The 1960s
The 1960s was a decade of events. Just like any other decade, it had its bright side and the dark side. It was referred to as the cultural decade. It was a decade marked by many changes especially in the social and the political arenas. The cultural decade does not however talk about the ten years of the 1960s as it did extend a bit to the year 1973. Ti is during this decade that there were significant changes and reforms in the social aspects. It thus came to be described as the counterculture revolution. There were a lot of changes in the norms. Major things that the people believed in clothing, dress, music, formalities, drugs, schooling and sexuality were ignored and changes started setting in. The decade came to be denounced as having had a lot of responsibilities and a decade of social decay. The decade saw a lot of relaxation in the taboos and came to be deemed as the Swimming Sixties. Taboos and norms about sexism and racism were deliberately ignored or relaxed. Christopher Booker described this decade as a Jungian nightmare. He claimed that culture was unable to maintain the norms and let go the norms that were strongly guarded and seen as the right things to do.
Decade of Promises
In America, The Sixties was a period to reckon with. It saw a lot of fight and struggle and rebellion by many groups. This decade had freedom rides, sit-ins and protest marches staged by different groups for the better part of the decade. There were rampant strikes in the fight for equal treatments, poverty, segregation, and unemployment. Female leaders were on the first line fighting for equal employment rights for women and end of sexual discrimination. The natives also had strikes as they had issues regarding land and they wanted the government to allow tribes to protect and govern their land. These had adverse effects on the economy of the United States.
The Dark Side of 1960s
The decade was marked by many assassinations. The most devastating of them all was the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. His brother was later assassinated five years later on 5th June 1968. This was just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Apart from the assassinations; there were many wars in this decade. It was during this decade that there was the cold war. There was also the Vietnam War, which entered the sixties having begun in the late fifties.