less likely to be involved in combat, that they could improve their chances of not being sent to Vietnam.

Sit-Ins:

Form of non-violent, direct action protest where a group of people sit down and occupy an area to promote social or political change. Building on early sit-ins from the late 1930’s and 1940’s, one of the first high profile sit-ins in support of racial equality came in Baltimore, MD in 1955 when a group of activists from CORE and Morgan State College sat down at booths in a Read’s Drug Store. They were denied service and left after a half-hour with no arrests being made, but as a result of business lost due to the sit in and other local protests, the president of Read’s agreed that all of the stores in the chain would serve all customers, even at the counters. Among the more renowned sit-ins was one begun in Greensboro, N.C. in February 1960, when four black students who had bought items at the local Woolworth store’s regular check-out counter were later refused service at the store’s lunch counter. They stayed the rest of the day and were not served. The next day, more then twenty black people joined the sit-in, and two days later, 300 people took part, with the sit-ins soon spreading to Woolworth stores in other cities. In July, after substantial financial losses, the store manager instructed three black employees to order from the counters as regular customers, and soon thereafter, segregation ended at many, though not all of the chain’s stores.

Six-Day War:

Also called the Arab-Israeli War, The Third Arab-Israeli War, or the June 1967 War. After the mobilization of Egyptian forces along the Israeli border in the Sinai, Israeli launched a series of preemptive strikes. In doing so, Israel succeeded in wiping out most of the Egyptian air force and gained air superiority from there on. Before it was clear that Israel had gained this air superiority, Egyptian president Nasser was able to persuade the leaders of Jordan and Syria to join the fight against Israel; Israeli counter-attacks resulted in Israel seizing not only the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, but also East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Taken together, these lands came to be known as the Occupied Territories, and though the war was over within a week, clashes over the status of the occupied territories would continue for years, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinians in the region either attacked Israeli settlements or defended their land from the illegal occupiers, depending upon one’s point of view. A half-century after the Six-Day War ended, disputes and armed clashes continue over such issues as the status of the Occupied Territories, water rights and the nature of a proposed two-state solution.

Smith - Tommie Smith:

Best known for being the Gold Medalist in the 200 meter dash at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where he and Bronze Medalist John Carlos stunned the sports-watching public with their black-power salute during the playing of the national anthem following the 200 meter race. During the race, Smith set a world record, and became the first person to run the 200-meter distance in under 20.0 seconds, a record that would stand for 11 years. When they appeared on the medal stand, Smith and Carlos were in bare feet to bring symbolic attention to the conditions of poverty which millions of African-Americans had been relegated as a result of ongoing racism. During the playing of the anthem, the two bowed their heads and raised gloved fists overhead. Also on the medal stand was the silver medalist, white Australian sprinter Peter Norman. Norman stood stoically on the medal stand during the playing of the U.S.’ national anthem, neither bowing his head nor raising his fist overhead; but Norman nevertheless stood in silent solidarity with his medal winning competitors, wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights path on his warm-up jacket.

Smothers Brothers:

Tom and Dick Smothers were a singer/musician/comedy team who hosted the often provocative Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which aired on CBS during the late 1960’s. Regular performers on the show included Steve Martin, Rob Reiner, Pat Paulsen and Leigh French; and the show also showcased musical groups like Joan Baez, Buffalo Springfield, Harry Belafonte, Cream, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Peter, Paul & Mary, Steppenwolf, and the Who. In addition, Pete Seeger’s first network TV appearance since being blackballed in the early 1950’s was on the Smothers Brothers show. In addition to featured musicians, the show regularly took a critically satiric aim at racism, the Vietnam War, and the president; indeed, the controversial nature of their skits lead to regular disagreements with the show’s censors and eventually to the show’s cancellation in 1969.

Spock – Dr. Benjamin Spock:

Born in 1903, Dr. Spock was a pediatrician who originally became known for being the author of his book Baby and Child Care, originally published in 1946, a year after the end of World War II. The book became widely popular, with millions of baby-boomers being reared in part on the advice contained in the book. By the time he died in 1998, Spock’s book, then in its 7th edition was said to have sold over 50 million copies and been translated in 39 languages. During the 1960’s, Spock gained another kind of notoriety for being an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and in 1968 was prosecuted on charges to counsel, aid and abet resistance to the draft. The charges would later be reversed on appeal, but it was said that sales of his Child Care book dropped during these years, with critics saying that the permissive child-rearing practices he advocated had helped to produce a generation with too many spoiled kids desiring instant gratification. For his part, Spock said, “I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.” Later in life, with the publication of the 7th edition of his Baby and Child Care, Spock made revisions that included advocating a vegan diet, based in part on personal dietary experiences that he credited with allowing him to lose 50 pounds and regain the ability to walk when he was well into his 80’s.

