Protests of 1968

The Protests of 1968 consisted of a worldwide series of protests, largely led by students and workers. Some observers saw them as a revolutionary wave.

Background

First World

The protests that dominated 1968 were the product of social changes during the twenty years following the end of World War II. After the war most of the world experienced an unusual surge in births, creating a large age demographic. In the First World, these babies were born during a time of peace and prosperity for most countries. Permissive theories of childrearing, popular in the west, taught them that their happiness was important to others. [Croker, Richard. "The Boomer Century." New York: Springboard Press, April 2007. pg 16] This was the first generation to grow up with television in their homes. [Twenge, Ph. D., Jean. "Generation Me." New York: Free Press, 2006. pg 6] Television had a profound effect on this generation in two ways. First, it gave them a common perspective from which to view the world. [Croker pg 19] The children growing up in this era shared not only the news and programs that they watched on television, they also got glimpses of each other’s world. Secondly, television allowed them to experience major public events. Public education was becoming more widely attended and more standardized, creating another shared experience. Chain stores and franchised restaurants were bringing shared shopping and dining experiences to people in different parts of the world. [Croker pg 12] These factors all combined to create a generation that was more self-aware and more united as a group than the generations before it.

Waves of social movements throughout the 1960’s began to shape the values of the generation that were college students during 1968. In America, the Civil Rights Movement was at its most violent. So, too, in Northern Ireland, where it paved the way for an organised revolt against British occupation. Italy and France were in the midst of a socialist movement. The New Left political movement was causing political upheavals in many European and South American countries. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had already started. Great Britain’s anti-war movement was very strong and African independence was a continuing struggle. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War was another shared experience of this generation. The knowledge that a nuclear attack could end their life at any moment was reinforced with classroom bomb drills [Croker pg 32] creating an atmosphere of fear. As they became older teens the anti-war movement and the feminist movement were becoming a force in much of the world. The feminist movement made the generation question their belief that the family was more important than the individual. The peace movement made them question and distrust authority even more that then they had already. [Croker pg 124] By the time they started college many were part of the anti-establishment culture and became the impetus for a wave of rebellion that started on college campuses and swept the world.

The college students of 1968 embraced the New Left politics. Their socialist leanings and distrust of authority led to many of the 1968 conflicts. The dramatic events of the year showed both the popularity and limitations of New Left ideology, a radical leftist movement that was also deeply ambivalent about its relationship to communism during the middle and later years of the Cold War.

ocialist states

Protests were held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia as the first mass protest after the Second World War.

The Protests

The protests that raged throughout 1968 were for the most part student led. World wide, campuses became the front-line battle grounds for social change. While anti-war protests dominated the protests, students also protested for civil liberties, against racism, for feminism, and the beginnings of the ecological movement can be traced to the protests against biological and nuclear weapons during this year. [Rootes, Christopher. "1968 and the Environmental Movement in Europe." [http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/research/papers/rootes-1968-env-movements.pdf] Retrieved 02-2008] Television, so influential in forming the political identity of this generation became the tool of choice for the revolutionaries. They fought their battles not just on college campuses but also on the television screen by courting media coverage. [O'Hagan, Sean. "Everyone to the Barricades." "The Observer." January 2008. [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/riview/story/0,,2243535,00.html] Retrieved 02-2008]

Mexico City, West Berlin, Rome and many U.S. cities saw relatively small protests against university administrations. Some countries, like Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Brazil had more widespread protests against repressive governments. In Paris, Italy and Argentina, the students were joined by the labor unions. The German student movements were largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, particularly in relation to the poor living conditions of students. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement had turned away from the south and toward the cities in the north with the issues of open housing and the Black Consciousness Movement. The Black movement unified as a movement and gained international recognition with the emergence of the Black Power and Black Panthers organizations and their support of violence as a means of protest. [ [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/plack_power] Black Power. African American World. Retrieved 02-2008]

