The History of Rock Music: 1966-1969Genres and musicians of the Sixties(Versione italiana) History of Rock Music | 1955-66 | 1966-69 | 1970-76 | 1976-89 | The early 1990s | The late 1990s | The 2000s | Alpha index Musicians of 1955-66 | 1967-69 | 1970-76 | 1977-89 | 1990s in the US | 1990s outside the US | 2000s Back to the main Music page Inquire about purchasing the book (Copyright © 2009 Piero Scaruffi) Part 2. The Classics (roughly 1966-69)The Late 1960s: The Democratization of Politics
The various pacifist strains of the late 1950s and early 1960s converged in
the hippie movement of San Francisco. The hippies celebrated their first
"Summer of Love" in 1966 while Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and other black activists founded the "Black Panther Party" in nearby Oakland, one of
the most visible groups creating a season of urban violence.
There were racial and political riots for the rest of the decade, culminating
in the assassination of Martin Luther King (1968). Meanwhile the Vietnam war
become more and more unpopular, especially after it was learned that USA troops
had massacred more than 500 civilians at My Lai.
Public opinion was feeling disenfranchised from the political system.
The dissatisfaction was best represented by the demonstrations at the
Democratic Convention of 1968 in Chicago: that turned out to be a key event
in the evolution of the USA democracy. After 1968 the parties became more
democratic (primaries became the standard method of picking candidates, thus
replacing the party machines that had previously dominated politics) and
referendums became more commonplace.
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