Stargell – Willie Stargell:

Hall of Famer who played left field and first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Stargell – later known as ‘Pops’ – was known for his tape measure home runs, retiring with 475 career round-trippers. His power was such that long-time manager Sparky Anderson remarked that Stargell had ‘power enough to hit home runs in any park, including Yellowstone.’ Though Stargell would hit the bulk of his home runs during the 1970’s, his most productive years at the plate, his 100th career home run was notched on June 7, 1967 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a game played at Forbes Field.

Sullivan – Ed Sullivan:

Best known for being the host of ‘The Ed Sullivan’ show, a popular variety show which aired from 1948-1971, in the three-network station days before the advent of cable TV. With a reputation for spotting emerging talent, Sullivan became known as a kind of star maker for the number of performers who saw their careers skyrocket after appearing on his show. Perhaps the most famous example of this was when Sullivan hosted the Beatles in February, 1964 in what proved to be the most watched show in TV history until that point. While that show went well and Sullivan had come to grow fond of Elvis Presley, who he wasn’t initially in a hurry to have on the show, there were instances when conflicts with prospective performers occurred. When ‘The Doors’ performed in 1967, for example, Sullivan felt the line “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” from their hit song ‘Light My Fire’ was too blatant of a reference to drug use and instructed them to change line to “Girl, we couldn’t get much better.” In response, the band nodded but performed the song with the original line. As a result, Sullivan did not invite them back on the show, despite having planned to do so before the lyrical disagreement. Similarly, when the Rolling Stones were scheduled to appear on the show (for the fifth time), Sullivan insisted that the line “Let’s Spend the Night Together” be changed to “Let’s Spend some Time Together.” In this instance, the band agreed to the change, but during the performance, lead singer Mick Jagger rolled his eyes and deliberately over emphasized the word ‘time’ to call attention to the change in lyrics.

Summer of Love:

Name given to counter-culture event of social phenomenon when as many as 100,000 young people converged on San Francisco and the Bay Area during the summer of 1967, and especially in the Haight Ashbury area. Though many of the people gathering might be termed hippies, it was an eclectic grouping in many ways. While most of those identifying with the growing hippie subculture were opposed to the War in Vietnam, some were more informed and politically active, while others were opposed on the pragmatic grounds that they didn’t want to be sent to the war personally. Similarly, while many in the ‘movement’ were into the rock and psychedelic music scene, and used marijuana and other illicit, ‘mind-expanding’ drugs, the level of use varied greatly, with some finding appeal in drugs as a kind of be-all, end-all panacea for the world’s problems; while others partook more moderately; and still others found the use of drugs to be a distraction from the kind of intense personal and/or political work they felt needed to be undertaken to bring about a better world. In the event, the June, 1967 Monterrey Pops Festival served as a kind of kick-off for the summer – a summer that would be further popularized and immortalized in Scott McKenzie’s classic single ‘San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).’

Teach-Ins:

As U.S. military involvement in Vietnam expanded exponentially in the early months of 1965, the first teach-ins began appearing around the country, mainly on college campuses. Though part demonstration and protest, the teach-ins also included dispersing more in depth information regarding the origins and conduct of the war through mass lectures and discussions, drawing participants numbering in the hundreds, or the thousands.

TET Offensive:

A coordinated series of attacks by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies against South Vietnamese and U.S. army posts in installations that was launched on January 30, 1968, at the beginning of TET, or the Vietnamese New Year. At the outset, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces had hoped the offensive might spark a larger uprising against the South Vietnamese troops and their American partners; while U.S. officials had expressed confidence that renewed escalations and continued military pressure on the enemy would allow the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to gain the upper hand in the war. Though the offensive did not result in the military victory which the North had hoped for, it did signal that U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were in no way on the brink of victory. As such, TET played a decisive role in prompting more people in the United States to question their support of the war on the grounds that too many Americans were dying in a distant war that may not be winnable. In the U.S., in the immediate wake of TET, respected TV news anchor Walter Cronkite opined in February newscast that the U.S. might be mired in a stalemate, a statement which prompted the increasingly unpopular President Johnson to remark that if he’d lost Cronkite, he’d lost middle America. Shortly thereafter, in quick succession, anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy drew nearly even with the incumbent Johnson in the New Hampshire primary; Robert Kennedy declared his entry in the race; and Johnson announced that he would not seek his party’s nomination for re-election.

