DU Boomers: What was the period of assasinations like? (JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK)

[Taverner]

Any thoughts on what life was like during that time?

How did you feel?

[Hannah Bell]

1. it was kind of like living in a psy-ops experiment. kind of like now.

[lib2DaBone]

117. What you said...... Right on....

"Right on" .. that's an old 60's phrase that means Hell-Ya, effin-A.. I Agree, etc...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It was a very dark time.

I remember feeling scared about the direction our country was taking, even more so than during the Bush disaster.

All these good people being assassinated...really scary and awful.

Things felt out of control, and we didn't know who would be next.

[csziggy]

29. Yes, and following the assassinations, Noxin was elected

Even as a non-political 16 year old, I knew there was something wrong with that man and worried even more about the direction the country was taking. And that is when I first started seeing movies about assassination conspiracies and news articles about the possibility. It was worrying wondering who might have been responsible - corporations or government secret operatives.

All that pessimism on top of worries about when the nukes would fly and which side would be the first to launch. Many of the people I grew up with were convinced we'd never live long enough to have families or even if it was right to have children that would die horribly in a nuclear war or its aftermath. Dark days indeed.

When Noxin was re-elected in 1972 I was worried that his 'imperial presidency' was taking far too much control for the executive branch. The Watergate crap just made me more convinced that the powers that be controlled our country and a single vote would not make a difference. I became so disillusioned with politics I did not vote again until Jimmy Carter ran.

Then in 1980 it was deja vu with the October Surprise and the people from the Noxin administration that showed up in Reagan's. It's been all downhill every since at least until last year.

If Obama screws us, I will know this country has had it, but I still have more hope that I did for much of the early parts of my adulthood.

[prairierose]

49. csziggy, yes, many of us felt that we..

would not live to adulthood. I always said it was the bomb drills that we had in school. How can you have confidence in any future when you have to practice what to do in case of a nuclear bomb at school? I never knew if any of our neighbors had bomb shelters but I hear about them. It seemed as if we just got past that when the assassinations started and then there were riots in so many of the large cities of this country.

[csziggy]

55. Living in Central Florida, the Cuban Missle Crisis made a huge impression

Especially since shortly after I read Pat Frank's "Alas, Babylon" which was set close to where I lived and was about the aftermath of a nuclear attack. We had those silly drills in school but I knew that if the worst happened what future we might have would be horrible for the survivors.

And you are right - the civil rights movement was an underlying theme all through the sixties and there was a lot of violence from that. My Mom's hometown was Marion, where there were demonstrations that led to a death. That infamous bridge in Selma was only blocks from my great-aunts' & great-uncles' house on River Street. Mom was terrified that the violence would get to her elderly relatives home. And my parents stopped our yearly visits to Alabama which sort of cut our ties to our Southern relatives. Besides, by the Alabama relatives' views, my parents were too liberal, which was a laugh.

The riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King made less impression on me personally since the earlier demonstrations in the smaller Southern towns I had known all my life had already brought home the issues behind the civil rights movement.

The hippy movement on the other hand gave hope for a more inclusive society - even if most hippies and hippy wannabes were white - but also gave many a way to sort of opt out of society rather than face and deal with its problems. In some areas 'hippies' were movers and doers, but in the larger society, hippy wannabes only adopted the trappings of dress and drugs and did nothing to change. (I wonder how many of those hippy wannabes later became Neocons that claim they were once Democrats?)

Man, I don't even want to think about how dark and confusing a time that was!

[RagAss]

75. Yes the true hippies were only about 5% of the movement...the wannabees 95%.

[MgtPA]

44. What you said - "Things felt out of control, and we didn't know who would be next."

...in a nutshell.

[bobbolink]

3. Completely debilitating.

Why do you ask?

[Taverner]

4. I watched Cronkite's Tet Commentary, and one thing led to another

And I've always wondered this, being born in 1970 - when things weren't that scary...

[bobbolink]

11. Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate that you are asking.

I don't know that it can be put into words.

Even looking back after all these years, it's so hard to tote up the effects it had on us.

I think it's important you're asking.

Although, I gotta say, it's hard to recognize being "in the older generation". :rofl:

[Critters2]

5. I just know that the words "breaking news" coming across the screen

still send chills down my spine...even though now it means the latest Jackson family member has asked for custody. When they lay Cronkite in his grave, he'll probably start spinning immediately.

[SoCalDem]

12. or there's a fire somewhere, but the prompter reader doesn't know where

but they still ned to OOOOH and AHHHH, and say stuff like.."Wow , look at that".

[RobinA]

38. Touche

Still when I see "Breaking News" I think, "Oh my god, they shot the President" for about half a second. Then I remember the times.

But seriously, I was 5 when Kennedy got shot, 10 in '68. I remember the feeling of nobody to talk to with JFK, even though I was very young. I knew it was serious, but didn't get the full impact. I was fixated on Caroline and John-John because they were my age. 1968 was a little scary, it was like "Jeez, everybody is getting shot." But then I remembered JFK, and figured, Well, we lived through that. It started to seem normal.

The riots scared me because I was afraid they were coming to my house. Vietnam was white noise until it ended, and then it was like, Whoa, no war, how weird. Again, at my age, it all seemed normal because turmoil had been going on most of my conscious life at that point. I was hearing about Vietnam my whole school life. Our family is aged such that only one person was ever eligible for the draft, and he enlisted in the Air Force because he had a low draft number. At the time I didn't know diddly about draft numbers.

Kent State was weird, because I already had my sights on college. I became a fanatic about all things Kent State. It was probably the first "'60's" event I really "got." (Please don't write that it didn't happen in the '60's, I know.) I was also very opinionated about Patty Hearst (a pawn, innocent, a victim of her father's wealth). Patty Hearst and Caroline Kennedy are two women I am always rooting for.

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. Confusing, disorienting. And very distant in memory.

So much growing going on, just getting through youth...hard to remember what you REALLY remember vs what you think you remember or have read or seen in books!

[annabanana]

7. I felt like I was getting punched in the gut.. time after time.

Each new murder was another blow, laying me lower, making me despair more for my Country. All the dreams, all the hopes were being slammed into the ground.

[TexasObserver]

8. It was like having the plots of "24" actually happen.

The president, the greatest civil rights leader, and the president to be - all assassinated in a 4.5 year period.

Unconnected events, my ass! I blame J. Edgar and the Dulles brothers most. They were Stalinist in their approach. I don't doubt at all their involvement.

