Society During The 1950's-1975

During the 1950’s-1975 the society changed dramatically. There were a lot of things that occurred during this period like: Women’s rights, Abortion and the Pill, Indigenous rights, civil rights movement, Drug culture and sexual revolution (Counterculture), assassination of both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. All this, had both a positive and a negative impact on the society.

Women’s right during the 1960’s changed dramatically, more women were entering the paid workforce. They were dissatisfied with the unequal payment and the sexual harassment that was happening in the workplace. In late 1960’s, women started to use birth control pill that the federal government approved in 1960. This gave women the freedom of getting rid of any

The refusal of Rosa Parks to give her seat in the public bus to white man, all provoked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Black students in North Carolina, went to a white only restaurant and sat in the lunch counter. This resulted in many intense protests. Throughout the 1960’s, many protestors like boycotters, Freedom Riders and others processed for their guest for freedom. On the 28th of August 1963, more than 240000 people gathered around the Lincoln Memorial to hear the rising leader of Civil Rights, MLK. It wasn’t just the blacks that gather, but also thousands of white came to hear the famous “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther

Children from middle class family went to college and majority of them rejected provincial amenity designed by their parents. The American youth were adopting the ‘Hippie’ lifestyle and displaying new interest toward sex, drugs, communal lifestyle, fashion, music and food. The values that their parents held throughout all these years broke extremely during the counterculture. Women were using pills for birth control and were repudiating the traditional value towards sexuality. Sexuality in this culture was like a casual thing. It became very common to see public nudity. Rather than marrying and living together, they denied the old norms and just started living together. Many youths experimented with drugs like LSD, Marijuana, pill and mushrooms. With the new lifestyle came venereal diseases, drug addiction and bad trips. Vegetarianism became very popular among the youths. The Fashion also changed; men started either grew their hair or had Afros. Most Women wore flowers in their hair.
Music was the most common bond among youth during this time. The music of choice was mainly rock and roll fused with folk music.
About 10 percent of the American youth population was influenced by the