America in the 1960s Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

the States in the 1960s - Essay causeOne of the closely influential aspects of growing up in the fifties was the Civil Rights movement. America had undergo the front line news for the first time in its history. There was a daily airing of the atrocities that were committed by governmental agencies around the country. These images had a dual role in the molding of the offspring of the 1950s. It was able to portray the discrimination against blacks in detail and also able to tell the story of the governments battle in the anti-movement activities. These were the seeds of the anti-government feeling in the teenagers of the 1960s. Television was able to paint the government with a brush of suspiciousness as America was shown pictures of blacks facing physical abuse, while it told a story of government infiltration. In fact, Confederate Baptists had resisted federal civil rights legislation not necessarily because they were racists but because they sincerely opposed federal irre verence into families and communities (Saletan 21). This factor was able to develop an anti-government feeling across a wide spectrum of America. The distrust of government went beyond the political and social structure and into the affluence of the age. This affluence resulted in greater education and employment opportunities than at any other period in US history. This access also brought with it a greater liberty of thinking that was exemplified by the multitude of philosophies that flourished during this era. The beat generation of the 1950s had given way to the hippie movement. hipsters have been portrayed as beatniks with an attitude. According to Flexner et al., If you liked hippies you called them crest children and approved of their flower power and love is slogans if you hated them you called them beatniks, but it was the word hippies that most people used most often, and beats, hipsters, and hippies had all become one in the public mind. This again was the result of te levisions claim to homogenize a subject and make it understandable to the American public. The end of the 1950s presented America with a view of Maynard G. Krebs in the hit sitcom Dobie Gillis. Krebs was idolized for his seemingly innocuous character that promoted dropping divulge of employment and mainstream thought. However, young people were being handed a teenage idol that would become the example for anti-establishment beliefs and behavior.Other teenage idols came in the forms of Beaver Cleaver, Eddie Haskell, and Andy Griffith. These sitcoms verified in the teenage mind that there was an America that was free from crime and flush with material wealth. However, examining these weekly television shows indicate that they contributed to the disillusionment of America. They portrayed a minority of white Americans who were able to reap the benefits of the post World War II economy. The youth of the 1950s fell into one of two classes those that were a part of the new America and t hose that had been left behind.