[SoCalDem]

9. Our "consciousness" was ushered in with the belief that we WOULD

be annihilated in a nuclear war, so the 60's were quite a ride, indeed :(

[asdjrocky]

10. I was 8 in 68 and I saw RFK at my hometown airport just before he went to LA.

I remember being scared a lot in 68. The assignations, the riots, the convention. As for JFK, one of my first memories is my mother watching the funeral on our b/w and she was crying, when I asked about it she told me she was watching a sad parade.

The funny thing, as I look back, it was Walter Cronkite who told me about it, all of it.

[Are_grits_groceries]

13. I felt like everybody was being shot or

dying in some way. "Breaking News" meant just that. I still cringe to this day when that special announcement is made, and everything grinds to a halt.
As the Grateful Dead said, "What a long strange trip it's been." That sums up that time.

[blogslut]

14. There was a lot of death on TV back then

Not only did we experience a succession of assassinations but reporters took us to the front lines of the Vietnam War while we ate our dinners. A lot of unrest. A lot of anger. A lot for a small child like me.

[charlie]

15. Like the country lost its mind

The sudden turn to violence and madness was bewildering. Remember, Gov Wallace was shot too and Ford was shot at twice early in the next decade. There was Vietnam, race riots, the Chicago convention, Nixon's psychosis, Manson, Charles Whitman, Albert DeSalvo, and Richard Speck.

[Are_grits_groceries]

17. Kent State...

"Four dead in Ohio."

[aikoaiko]

70. Sometimes the combination of your post /pic and your sig picture cause me to

experience a type of cogntive dissonance.

Its like you're saying "meh" to the four dead in Ohio. And then I realize its just a sig pic unrelated to the content.

[Bandit]

129. Funny how Jackson State is never mentioned.

:shrug:

[Are_grits_groceries]

131. It should be. My bad.

Along with the Orangeburg, SC shootings.

[fortyfeetunder]

16. For this little kid, it was a very confusing time

I was in elementary school when all four assassinations happened.
I still remember all four of them to this day.
I felt I lost a bit of my childhood during those times.

Adults didn't have the answers I wanted, why did it happen?
My mom was the type "children should be seen and not heard"
so she and my father were not open about political situations.

But there was no one to talk to about what happened. My little friends were into their toys, adults didn't want to talk with a kid, especially these topics.

Fortunately I was reading newspapers at that age, and I had a library card. That is how I dealt with the confusion. Read about it.

Today I've learned as a parent there are age-appropriate ways to discuss events with children.

[90-percent]

18. some memories

Don't trust anybody over 30.

That was a big one.

There were many that thought young people were going to overthrow the government. Establishment took the threat seriously. They started designing colleges and universities to be "riot proof" and had lots of secret tunnels for the administration types to navigate the whole campus.

I was 14 in 1968 so I could not comprehend at the time how terrible the losses were. I was more concerned with coping with school whilst being painfully shy, or "socially retarded", a term from Frank Zappa i like to use all the time.

There was big talk of the generation gap, but I never felt alienated about my parents.

Viet Nam and the draft and rebelling against the establishment were really big.

And Nixon got in and we're feeling Nixon's presence to this day - channeled thru Rummy and Cheney, who served for Gerry Ford.

history tells me the biggest mistake back in this earlier era was pardoning Nixon "for the good of the country". This precedent allowed the GW Bush administration to conduct itself above the law and the Constitution for their whole eight years in office.

Bush and Co. should never ever be pardoned for all their crimes against humanity and the constitution! Prosecute to the full extent of the law!

-90% jimmy

[Thothmes]

109. I agree, Lyndon Baines Johnson should have been

prosecuted for crimes against humanity and the Consitution. He should have been proscuted the fullest extent of the law. He was the author of the deaths of 36,000 Americans and possibly 2,000,000 or more Vietnames.

[OKNancy]

19. Horrible and exciting

There was so much going on, and to be young and driven for a cause was truly an exciting adventure. The grief added to the surreal experience.

[CHIMO]

20. In A Few

Words.

The destruction of Camelot.

[Karenina]

21. We teenies KNEW something seriously fucked up was up.

Yes, indeed we did. :cry:

[sharesunited]

22. It seemed all too convenient for those interests which had been inconvenienced by those figures.

[KoKo]

23. We who watched and got what was going on...never got over it...

[jaxx]

30. That is very true.

It was madness, the men being shot and killed by the haters. The sadder it got, the angrier we got and the dividing of the country began. Those who didn't like the messages of JFK, MLK, and RFK were the beginnings of the rightwing we know today, and those who were horrified at the deaths now post on DU (some of them anyway).

It was a time of change, a time of losing any innocence we had in order to understand what was happening. For many of us the rose colored glasses of the 50s were shattered, never to be put on again. Are we better for have lived through those dark days? No, but we are wiser.

[democrat2thecore]

24. Memories

My earliest memory was Kennedy's assassination, but the summer of 1967 through Watergate was scary, uncertain. The only time I liked a Republican president was seeing President Ford fixing his own breakfast and all that. It was like we could all breathe a sigh of relief as it seemed so much uncertainty, for so long, was behind us. The Nixon resignation ended a very uneasy and frightning era.

[Gman]

25. A time of great turmoil

the likes of which we had not seen before, nor since.

I was in 4th grade when JFK died. The day before he died we saw JFK drive by in his motorcade in San Antonio. He waved at us standing their in our Catholic School uniforms. He was Catholic too. He was gone literally less than 24 hours later. That was very traumatic.

I was older and more aware of things going on in '68. There was so much hope for Bobby in '68. They killed MLK, then they killed Bobby. It's all the same people that did it. Which is why, once the primaries were over and I reluctantly, but obediently got behind Obama, I started to see Bobby in him. That's why I have this knee jerk response now to defend him every time someone disses him.

I live in the South so there was an atmosphere of bittersweetness when MLK died. I knew he was a great man. My dad despised him.

[wovenpaint]

26. An interesting question

I've found myself "going back" to those times over the last week or so as things are "feeling" like the early '70's to me-and I'm re-connecting with friends from that time, seemingly out of the blue...
I was very young for JFK, but vividly remember it being announced in class (elementary level). The others were like one jolt after another. Consider that this was in addition to the escalating Vietnam War that was on TV nightly. My friends coming of age and all of us sweating out the draft with them... Weekend protests, the moratorium, Kent State was a jolt... Music was VERY important to us, so add in the loss of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Altamont...then Woodstock (I almost went but was thwarted by my dad, lol). It was a very "heady" time (pun intended, lol). I remember getting into an argument as to whose death was more significant to history, RFK or MLK. I felt it was MLK, but others argued that it was RFK. Boy, were they mad at me!
Ah yes, it was quite a time overall, "continually jolted" is what I keep coming up with as a general feeling - and I feel lots of deja vu like this since 2000. The only things missing this time around are all the protests and demonstrations...they may come yet.
And one more thought: we didn't seem to have this sense of overwhelming fear that I think stifles people from speaking out today...edited to add that I think anger/outrage may have masked fear.
:hi:

[polmaven]

112. I was in school too,

but a freshman in high school. We were doing "double sessions" in those days, due to overcrowding, and the freshman were in the afternoon session, going to school from 12 noon to 5pm.

