Social Movements and Organizations of the 1960s, 70s and 80s

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Scholar-Griot: Dawson Barrett

Photo and Copy Editor: Fran Kaplan

The 1960s saw an upsurge in civil rights and other organizations promoting freedom and equality for blacks and women.

The 1970s brought a backlash against those movements by well-funded and well-placed organizations of the Right seeking more freedom for corporations and a return to traditional roles for women.

In the 1980's, hip-hop and punk rock music expressed anger at "The Power" through their lyrics instead of through actions to change laws.

Prominent Civil Rights Movement Organizations:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): Founded in 1909, the NAACP planned protests and lobbied politicians. Most famously, the group pursued lawsuits that challenged the Jim Crow system.
Congress on Racial Equality (CORE): Founded in 1942, CORE specialized in disruptive protests, such as sit-ins and pickets. They provided the foundation for much of the activism of the 1960s.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): Founded in 1957 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ella Baker, the SCLC coordinated protests and boycotts among religious leaders and their congregations.
Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): Founded in 1960, SNCC helped organize young activists involved in sit-ins and other disruptive actions. They became the inspiration for other student groups, like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
Black Panther Party (BPP): Founded in 1966, the Black Panther Party fought against police brutality and started a free breakfast program for children.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) holds a picture of the three CORE workers killed during Freedom Summer in Mississippi, 1964. The three were registering black voters.

John Lewis (l) and Jim Zwerg after being beaten on a Freedom Ride in Alabama in 1964. Lewis, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later became a long-serving Member of Congress from Georgia.

Ida B. Wells was a founder of the NAACP. She compiled lists of lynching victims. She wrote books and articles revealing the truth about that horror.

Black Panther Party leaders Bobby Black and Huey Newton

The Berkeley Free Speech Movement began in Fall 1964 on the U of CA campus. Mario Savio and other student activists were prohibited by the UCBerkeley from distributing information and collecting donations for the civil rights movement.

Vietnam Vets Against the War marching in Times Square, New York City, 1972.

Dr. Arthur Laffer, conservative scholar for ALEC, and father of the "supply-side economics" and "trickle-down theory" promoted by President Reagan.

Reverend Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, part of the New Christian Right.

Other 1960s Era Organizations:

Berkeley Free Speech Movement
Combahee River Collective
National Organization for Women (NOW)
The Redstockings
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam Moratorium Committee
Women Strike for Peace
Yippies

1970s “New Right” Organizations:

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
Business Roundtable
Eagle Forum
Heritage Foundation
Moral Majority

Public Enemy - Fight The Power

1980s Hip-hop / Punk Rock Artists:

Dead Kennedys
Fugazi
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
KRS-One
Public Enemy

Dawson Barrett is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He recently taught a history course on American activism and countercultures in the post-1960s period.

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5 Comments

Linda Meadors on February 19, 2013 at 4:47 PM

The information provided is definitely a window to the happenings of the turbulent past. I am hopeful that this will be a tool used by school aged children to become aware of history so as to understand it and learn how to develop healthy both mentally and emotionally in the midst of change.

I am looking forward to the upcoming additions.

Linda

Gayle Zawilla on February 28, 2013 at 8:59 AM

Can you please tell me who who holds the rights to the photo of the Anti-Vietnam War protesters faced National Guard guns with flowers that appears on your web page https://www.abhmuseum.org/2012/06/social-movements-and-organizations-of-the-1960s-70s-and-80s/? I would like to consider using it in a college textbook. Thanks, Gayle Zawilla, Editor

- dr_fran on February 28, 2013 at 3:20 PM
  
  Gayle, I’ll reply to you directly by email.
  
leslie on January 29, 2014 at 8:13 PM

I am trying to track a travelling evangelic movement that started in the 60’s and ended in the late 70’s or 80’s
with the wife who’s name was tammy or similar

Ivory Carlton Jones on November 18, 2021 at 6:48 AM

Keep up the good work. Its so sad. It seems that the attacks on everything we worked so hard for are starting again. Or it could be tools like cell phones, internet and social media are just showing us that it never ended. Nor matter what, our fight for our future and the future of our children must continue as long as we desire to make America our home. Be encouraged kings and queens