The Animals:

English band from the 1960’s, ‘The Animals’ first enjoyed such hits as ‘The House of the Rising Sun,’ and ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place.’ In the mid-1960’s, after personnel and direction changes, the band became known as Eric Burdon and the Animals, with hits like ‘San Franciscan Nights’ and ‘Sky Pilot.’ The latter, released in 1968, was adopted as an anti-war song, the ‘sky pilot’ being a reference to an army chaplain who does his part in sending soldiers into the battle zone, only to have them return with tears in their eyes amid a stench of death, even as they remember the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

The Grateful Dead:

Innovative band from Palo Alto that formed in 1965 and fused elements of folk, country, bluegrass and psychedelic rock during the course of a career in which they an integral part of 1967’s San Francisco-Haight Ashbury based Summer of Love, developing in the process a loyal, almost cult-like following. Though their songs didn’t do as well on the pop music charts as many other groups of the era, the band was prolific in their output; became known for their long, improvisational riffs – especially in concert – as well as for being a kind of ‘house band’ for Merry Prankster Ken Kesey’s renowned ‘acid-tests’ (LSD-infused psychedelic parties). Unlike many bands from the era, the Grateful Dead enjoyed a long career together, even cutting songs and touring after the 1995 death of lead singer, songwriter and guitar-playing icon Jerry Garcia.

The Monkees:

Pop rock group from the mid- and late-60’s which also had a TV show by the same name. Though not as closely associated with the counter-cultural movement as other bands of the era, the group’s recording of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ – replete with commentary on acquiring status symbols and keeping up with the neighbors – was one of their songs which did well on the pop music charts.

The Pill:

Oral Contraceptive, or birth control pill, or just ‘the pill,’ is a method of birth control that combines estrogen and progestogen and is taken orally each day to inhibit a woman’s fertility. Developed in the 1950’s, the pill first received FDA approval in 1960. Thereafter, the pill quickly gained both popularity and notoriety. Women who wanted to take greater control of their lives lauded its arrival, but it also served as a touchstone in debates on sexual morality. Those opposing the pill claimed that it encouraged the sexual revolution then taking place and undermined sexual morality, while others pointed out that widespread availability and use of the pill would cut down on unplanned pregnancies and the demand for abortions. Ironically, given the Catholic Church’s staunch opposition to the use of contraceptives, of the three people given primary credit for development of the pill – Dr. Gregory Pincus, Dr. Min-Chueh Chang and Dr. John Rock – the latter, a Harvard obstetrician and gynecologist, was himself a Catholic.

Thich Quang Duc:

Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death in a Saigon street to protest the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem’s persecutory policies toward Vietnamese Buddhists, estimated to comprise 70%-90% of the country’s population. In his book “Making of a Quagmire,’ author and journalist David Halberstam described the immolation thus:

“Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think ... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.” (Halberstam, “Making of a Quagmire;” 1965; p. 210.)

Thoreau – Henry David Thoreau:

Though he died in 1862, a full 100 years before the most tumultuous events of the 1960’s would unfold, Thoreau’s legacy nevertheless cast its influence on those who would follow a century later. For some, the attraction to Thoreau centered around his nature writings, mostly from the time he lived at Walden Pond, seeking to live a simple, ‘back-to-nature’ lifestyle. For others, the attraction to Thoreau could be found in the 19th century philosopher’s writings on Civil Disobedience, in which he advocated resistance to governmental policies that were deemed wrong. Like anti-war protestors in the 1960’s, Thoreau objected to what he deemed to be his government’s involvement in an illegal, imperialist war. In Thoreau’s time, the conflict was over the Mexican-American War, which Thoreau felt was an illegal territorial grab; while in the 1960’s the spotlight was primarily upon the War in Vietnam. In his own day, Thoreau refused to pay his taxes because of his objections to the money being spent on the war, and famously spent a night in jail, opining that it was a citizen’s higher obligation to resist government policies gone astray.

Tommy James & the Shondells:

American rock group originally formed in the Midwest, the high school members of the band recorded ‘Hanky Panky’ in 1964 (a song that had been written by Jeff Barrie/Ellie Greenwich. The song was released by a small label and sold locally for a time, but then dropped below the radar until unearthed the following year by a Pittsburgh deejay who began playing it to great interest. By this time, the original band had broken up, but Tommy James came to Pittsburgh in 1966, recruited new band members, and reconstituted ‘Tommy James and the Shondells.’ During the next few years, the band would chart a number of top ten songs, including ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ ‘Mirage,’ ‘Mony Mony,’ ‘Crimson and Clover,’ ‘Sweet Cherry Wine,’ and ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion.’

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out:

Counter-culture phrase popularized in 1966-67 by Timothy Leary, and came to be taken as a call for young people to tune in more closely to what was happening in the world around them, turn on to marijuana, LSD and other mind expanding drugs; and drop out of the oppressive, militarist and materialistic culture around them.