A friend, and I acted as "office pagettes" during 3rd period each day, and I was delivering a note on the third floor, when my Civics teacher walked by as I reached to top step and said...."Somebody just shot the president". I had to grab the railing so I wouldn't fall down the stairs.

When I got back to my spot outside the office, I told my friend what the teacher had said, and just then, one of the secretaries came out and invited us into Mr. Barry's office to watch the "breaking news".

Just before the bell rang, Walter Cronkite announced that the president had died.I was crying, my friend was crying, the secretaries were crying, but, for this 13 year old, the most striking sight was seeing the principal of the high school, Mr. Barry, wiping tears from his eyes.

My next class was Civics, with the same teacher who had broken the news of the shooting.

Nothing quite so dramatic with the shootings of MLK or RFK, or Malcolm X, but I flashed back each time to that moment. I remember saying, when my mom woke me and told me about RFK, "Oh no! Not again! Why is this happening?"

[Contrary1]

27. Sad, very sad...

I lost my hope for this country when Bobby died, and I have yet to find it again.

[dixiegrrrrl]

81. Yes...exactly.

Thank you for pointing that out.
As much as my head was up my ass at the time, I distinctly remember thinking,
and feeling
" it's all over now"
as i watched the news.
I got politcally active about issues not too long after, but not on the presidental level.
Bobby's death, at the time, made me really aware the government was not to be trusted, and this was long before Watergate cinched it.
When Ford pardoned Nixon, I stopped voting, until Obama.

[SeattleGirl]

28. I was 8 when Kennedy was assassinated.

I was 13 when MLK and RFK were assassinated. That whole period, in my mind, is covered by a huge black cloud.

[Catshrink]

58. We're about the same age.

And you summed it up nicely. I was confused about it but also wrapped in the cocoon of family. My Dad was an avid news watcher so we knew what was going on but not why. I remember watching the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago with him and screaming when the police were beating the protestors. And then, my BIL got drafted. He didn't go to Vietnam because he had a trade that was needed stateside but it still brought the war front and center for the family.

It was a dark time.

[madrchsod]

31. "it was the best of times, it was the worse of times"

a tale of a country torn apart by death,destruction,and rebellion. a tale of a country despite it`s horrors of war reached it`s zenith. civil rights,the great society programs,and the belief we could conquer any problem that our nation faced...we were not perfect nor were we cowards. d we knew if we worked hard we could survive.

those days seem so long ago and so far away.....

[Blue_In_AK]

64. Funny, I used that same quote below

before reading your post.

[Frosty1]

32. We had a saying back then

If they can't buy you out they will blow you away.

[moondust]

33. Tumultuous.

Hard to stay focused due to all the major distractions--both good and bad.

[JohnnyLib2]

34. Life went from light to dark, and the dark lasted a long time.

It's hard, maybe impossible to convey how hard those events hit, especially being combined with the Viet Nam disaster, the draft and all.

[imdjh]

35. I don't consider myself a Boomer, but the body count on the nightly news is something I remember

I also vaguely remember JFK's funeral, and the endless discussion about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. I remember the photo in the paper of Jack Ruby. The memories are like old black and white photos, gray and dingy. All the adults were devastated and I just didn't get it.

But the body count was much later. The nightly news was like a war movie, with seemingly live footage of battles, at least that's what I remember. My sister's boyfriend went into the Navy to avoid being drafted. Old men in the barber shop were saying terrible things without any regard for the fact that a ten year old boy was sitting there, and it was my great uncles barbershop. For some reason, I didn't feel the need to discuss any of this, it fell into the category of adult-noise. But at the same time, the protests were registering and this incredible cultural explosion was going on.

It was so strange; race riots, body counts, and at the same time this huge upswell of newness and hope. People were dressing and acting crazy, in a good way. The music was reflecting all of this; from the Beatles, to Barry Sadler, with Elvis in the background and Bubble Gum Music in the foreground. Greasers were turning into hippies and old people were wearing variations on pop fashions. Music stores, health food stores, and head shops were popping up in rundown and upscale places, it was like everyone was under 25 years old, but you know that a lot of them were actually pushing 40. My dad didn't change much, but my mom found her inner hippie. Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, 1984, Kurt Vonnegut, and The Doors all seemed terribly important to my older siblings and my parents. I just wanted the clothes. I wanted huge bellbottoms, Nehru shirts, and these clownish beach shorts, moccasins, and Roman sandals. I wanted to let my hair grow long, and I did.

[Stinky The Clown]

36. Constant waiting for the fall of another shoe

[scarletwoman]

37. One trauma after another. I was 14 when JFK was assassinated.

It was incomprehensible -- how could such a thing happen in the U.S.A.?

My whole family -- lifelong Democrats -- were glued to the TV in those first few days, so we saw the live coverage of Oswald's murder in real time. How to describe that... it was the most shocking thing anyone had ever seen since the arrival of television.

So we sat there in our living room -- my mom and dad and younger sister and me -- having just witnessed an actual murder on live TV! How does anyone process such an unprecedented event?

The first words out of my dad's mouth -- which I vividly remember to this day -- were these: "Well, I guess they've made sure we'll never find out who really killed Kennedy."

That did it for me. I grasped right then and there that there were dark powers at work in the shadows, that truth was in full retreat -- being beaten back by sinister forces one could only guess at.

So, I never believed in the pronouncements from authority again.

The murders of MLK and RFK were awful, horrible body blows, but the shock wasn't the same for me. I already knew that great evil had been unleashed in the land, their deaths were just further evidence of what I'd come to understand back in 1963. Their deaths merely drove home the truth of the existence of the dark forces which had already triumphed through the whitewash of the Warren Commission.

sw

[Catshrink]

61. I remember seeing Oswald shot live on TeeVee.

My mom said "I knew he was gonna get shot!" I was young and confused. Then there were the days of solid JFK footage until the funeral. We watched that live, too. Those images are firmly planted in my mind.

