Social Upheaval of the 1960s Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Upheaval of the 1960s - Essay Example However it should also be known that social upheaval was certainly not just limited to those areas, and that it also reached large scale in nations such as Japan, Mexico and Canada. "The term is used both nostalgically by those who participated in those events, and pejoratively by those who regard the time as a period whose harmful effects are still being felt today. The decade was also labeled the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged during this decade" (Wolfe, 1999). The aim of this paper is to discuss the 1960s, particularly in regards to the social upheaval which took place during this time, and this involves not only social but political and social conditions as well. By addressing and discussing this as well as any and all other key and related issues, we will be able to come to a much more informed and knowledgeable understanding on the subject matter at hand overall. This is what will be dissertated in the following. Conflicts arise for a myriad of different reasons that are often a combination of politics, economics, and differing cultural identities, and whatever the actual reasons for a conflict beginning, there are some basics which constantly remain the same. The African American Civil Rights Movement is just one of many different matters which led to the social upheaval of the 1960s, and this is in many different regards; The African American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) refers to the different reform movements in the United States aimed specifically at abolishing both public and private acts of racial discrimination against African Americans. In the years of the 19th century, many states, most of which were located in the South, passed racially discriminatory laws. The racial violence that was aimed at African Americans greatly mushroomed at this point, and this period in time is often referred to as being 'the nadir of American race relations'. "Elected, appointed, or hired governme nt authorities began to require or permit discrimination, in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kansas. Required or permitted acts of discrimination against African Americans fell mainly into four categories: (1) racial segregation - upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 - which was legally mandated by southern states and by many local governments outside the south; (2) voter suppression or disfranchisement in the southern states; (3) denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and (4) private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans, which were often encouraged and seldom hindered by government authorities" (Addington, 2000). The Vietnam War was another event which led to the social upheaval of the 1960s, and the war itself, which took place from 1959 to 1975, was considered as being a successful effort by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the indigenous National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, to reunify Vietnam under a communist government. The United States worked in this war by first deploying large numbers of troops to South Vietnam between 1954 and 1973, and some particular U.S allies