U.S.S. Liberty Incident:

With the Six-Day War raging in the eastern Mediterranean, the U.S.S. Liberty, a naval intelligence ship (i.e., spy ship) was attacked by Israeli jets and torpedo boats while sailing just outside of Egyptian waters. During the attack, 34 sailors were killed and 171 wounded. Israeli claimed the attack was a case of mistaken identity and apologized for the incident. Others claimed that based on the vessel’s clear markings and transcripts of intercepted signals, the Liberty’s identity was known to the Israeli attackers, and posit a deliberate attack with motives ranging from worries that the American ship was gathering intelligence information which could prove detrimental to Israel; to allegations that the ship’s attempted sinking was part of an operation conducted with a goal of blaming the attack on Egypt, thus providing justification for the U.S. to come to the aid of Israel. Decades after the incident, the official U.S. and Israeli positions have been to accept the attack as having been the result of the Liberty being mistaken by the Israelis for an Egyptian vessel, but numerous books and essays have been written challenging this claim.

Viet Cong: (See NLF)

Wallace – George Wallace:

Three-time governor of Alabama (1963-67; 1971-79; 1883-87), Wallace became a national symbol of segregation in the deep South. During his first inaugural address on January 14, 1963, Wallace vowed to fight for “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.” On June 11, 1963, Wallace drew further attention as he stood in the door of the state university to block the enrollment of two black students; in September, he would seek to prevent black students from integrating four elementary schools. In subsequent years, Wallace would run for president, seeking the Democratic nomination in 1964, 1972 and 1976, and was the American Independent Party candidate for President in 1968, gathering 10,000,000 votes in the process of winning five Southern states and 46 electoral votes. Though Wallace had hoped that his candidacy might prevent either of the two major party candidates from winning an outright electoral majority, thereby throwing the election to the House of Representatives where he might be able wield power and gain concessions regarding segregation issues, the appeal of his “law-and-order” candidacy to millions of conservative white voters was noted by successive generations of conservative candidates. In 1972, Wallace survived an attempted assassination that left him paralyzed. In the late 1970’s, Wallace announced that he’d become a born-again Christian, and apologized for his earlier pro-segregation stances.

War is not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things:

Poster created in 1967 by Lorriane Schneider featuring a large sunflower – a symbol of hope – amidst the handwritten words ‘War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.’ Starting as a small card that was Schneider’s own personal picket sign, the design was turned into cards, which a Schneider and a group of mothers decided to have printed and sent to Washington send the message that what they would most like to see for Mother’s Day was an end to the killing and mounting number of American soldiers coming home in body bags. In short order, the card was made into a poster, and the image combining the hopeful symbol of a flower with a sober but heartfelt injunction for peace soon became one of the iconic symbols of the anti-war movement.

Wayne – John Wayne:

Movie Star famous for the many westerns he starred in, John Wayne was a supporter of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in his younger years, but became known as a staunch conservative over the years. Indeed, in 1971 Wayne garnered attention when he was quoted in a ‘Playboy Magazine’ interview as saying, “I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people ... I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] ... Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

In addition to starring in such movies as ‘Fort Apache,’ ‘Flying Tigers,’ ‘The Sands of Iwo Jima,’ and ‘True Grit,’ Wayne also directed and starred in ‘The Green Berets,’ a pro-Vietnam War movie released in 1968.

We Shall Overcome:

A moving song that became an anthem of the non-violent civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s, ‘We Shall Overcome’ was derived from the 1901 song ‘I’ll Overcome Some Day,’ by Charles Albert Tindley. In 1945, a modern version of the song was performed by Lucille Simmons and a group of Food and Tobacco Workers during a strike, before being picked up by members of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, and subsequently being adopted and popularized by such singer activists as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, the latter who lead 300,000 people in the song during the 1963 March on Washington. Additionally, the phrase ‘we shall overcome’ was on occasion incorporated in speeches delivered by Martin Luther King, and even President Johnson invoked the phrase in a 1965 speech he delivered to Congress in an appeal for passage of pending civil rights legislation.

Welch – Raquel Welch:

Singer, actress and model, photos of Welch clad in a deerskin bikini from the movie ‘One Million Years B.C.’ were made into posters and helped turn her into a celebrity sex symbol.

Zinn – Howard Zinn:

Author and historian, Zinn, after teaching seven years at Spelman College in Atlanta, accepted a position at Boston University in 1964, where he became an early and leading voice in the anti-war movement. In 1967, Zinn published The Logic of Withdrawal, calling for an immediate end to American involvement in Southeast Asia. Later, after RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg copied documents that would be known as the Pentagon Papers, it would be Ellsberg and vociferous war critic Noam Chomsky of M.I.T. who would help edit and annotate the papers into the form that Senator Mike Gravel formally read into the Congressional Record. In 1980, Zinn published the first edition of his best-selling "A People’s History of the United States," a work which has sold in the millions, and which has been frequently used in American high school and college history classes as an alternative to standard texts.