[madamesilverspurs]

39. Oddly freakish.

We grew up having bomb drills at school, encouraged to have bomb shelters in our homes. We had to know which stations to dial to "in the event of an emergency" - what was that called, was it conelrad? At the same time, television had moved into our living rooms; so, while we were making sure the shelter supplies were kept current, we were being entertained by "I Love Lucy" and the "Mickey Mouse Club". "Leave It To Beaver" and "Dobie Gillis" and "Father Knows Best" didn't show them doing drills or building bomb shelters, and all the parents on TV had twin beds; but the tension with the Russians dominated the news. I remember getting a special book, in the fourth grade, that taught us about the evils of communism; it was part of our curriculum. Communists were to be feared at least as much as we feared polio. Fear was big. It seemed that we spent our days learning to be afraid, and our evenings pretending otherwise.

Our music went from "Moonlight Serenade" to songs that praised cars and celebrated surfing. Some days there seemed to be damned small correspondence between what was and what we said it was. You couldn't say the word "pregnant" on television, but you could discuss how many more times over we could kill the Russians than they could kill us. Small wonder that shows like "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits" found ready audiences.

I think that television became a confirmed presence with the JFK assassination. Very few of us weren't glued to a set for days on end. We watched the murder of Oswald on live television. After watching footage of Vietnam and trying to look at the faces while hoping to God I didn't recognize any of them, and after watching RFK's speech and then his death, after losing the magnificence of MLK --- at some point in there I reached a personal moment of "what the hell!" It was like being given a box full of puzzle pieces that turned out to be several puzzles all mixed in together, and that I was expected to be able to assemble them with all the pieces face down.

I watched, with everyone else, the first steps on the moon; and I was confounded by the vivid contrast between what we were able to do and the things that we chose to do instead. Instead of tuning in, I tuned out. I experimented with drugs but didn't really take to them. But I found cheap wine and dove in headfirst. By the time I was old enough to vote being awake meant being drunk. And it was many years before that changed.

In the mid-1980s I'd been sober for a few years when a bunch of us got together to play the new Baby Boomer edition of Trivial Pursuit. It was a bit shocking to find out how much we didn't remember.

[dixiegrrrrl]

66. Your remarks left me breathless. Beautifully expressed.

[Taverner]

94. "I was expected to be able to assemble them with all the pieces face down. "

Damn!

[texanshatingbush]

40. Divisive times.....

Racism and intolerance in my own family (father mostly). Hatred everywhere. Lady Bird Johnson spat on at a rally in Dallas by upstanding Republican women in their "good Republican fur coats".

I'll never forget when I found out about JFK. I had been in American History class in 10th grade; bell rang for class change; walked out door to be met by a friend who told me Kennedy had been shot. I still remember her name, the color & pattern of the blouse she was wearing, the gold chain around her neck, her dark long hair, the color of her lipstick, her lips moving--but I don't remember the sound of her voice saying the actual words.

Entire school was agitated and abuzz. I heard someone call out "Where's Miss Moon?"--our aged Latin teacher and card-carrying member of the John Birch Society.

Later, in English class, the principal came on the loudspeaker and announced that President Kennedy had died. A girl in the desk next to me was sobbing softly. School was dismissed early.

The funeral--strongest memory is the constant sound of the muffled drums during the funeral march. We were watching TV when Oswald was killed--my mother was the only one in the family who actually saw the perpretator of the event on the TV screen when it occurred.

Fast-forward: early one morning, I heard my mother and my father talking. Mother wanted to wake me up to tell me Bobby Kennedy had been killed. Derisively, my father said: what's she going to do--get up and jog a couple of miles in his memory? My brave little mother came in and awakened me anyway and told me the news.

The music of the era was great--full of feeling and high ideals. "Freedom" was mentioned a lot. Boys grew mustaches and beards and wore their hair long, to the everlasting disdain of the older generation (my father). Anyone who wore a beard was the enemy. My own personal sweet revenge: I withheld from my father the notice that my Special Honors professor had a beard. Dad really liked him, because the professor thought I did GREAT work. At the conclusion of the semester, I told dad the professor had a beard. He was visibly shocked.

The Vietnam War was in our living rooms in living bloody color every night on the 6PM news with Walter Cronkite. We saw so much of it that we became numbed to its horrors. I loved and respected Walter; if he said something, you knew it was true and right. My father supported the war; I did not, but dutiful daughter that I was, I dared not "march" in any of the anti-war rallies at the university I attended (that southern phrase--he'd peel my head like a peach--always came to mind when I considered it). I was standing in the lunch line in dorm dining room one day, reading a letter from Mother, when I suddenly read that my high school biology teacher's son (their family also went to our church) had been shot out of the sky over Vietnam and was now a POW. I cried--this was my only personal contact with the tragedy of the war.

It was the time in which I became an adult, and a time which made an everlasting impression on me. I think I am a better person for having lived in that era.

My Repuke brother told me, the last time we spoke over a year ago, that "everything that's wrong with this country today is the fault of you and your hippie generation". Au contraire, my brother, au contraire.

[omega minimo]

41. Funny you should ask.

[pipi_k]

42. As someone else said, it was the best of times, and the worst of times

I was 16 in 1968...still relatively innocent, as innocence goes, and I see 1968 as being the final year of my innocence, for many reasons.


bittersweet.

Painful for the good, painful for the bad


In some ways I thought the whole world was going crazy. And it was frightening

[leftofthedial]

43. It was hard to believe that all the crazed "lone gunmen"

were really to blame. Every one of them was HIGHLY suspicious.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

45. These two photos tell a big part of the story

Those five years saw what must have been the fastest social changes in American history.

Student protesters at Berkeley in 1964. They look as if they're going to a mass job interview at a bank, don't they?



Five years later, here's a shot of the audience at Woodstock



Everything changed--not only the clothes and hair, but also the music, sexual behavior, attitudes towards government and the military, racial attitudes, you name it.

The reason we boomers remember JFK's assassination so vividly is that it marked the beginning of a period in which EVERYTHING changed.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the assassinations of RFK and MLK marked the end of any real leftward politics in America. If those two had lived, we'd probably look more like Scandinavia politically than like an empire with a declining standard of living.

[Autumn]

46. Shattered. And the hits

just kept coming.

[Wednesdays]

47. K&R

:kick:

[Individualist]

48. Chaotic.

[hedgehog]

50. I'm forever imprinted to expect the worst when I hear the phrase "this is a special report"

I'm bothered when I see flags at half staff and don't know the reason. It makes me turn on the radio to see who just died.