*Students at the University of Madrid protested the involvement of police in student demonstrations, protested the Dictator Francisco Franco’s regime, and demonstrated about trade unions and worker rights. [Kurlansky pg 16]
*Students in 108 German universities protested for recognition of East Germany, the removal of government officials with Nazi pasts and for the rights of students. [Kurlansky pg 82]
*In what became known as Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia’s first secretary Alexander Dubček began a period of reform, which gave way to outright civil protest, only ending when the USSR invaded the country in August. [ [http://leweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+cs0050)] Czechoslovakia, 1968 Prague Spring. "The Library of Congress Country Study." Retrieved 02-2008]
*In January, police used clubs on 400 anti-war protestors outside of a dinner for Secretary of State Rusk. [Kurlansky pg 42]
*On January 30, 300 student protesters from the University of Warsaw and the National Theater School were beaten with clubs by state arranged anti-protestors. [ [http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lecture15.html] 1968: The Year of the Barricades. "The History Guide." Retrieved 02-2008]
*On February 8, a civil rights protest in Orangeburg, South Carolina turns deadly with the death of 3 college students. [ [http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/civilrights/a/orangeburg.htm] The Orangeburg Massacre. "Ask.com About African-American History." Retrieved 02-2008]
*In February, protests by professors at the German University of Bonn demanded the resignation of the university’s president because of his involvement in the building of concentration camps during the war. [ [http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/4] Klimke, Dr. Martin. 1968 In Europe. "Online Teaching and Resource Guide." Retrieved 02-2008]
*In February, students from Harvard, Radcliff, and Boston University held a four-day hunger strike to protest the war. [Kurlansky pg 54]
*10,000 West Berlin students held a sit-in against American involvement in Vietnam. [Kurlansky pg 54]
*Canada protested the war by mailing 5,000 copies of the paperback, "Manual for Draft Age Immigrants to Canada" to the United States. [Kurlansky pg 55]
*On March 8, the 1968 Polish political crisis began with students from the University of Warsaw who marched for student rights and were beaten with clubs. The next day over two thousand students marched in protest of the police involvement on campus and were clubbed and arrested again. By March 11, the general public had joined the protest in violent confrontations with students and police in the streets. The government fought a propaganda campaign against the protestors, labeling them Zionists. The twenty days of protest ended when the state closed all of the universities and arrested more than a thousand students. Most Polish Jews left the country to avoid persecution by the government. [Kurlansky pg 127]
*In March, students in North Carolina organized a sit-in at a local lunch counter that spread to 15 cities. [Kurlansky pg 85]
*In March, Italian students closed the University of Rome for 12 days during an anti-war protest. [Kurlansky pg 82]
*On March 17 an anti-war demonstration in Grosvenor Square, London ended with 86 people injured and 200 demonstrators arrested. [ [http://www.1968andallthat.net/node/109] 1968 Battles outside US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London. 1968 and All That. 15January 2008. Retrieved 02-2008]
*Japanese students protested the presence of the American military in Japan because of the Vietnam war. [Kurlansky pg 84]
*In March, Great Britain students had turned violent in their anti-war protests physically attacking the British defense secretary, the secretary of state for education and the Home Secretary. [Kurlansky pg 84]
*On March 6, 500 New York University (NYU) students demonstrated against Dow Chemical because the company was the principal manufacturer of napalm, used by the U.S. military in Vietnam. [> [http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/collections/exhibits/arch/1968/1968-6.html] Surak, Amy. 1968 Timeline. "New York University Archives." Retrieved 02-2008]
*In April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, sparking violent protests in more than 115 American cities, notably Louisville, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.. [Walsh, Michael. "Streets of Fire: Governor Spiro Agnew and the Baltimore City Riots, April 1968." [http://teachingamericanhistorymd.net/000001/000000/000061/html/t61.html] Retrieved 02-2008]
*On April 23, students at Columbia University protested the school’s allegedly racist policies, 3 school officials were taken hostage for 24 hours. [ [http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/collections/exhibits/arch/1968/1968-6.html] Surak, Amy. 1968 Timeline. "New York University Archives." Retrieved 02-2008] This was just one of a number of Columbia University protests of 1968.
*The admittance of the South African team brought the issue of apartheid to the 1968 Summer Olympics. After more than 40 teams threatened to boycott the committee reconsidered again banned the South African team. The Olympics were targeted as a venue to bring the Black Movement into public view. The entire summer was a series of escalating conflicts between Mexican students and the police. [ [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/riview/story/0,,2243535,00.html] O'Hagan, Sean. Everyone to the Barricades. "The Observer." January 2008. Retrieved 02-2008]
*In April, students from the University of Madrid shut down the university for 38 days as a result of a protest of a mass for Adolf Hitler [Kurlansky pg 82] and students protesting the military dictatorship were killed in Brazil. [Kurlansky pg 83]
*On April 20th Enoch Powell makes an anti-immigration speech that sparks demonstrations throughout England. His Rivers of Blood speech helped define immigration as a political issue and helped legitimize anti-immigration sentiment. [Husbands, Christopher. "Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood Speech." [http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfies/river_blood2.html] Retrieved 02-2008]
*The French May protests, started with French student protests over university reform and escalated into a month long protest. The trade unions joined the protest resulting in a general strike. [Pike, John. 1968 "Student Massacre." [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/mexico1.htm] 27 April 2005. Retrieved 02-2008]
*In August, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago was disrupted when the new Youth International Party protested the war. Chicago’s mayor escalated the riots with excessive police presence and by ordering up the National Guard and the army to suppress the protests [O'Hagan, Sean. "Everyone to the Barricades." "The Observer." January 2008. [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/riview/story/0,,2243535,00.html] Retrieved 02-2008] .
*In September, the women’s liberation movement gained international recognition when it demonstrated at the annual Miss America Beauty pageant. The week-long protest and its disruption of the pageant gained the movement much needed attention in the press. [Freeman, Jo. "No More Miss America! (1968-1969)." [http://www.jofreeman.com/photos/MissAm1969.html] Retrieved 02-2008]
*On October 2, after a summer of protests against the Mexican government and the occupation of the central campus of the National Autonomous University by the army, a student demonstration in Tlatelolco Square in Mexico City ended with police, paratroopers and paramilitary units firing on students, killing over a hundred persons. [Erickson, Ric. "May '68 Dates." "Metropole Paris." 4 May 1998. [http://www.metropoleparis.com/1998/318/chron318.html] Retrieved 02-2008]
*In October, the Rodney Riots in Kingston, Jamaica were inspired when the Jamaican government of Hugh Shearer banned Guyanese university lecturer Dr. Walter Rodney from returning to his teaching position at the University of the West Indies. Rodney, a historian of Africa had been active in the Black power movement, and had been sharply critical of the middle class in many Caribbean countries. Rodney was an avowed socialist who worked with the poor of Jamaica in an attempt to raise their political and cultural consciousness.

