It was truly an enlightening experience to watch all four
hours of the CNN production: “1968, The Year That Changed America”. Fifty Years ago I was 16 during the momentous
events of 1968 and as I watched and tried to recall my thoughts of the time,
memories kept flowing back of my teenage life.
The next year, 1969, would be the end of my childhood as I graduated
from high school, attended the counterculture gathering at Woodstock and
entered liberal, politically active Swarthmore College. But 1968 was still a sheltered existence in
rural Hunterdon County New Jersey.
My most vivid memories are of running through the fields and
woods surrounding our home in preparation for the cross country and track
seasons; becoming acquainted with the opposite sex and alcohol; discovering new
music; and spending the summer at Bucknell University on a National Science
Foundation Grant. While I loved current events and debating, the earth
shattering developments of 1968 do not spring easily to mind.
It is not because the issues that would define 1968 were not
in plain sight. Although my high school
was predominantly white, protestant and conservative, our proximity to New York
City and Philadelphia meant that the counterculture, both political and
lifestyle, were not far away. One of our
classmates ended up on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, after he dropped out of
high school to live in Greenwich Village.
The social activist David Dellinger and his family lived nearby. Mr.
Dellinger would become “the father” of the Chicago Seven, following the 1968
Democratic Convention. Though the draft
lottery did not begin until 1969, a draft was still in effect in 1968. I was
aware that my Quaker heritage would provide me with conscientious objector status,
if I chose to use it.
My sheltered existence in 1968 contrasts with the timeline
of that year as projected by the CNN documentary. The presidential campaign was no doubt the
most raucous and suspenseful in our history.
After the horrors of the Democratic Convention, Hubert Humphrey found
his anti-Vietnam War voice late in the campaign and lost to Richard Nixon by
the slimmest of margins. George Wallace, an avowed racist, carried five states
and won 45 electoral votes.
The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy
lead many to question the ability of our democracy to survive. The riots and
destruction in cities across the country mirrored by eruptions at college
campuses, where radicals took over buildings and brought academia to its knees,
seemed to foretell a political revolution.
There was no question that a social revolution was sweeping the country
as black power, feminist causes and anti-war sentiments came to the forefront. But in the south, segregationists formed a
coalition that would hide under the banner of conservatism to fight
integration, political equality and social liberalism.
The two questions that spring to mind are: How do the events
of 1968 compare with the political and cultural story that is playing out in
2018? Second, what did we learn from
1968 and how much progress have we made as a nation, over the past 50 years.?
When comparing 1968 to 2018, present events seem a bit
superficial. How could any drama from
the Trump White House come close to the symbolism of the three most famous
widows in American history, Jacqueline Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy and Coretta Scott
King, returning on the same plane with Robert Kennedy’s body following his
assassination. Or the race riots
following King’s assassination, leaving 39 dead and 2600 injured. Or the 16,600
American soldiers killed in Vietnam, in 1968. Or the Chicago police force and
Illinois National Guard gone mad and attacking the youth of America at the Democratic
National Convention. Or the worldwide student protests,
characterized by popular rebellions against military and bureaucratic elites. 2018 seems tame when juxtaposed with 1968.
Of course there was no 24/7 news cycle in 1968. The three networks and major newspapers all
reported the same facts, once a day, for public consumption. Commentary was limited to the editorial page,
usually with only two well-rehearsed points of view, one party line Democratic,
the other Republican.
In 1968 the role of every journalist was to report the news,
not to take a position. When Walter Cronkite broke this tradition and gave a
personal editorial, calling for a negotiated end to the war in Vietnam,
President Lyndon Johnson was so shocked he commented that: ‘If I’ve lost
Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” A
month later Johnson announced he would not seek another term as President. Vietnam peace talks began shortly after.
In today’s media world every political and social nuance, no
matter how insignificant, is immediately reported by hundreds of sources, many
of whom are not trained journalists and who have a personal axe to grind. Moreover, politicians, corporations and
celebrities not only make news, they manufacture it, in order to drive public
opinion in a favorable direction.
One can only imagine how the events of 1968 would be media
driven in the information age of 2018.
No doubt it would truly feel like the world was falling apart. Following
each shocking development in 1968, institutions and individuals would not be
given the time to absorb, consider, understand and to heal.
Some would argue that my second query, what did we learn
from the upheavals of 1968 and how much progress have we made as a nation, depends
on who is responding to the question.
For example, older African Americans who grew up not being able to vote,
obtain a proper education, or find meaningful work and who have now witnessed
eight years of an Obama presidency would argue that important changes have
occurred. Their grandchildren would
probably disagree, pointing to prevalent racial profiling and systemic white
intolerance. The same can be said for
the different points of view among older and younger women and those in the
LBGTQ community.
In truth, progress has been made on cultural values and race
but much more needs to be done. The
focus has shifted from the granting of legal rights, now more or less
completed, to changing attitudes, which lag far behind. This latter goal is a multigenerational
process.
Not all problems have improved and new ones have surfaced. Without question, the equality gap between
rich and poor is even wider than what existed in 1968. Immigration, border security, religious
fundamentalism and terrorism were not issues of national concern in 1968. Western democracies were united against a
common ideological enemy, communism, with no one focused on a resurgence of
tribal or nativist self-interests.
Today, climate change threatens to cause massive disruptions to
agriculture and coastal communities.
Regrettably, some problems have remained the same. America
is involved in a war that has lasted twice as long as the Vietnam conflict,
costing billions each year in national treasure. Gun violence has moved from political
assassination to our schoolyards as the United States refuses to follow the
rest of the civilized world in placing controls on the proliferation of the
deadliest weapons.
In 1968 the country
elected a President who resigned after the exposure of massive criminal
actives. In 2018 the country is dealing
with a President who has no respect for democratic institutions or the rule of
law. Thankfully, the Watergate era of
Richard Nixon has provided us with a roadmap on how to deal with presidential
improprieties.
The country survived 1968 and it will survive 2018 as well. While
I will not be alive to review the state of the union in 2068, I have no doubt
we will be a more diverse and tolerant nation, living up to the challenge our
founders placed before us.