My youngest sibling is 4 years younger than me. He was very shocked at the Rodney King riots because he had no memory of the riots during the late 60's, early 70's. That was the difference between being 8 and being 12.

[BlooInBloo]

80. :(

[Hansel]

98. This is when the term "breaking news" really meant something.

When the words "this is a special report" or "breaking news" were uttered or flashed on the screen it made your stomach sink.

[pipi_k]

114. Yep...unlike these days

When "breaking news" can sometimes mean there's a slow speed car chase going on 3000 miles away or the Pope has broken his wrist giving Communion or something else equally trivial in the larger scheme of things.

Back then "Breaking News" or "This is a special report" were ominous words...

[mr1956]

51. I remember a sense of hopelessness in 1968

I clearly remember JFK assassination and being sent home early from school, the eerie silence throughout the city.

I clearly remember when King was assassinated. Same stunned silence throughout my neighborhood followed by an explosion of violence and rage. There were riots within blocks of my house and my older brother was out there so my father went into the melee to find him. The next day we drove through the worst part of town, the worst hit during the riots... still smoky from all the fires, the national guard patrolling the streets with their big guns and tanks... the devastation.

For years I blocked out the rest of 1968 (I was 11 years old), I just remember conversations that "they" would kill anyone who wanted to help black people in America. We sort of expected RFK would be killed. There was this one song that summed up my feelings, don't know the name but it went.. Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham, can you tell me where he's gone... Anybody here seen my old friend John... Anybody here seen my old friend Martin. I seem to remember the name Bobby was added to the original in short order.

Walter Cronkite was always the news source we turned to for those special reports. I miss his style of reporting.

[Blue_In_AK]

67. That was Dion who sang that song,

and it was very moving to me as he had been my "teen idol" when I was in junior high.

[Lagomorph]

52. It hasn't really changed.

Ever since the country started dealing with social justice issues, really dealing with them, it's been pretty much a roller coaster. People are still getting killed for making a stand.

[Joe Fields]

53. I was an adolescent during that time frame and it was damned scary.

I lived in suburbia and so, when I thought about life in the micro, I was safe and felt a great comfort zone. But when I thought about life in the macro, such as when I would sit and watch the nightly news with my folks, there was a feeling that the world was going to just split wide open. I vividly remember the "duck and cover" drills for nuclear attack that we had through most of the years I was in grade school. Everything is still so shockingly vivid. The asassinations, the war coverage on the daily t.v. news, the riots in Watts, Detroit, Chicago, student rioting on campuses all around the country, the 68 convention, the anti-war demonstrations, the hippie movement....

Everything happened to fast, it was sensory overload and way too much for an impressionable boy to handle.

[Rowdyboy]

54. What an intriguing question....I was 9 in 1963 when JFK was murdered....

A school crossing guard gave me the news gleefully. I went home and asked my mom how we should feel. She said we should be very, very sad.

Malcolm X died on my 11th birthday (2/21/65) but I had no idea at the time.

My junior high had not yet desegregated in 1968 when Dr King was murdered. I clearly remember being sickened by the news. But nothing beyond that.

Bobby Kennedy was different. I had a sleepover with a first cousin and woke up hearing a television from the next room describing how he had been shot. I'd followed the campaign quite closely and was heart broken as only a 14 year old can be. I was glued to the television for days-he had the most potential of any politician I've ever seen before Barack Obama (and that includes Bill Clinton).

It was, as others have said, a gut wrenching period to live through.

[Z_I_Peevey]

56. I was still in grade school, but

by the time RFK was assasssinated, I think part of me gave up hope. My grandparents--good, solid Okies who stayed through the Depression, who believed in unions and justice for the common man--were horrified by the rise of Nixon. Today, in my neck of the woods, they've been replaced by dittobots and Glenn Beck fans. It seems unreal.

Don't forget, there was rioting too. The nightly Viet Nam footage and death count. Burning American cities were not uncommon on the tube. George Wallace running for president. Nixon as the "saner alternative."

[Warren Stupidity]

57. It was kind of like realizing that the people in charge are murderous nazi fucks.

By the time King and RFK got hit if you were not eating tinfoil for breakfast you were not paying attention.

[madmom]

59. I remember holding and crying with my cousin (I was 9 she was 8) because we were

so afraid of what would happen to her dad. He was in the army stationed in Germany. We thought he would never come home. Happily he did.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

60. The end of any illusions about America being "exceptional".

Although, my few illusions ended with Kent State.

[JitterbugPerfume]

62. I felt heartbroken,betrayed and abandoned

I knew in my heart that liberalism had been delt a blow that it would take a generation to recover from.

[Blue_In_AK]

63. It's very difficult to put into words

what it was like during that time. I was a senior in high school when JFK was killed and a senior in college when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. These events most certainly shaped my political outlook for the rest of my life. I remember literally crying for days after John Kennedy was assassinated, and everything was so confusing with Oswald also being murdered. Nothing made sense.

There were also the civil rights issues during that time, the riots in Detroit and Watts and even where I was living in Houston. I was a white girl originally from the north with a lot of black friends (UH was integrated, our athletic teams had just started accepting AA players the year I began college, but there was still quite a bit of tension) and I took a fair amount of verbal abuse for it. The only place where I ultimately felt that I fit in was with the counterculture. It's lucky I was a senior in 1967-68 when I was staying pretty consistently stoned, or I probably wouldn't have graduated.

My friends were going to war and returning changed. One of my very best friends later died of a heroin overdose.

Despite it all, I had some very good times in those years. I guess in some ways it was "the best of times and the worst of times."

[omega minimo]

65. references

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6092829&mesg_id=6092829

[Blue_In_AK]

69. I shed a tear for Walter, as well,

even though I knew he had been ill and was likely to pass away soon. There will never be another like him. He is woven into the fabric of our lives, those of us of "a certain age."

[omega minimo]

71. Yes

I was surprised by my own reaction... the children of those times were imprinted with those events.......

[RagAss]

68. My first memory in life was the hit on Lee Oswald by the leaders of the coup ....

Forgive me my paranoia...that was one fucking hell of a start !

[omega minimo]

72. How old were you? Did you see it on TV?

[RagAss]

74. I was five... my grandfather and I were in the living room watching when it happened...

He said in Italian to me(my first language) a phrase translated as "They got him right away"

[omega minimo]

76. Wow. Jello Biafra talks about the same memory.

What did you think your grandfather meant by that?

[RagAss]

77. My grandfather earned his citizenship by joining the US Army in WW I...

He knew the score in this country. Hell it was obvious to many of us in the Northeast.