Movements that began in 1968

The environmental movement can trace its beginnings back to the protests of 1968. The environmental movement evolved from the anti-nuclear movement. France was particularly involved in environmental concerns. In 1968, the French Federation of Nature Protection Societies and the French branch of Friends of the Earth were formed and the French scientific community organized Survivre et Vivre (Survive and Live). The Nordic countries were at the forefront of environmentalism. In Sweden, the students protested against hydro-electric plans. In Denmark and the Netherlands environmental action groups protested about pollution and other environmental issues. [Rootes, Christopher. "1968 and the Environmental Movement in Europe." [http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/research/papers/rootes-1968-env-movements.pdf] Retrieved 02-2008]

References

Links

* [http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=236 1968 in Italy]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=89372462&startNum=16 NPR Echoes of 1968]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/1968 BBC Radio 4 - 1968 Myth or Reality?]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/20/1968theyearofrevolt.features Everyone to the Barricades - Europe 1968 Sean O'Hagen UK Guardian]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/jan/20/featuresreview.review4 True voice of the Revolution - Mexico 1968 Ed Vulliamy UK Guardian]
* [http://www.telospress.com/main/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=236 1968 In Italy -: Revolution or Cold Civil War]

ee also

*May 1968 in France
*Movement of 22 March
*Feminism in France
*Situationist International
*Springer Press
*Civil Rights Act of 1968
*Catonsville Nine
*Glenville Shootout
*Orangeburg massacre