[RagAss]

78. In keeping with the story of the day.... here's a big hint ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpF6HwMVZUA

[omega minimo]

91. "Somtime ya gotta catapult the propaganda!!"

[kentuck]

73. I was a Junior in HS when JFK was assassinated..

...and I was in Vietnam when RFK and MLK were assassinated. It was a terrible time.

[ThomWV]

126. So was I, in all three events we were in the same circumstance

I could have written those exact words.

[Flying Dream Blues]

79. I remember eating dinner while the news was on...watching very real scenes

of the Vietnam War; lots of shooting, carrying bloody wounded into helicopters, etc. It was very real, not like today's wars, where we are intentionally insulated from the carnage being carried out in our names.

I remember being in Memphis after MLK was killed; we were young but what I remember was the way the adults seemed scared and sensed danger everywhere. Everyone in the city had to be home before dark, if I'm remembering correctly...a citywide curfew.

I was in first grade when JFK was killed, and too young to really understand except to realize that all the adults were crying and scared. Duck and cover drills were done monthly, and at the beginning of school our parents had to fill out a form to instruct the school what they would do in a nuclear warning event...pick us up, have us walk home, or stay at school (safe under our desks.) All of my nightmares growing up had to do with watching bombs (actually, "The Bomb") fall and trying to outrun them. That and communists...before first or second grade I thought of them as one would a monster, that they would kill you and eat your brain or something.

Vietnam was part of my life since I could remember, and only ended the year I graduated from high school. So many died, we all had POW bracelets but I guess I was too young to really protest more. I think of that time...all the assassinations, wars and threats of nuclear annihilation as a time I was mostly just numb to the whole thing. After Nixon, like a lot of people, I was completely cynical about politics for a long time.

I also look back and think because we almost had to be numb to get through life in the cold war age, how easy it was for whoever was responsible for the assassinations to just push a story and have it swallowed. This did nothing but embolden the long evil line since then. I truly hope we are turning the corner and more people are waking up. It sure seems hopeful when the Rethugs are finally being exposed and brought out from under the shiny rocks they've been hiding under.

[ipaint]

82. It felt like what I feel today

after living through the last 30 years of conservative government.

[madamesilverspurs]

83. Just had one of those chills run down my spine

while reading everyone's memories of those horrible events. Made me think about the drumbeat of "Obama's going to take your guns away", the shouts of "kill him!" at McCain-Palin rallies, the constant facetime and microphone for the likes of Pat Buchanan, the teabaggers' caricatures of Obama as Hitler or Mao (and the unabashed support they get from mainstream media), the raving fulminations of Bachmann with the clear intent to create fear of Obama, the increasing numbers of white supremists in our military...

Dear God, our nation doesn't need any more memories like the ones we're sharing here. But,






we have a phenomenal President who happens to be black. And THEY don't like it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

84. What a deep question you ask.

As i read the comments of others, it hit my why I still feel anxious a lot of the time, and why,
for me, pot was my drug of choice.
Us "boomers" grew up in the shadow of WWII, our parents and grandparents were still being affected by the Depression and war, emotionally, and then we were in Korea.
While we were in elementary school, the flavor of FEAR was the "Red Menace" and russia coming to kill us by nukes. McCarthy was on tv a lot. Pictures of nuclear explosions were on the tv a lot.
And everybody watched tv, as a family, usually, but tv was extremely hypnotic, so our little minds were filled with pictures and ideas we had no ability to process, just react to. And the primary idea was FEAR.
Cronkite was soothing. Avuncular. Our family watched him. The tv news came on for an hour and you had to choose a channel and my parents chose CBS and Cronkite, as did my grandparents.
My grandmother talked back to the tv a lot, so I could hear her saying " That's right, that's right" when she agreed with Cronkite and saying " Those Communist bastards".
I remember the Cuban Missile crisis,( Oct 1962) watching the frequent tv "BREAKING NEWS" updates, my Mom was a nervous wreck, sitting hunched in front of the tv, smoking ( everybody smoked then, it seemed) and drinking coffee, convinced we were going to be blown up.
Anywhere in town, at school, people were quiet and tense.
Then Kennedy was killed, I was in the dentist chair, it was just after my 18th birthday, and the dentist canceled the appt, told me to go home, that the President had been shot. He was very shaken.
I walked home, the streets were empty, my Mom was again glued to the tv, we all just sat and watched Cronkite, for hours, no body wanted to move, not even to go to the bathroom.
And I clearly remember Cronkite announcing Kennedy's death. Vividly can replay that moment.
We watched tv for days. Watched Ruby shoot Oswald, watched the funeral, cried when John John did his salute. It took weeks for the sadness and uncertainty to diminish.
Fear of WW3, nukes, Communism, the ending of Camelot, always it was Cronkite.

'66, '67 and esp. '68. Hope and fear and determination, massively anti-government feelings,
we were waking up, we were questioning the government, energy was in the air, the music was of hope and change and power, visions of a new world. The Beatles were incredibly important then.
The deaths of King, Kennedy, Malcolm X actually solidified "the movement".
Mayor Daly of Chicago really added fuel to the fire during the Convention, when he unleashed the cops onto the demonstrators.
I was a young adult, free to express my own feelings, but married with 2 baby boys, which actually led to instant anti-war, anti-cannon fodder feelings, much to the dismay of my then husband, who had come back from 'Nam in 64, long before McNamara's little war really got going.
It was a powerful time, from the depths of shock and fear to the heights of possibility, then back to despair.

And that was just the 60's. The early 70's were a powerful continuation of the energy.

Thanks for asking the question, Taverner. It was helpful for me see that time again, in perspective of now.

[Thothmes]

107. It wasn't McNamara's little war

It was Lyndon B. Johnson's big war. He ordered it to happen. McNamara just carried out the orders of the President of the United States.

[BlooInBloo]

85. Two words from my parents: scary and exciting.

[goclark]

86. As an African American during those troubled time

each event was so heartbreaking.

The hurt within our community for the senseless killings of ALL of the leaders named was one long nightmare.

I say ALL because, among the college age students there were many that truly followed Malcolm X and what most of White America( at that time) called " radical" leaders as well.

For the young African Americans, those were the days of "Black Power" as well as " I Have a Dream" and certainly, every Black American that I knew LOVED JFK and RFK, loved them!

Angela Davis and many others were telling us to stand up and say,
" I'm Black and I'm Proud." Jesse Jackson was telling us to say it with him...
" I AM Somebody!"
"I may be poor but I AM somebody!
"I may be BLACK but I AM Somebody...!"

When John Carlos raised his hand at the Olympics, we were watching it in my living room. All of us started jumping around hugging each other and saying , " Yes! I'm Black and I'm Proud!...."

Looking back at those times, speaking for my circle of friends, we became strong Civil Rights supporters and wanted to prove to the world that " Black Was Beautiful." As I reflect on it, I recognize that ALL of the Heroes that were senselessly killed, became our heroes for life and that even includes Malcolm and Company.

There may be some here that will want to put down Malcolm X but in our community, he represented our anger and encouraged us to be strong in our beliefs for our people.

And remember, Malcolm was the thorn that gave MLK the liberty to be "more acceptable" to many in the Majority community. Their families were/are still great friends.





We were probably the first generation of African Americans that was truly PROUD to be Black. That was a major plus for us as a people. We wanted to be "BE" somebody ~ and most of us can look back and say that those role models were a major force in shaping our success in life.

PS/ One more Memory ~ I Met MLK and I will hold that Memory In My Heart forever....

My Sorority was hosting their National Convention in Philadelphia. All of the undergrads in attendance were invited to a Church to hear a major speech given by Dr. King.

To be in his presence was magical.

At the end of his speech, the National President asked all of the college young ladies to form a line to meet Dr. King.

We were so excited and we all lined up to shake his hand.

He was magnetic. When my turn came, I was immediately drawn to his eyes. They looked right at me and his eyes and his words almost willed his words to happen.

MLK said to me: Young lady, I am pleased to meet you. What college are you attending and what is your major?

I said: Dr. King, I want to be a Teacher after I graduate from USC.

He said, with his eyes looking right at me, as if he willed it to happen: Young Lady,you will be a GREAT Teacher!"

If I may say so myself, he was right! : )

I'm rushing to go to a wedding ~ excuse any typos

[havocmom]

89. Wow. thank you for sharing your thoughts and memories

LOL, if you hadn't gone on to become a GREAT teacher, it would have been a terrible loss. Perhaps he bestowed a blessing on you, by showing how much faith he had in you? The wind beneath wings is what good teachers provide. Sounds like you got that directly from the source.

[goclark]

111. Thank you ~ your words made something click in my head

You said..."Perhaps he bestowed a blessing on you, by showing how much faith he had in you?"

I agree, it was a blessing. Every time I was honored as a Teacher and a Principal, I always said to myself, "Thank you, Dr. King, you would be proud of me today."

And, every time I see President Obama look into the face of a child and spend precious moments looking right into his/her eyes, I think of my moment with Dr. King.

I believe President Obama and MLK share the ability to connect and make you feel so special that you know they will be pleased with you giving your best throughout your life.


Thank you for making the connection for me.

[BlooInBloo]

92. :))))))

[Taverner]

95. Your post put tears in my eyes

Posts usually don't do that sort of thing for me ya know...

[goclark]

119. Your appreciation made my day~

thanks

[bobbolink]

97. What a beautiful sharing--DU at it's best! thank you so very much!

What you said about Malcolm is so true, and what I've felt for all these years. He made Martin "legitimate", in a sense. He paved a way.

I don't know if it's ever possible to have great change without this kind of pain, but I do know that the pain never leaves. It affects us the rest of our lives, and I think a lot of the denigration of "boomers" is at least in part because what happened to our spirits from all the death and violence.

I was in high school during the Freedom Rides, and therefore too young to participate, but I dreamed of being there..... of being part of such an important action. Later, I wondered if I really would have had the courage to be a part of all of that..... but I know I wanted to.

All I know is, we have a terrible leadership gap now, and I WANT MY LEADERS BACK! I don't feel like I've done a very good job in trying to walk in their path. :(

[goclark]

124. Your thoughtfulness brings sunshine to my day.

:fistbump:

[RebelOne]

87. I remember JFK's assassination and was deeply saddened.

The first time I ever voted in a presidential election was for JFK.

[WolverineDG]

88. I was 5 in 1968 so don't remember much

I do remember my parents being worried & anxious. In college, one of my professors said that there was so much turmoil in 1968, he thought the world was coming to an end. Everything was turned upside-down, MLK, then RFK were assassinated, the Chicago 7, the televised police beatings of reporters at the Chicago convention, the war protests, it was like living in an insane asylum, he said. Never knew what to expect when he watched the news that night.

On edit: need to add Kent State & Malcolm X

This photo really hit my mother hard for some reason (let's just say she had nothing good to say about war protestors, but seeing kids shot for doing it really hit her in the gut):



dg

[northernlights]

90. I was in the 5th grade when JFK was killed

I never expected to reach 30. I remember hiding under our desks some years, and in hallways other years, for nuke bomb drills. I was too young at that age to know we wouldn't survive. I wonder how the teachers could either believe, or pretend to believe.

One afternoon our teacher was called down to the principal's office via intercom. We sat there staring at each other, wondering what was going on. When she came back, she was crying and said, "Our President has been shot."

I was in my teens for Malcolm X, MLK and RFK. I wanted to be a hippy, but was too young and scared to run away. Malcolm X didn't impact me much, but I remember feeling sickened as I watched RFK announce MLK's assassination.

And RFK's assassination took all hope, all trust, all belief in the government with it.

I've had guarded hope with Obama, but too many 'insider' appointments to hold it.

[havocmom]

116. Same age, same experiences in school.

Except our principal came to the classroom and called Mrs. Pyles into the hall to tell her about JFK. She almost hit the floor.

I heard about it when I went home for lunch. I was the first kid at school to know the flag was at half staff for a reason besides the janitor's drinking problem

Malcolm X, MLK and RFK, those were hard and it did feel like all hope and sanity was dead along with them

RFK had been at our high school football field for a rally the Saturday before the CA primary. As he clung to life, our campus was as silent as a tomb. We were devastated. We all knew kids who had graduated and were in Nam. We wanted the war over. We felt like life was over.

I hope the Obama appointments are just pragmatic and not problematic. I hope he gets to see his grandchildren graduate from college. But our early years have given us a reserve about the future.

Duck and cover drills, first under desks then in the school hallway. That's training that tends to set a tone for life. '63 and '68 sure as hell reinforced the point.

[alfredo]

93. It was scary. Nobody was saying out loud that Democrats were being

targeted.

You know that George Wallace, if he hadn't been shot, could have cost Nixon the Whitehouse. RFK would have won. Read "Body of Secrets." The chapter on the Cuban Missile Crisis Bay of Pigs, and the Super Patriots will give you some hints as to why he was assassinated.


Malcolm X made the mistake of going rogue. He went on the Haj and saw that Muslims come in all colors. The white man wasn't the devil, and blue eyes were not evil. Because of that he died. Elijah Mohammed saw him as a threat.

[PatSeg]

96. I don't remember it as a "dark time" as some people have said

and not a hopeless time either. For all the chaotic, violent events, there were also positive changes I didn't think were possible at the time. All that chaos brought more than pain and fear, it also brought major civil rights changes, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war, Watergate, etc.

I frequently go back to that time and look at it from a different perspective and I am still amazed at the changes that took place, changes that younger people take for granted today. I lived the events individually then and now I can view them more as a whole slice of history.

As painful as some of these events were, the era that proceeded it was oppressive and limited unless you were a middle class white male. I remember more "change" than I do "fear", though I was disappointed later when the change slowed down and many liberals melted into society. I guess that any society can only absorb so much change in a given period of time.

For me, it was an era that comprised some of my best and some of my worse memories.

[Hansel]

99. The Cuban Missile Crisis had the most profound impact.

I can still visualize myself as a six year old girl sitting on the floor beside my bed with my hands over my ears and silently rocking because I was so terrified that we were going to be hit by a nuclear bomb. I was terrified of what the Russians were going to do to us and they seemed bigger than life. It was as though any second their tanks would arrive in our town. This all because my next door neighbor came over frantic about the threats and saying that other neighbors had started building fallout shelters. My parents weren't going to build one and thought our neighbors were nuts. This did not make me feel safer. I wonder about the poor children who have grown up with the constant fear mongering over 9/11. They must also be terrified.

When Kennedy was shot I was in 4th grade taking a history test and my teacher came in crying. She told us "the president has been shot" and to pack up because we were going home. Everything was very surreal and everyone was glued to the screen watching Walter Conkrite. I saw it live when Oswell was shot, although I didn't quite understand what was going on until after the fact.

I remember Rosie Greer was one of the people who subdue Sirhan Sirhan when Bobby Kennedy was shot. Again, this was another surreal event. My parents were starting to get numb to these events. And depressed.

When Martin Luther King was killed it was also a surreal event. But by this time I was a teenager and was more interested in smoking pot. I don't remember the events well, but do remember I was pissed.

I watch in horror as the time elapsed for Appollo 13 to come back into radio range and Walter Conkrite said "the time has come and past". His concern was palpable and I began to tear up. My father designed one of the parts for Appollo 13, so I followed it closely. We were afraid that his design might have cause some of the problems. It did not.

Our family sat around the dinner table as my Father asked for our input on how to trigger a cluster bomb. We gave our best advice and the bomb was successfully designed. Even though our advice probably never made it into the final design, I can remember great guilt when the students at my school were protesting the use of this bomb in Vietnam and calling it's creators cold blooded murderers.

[struggle4progress]

100. The sixties were a wild rollercoaster ride: high highs and low lows. It was "land of the free

and home of the brave" meets "it ain't necessarily so." A whole generation walked towards adulthood and met a two-faced god, who offered great expectations with one hand and annihilation with the other. By 1970, I still had my ideals -- but had lost almost all hope. Science and technology had great promise but seemed destined to lead us to ecological disaster or nuclear holocaust. The corporate media was transparently dishonest. "The land of the free and home of the brave" stole its well-being from the hungry mouths of poor people abroad

Even after his death, I met lots of people who still hated JFK -- and they were likely to tell ugly racist jokes about MLK, so I didn't bother seeking their reactions at that assassination. I learned about RFK's assassination from a waitress at a truckstop, who was mainly interested in seeing the TV footage of the killing, that was supposed to be replayed later that day. In 1970, when Kent State was occupied by the National Guard, there was considerable opinion that the dead kids deserved it

We walked on the moon in that decade, and it was still a dark and terrible time

[Skittles]

101. surreal

[MichiganVote]

102. It was a movie with a continous plot that never seemed to end. Some still search/ending.

[babsbunny]

103. This is so wierd! This has been a conflict in my house for the past week!

See, me, my Brother and my Husband all went to a 90% Black Junior High School. A week ago we discussed how things are getting better with Black and White Folks. I mentioned what we went through in School after Martin Luther King was killed, and that I have totally forgiven the Kids in our school, and I was proud to say that. Well, the Brother and Husband both said they can't forgive, and my Brother is a Christian. They are still dealing with this and I had no idea! Leave it to me to bring it up again last night. Hubby and I are not on speaking terms.

[spanone]

104. 68 sucked

[graywarrior]

105. Deep depression and lots of alcohol and drug use.

[mmonk]

106. Sad and infuriating. That was when we were making progress

and change on many fronts and the rightwing extremists and power brokers knew it.

[gleaner]

108. It was as if....

the country was losing its collective sanity in a series of shocking and jarring murders. I felt as if I had lost something of value in myself; a faith in people or innocence. I felt like we were being eaten by darkness and I knew that we would never be the same again. We haven't been. I was an anti war kid who supported Eugene McCarthy, a peace candidate in 1968. When McCarthy lost his primaries he urged us to support RFK, and so I did, only to see his assassination on television that night at the Ambassador hotel.

Then Nixon did become president and he brought with him a personal and political darkness that I do not think we will ever escape. In 1970 there were the murders at Kent State and Jackson State on the same day with a recording of a National Guard Officer telling the soldiers at Kent State to shoot to kill into the crowd of demonstrating students. I felt then and I still feel that the order came from the Nixon administration. It was partly the two attacks on demonstrators on the same day and partly that the National Guard would not have fired without authorization from above. I wasn't even that surprised by Watergate. It seemed like business as usual for Nixon and a huge disaster for society at large which no one seemed to care about anymore.

After we had Nixon, the Republicans gave us Reagan, Papa Bush and finally Baby Bush to complete what I consider as my own personal "axis of evil." So here we are, stuck in the muck and debris that their policies have left behind, fighting to get out and survive. We probably will, and I hope we do, but I will never again be able to look at the body politic without feeling the need to look over my shoulder to make sure no one is sneaking up to bash my head in either figuratively or literally.

[Fire1]

110. In a word, revolutionary. n/t

[theboss]

113. That's a weird question. Is anyone going to answer, "It was great! It was awesome"

It probably was a little on the depressing side is my guess.

[varelse]

115. Well, I remember that Mom was crying a lot and I didn't know why

and I could not comfort her.

I was not born yet when JFK was killed (although I was 'on the way') was 8 months old when Malcom X was murdered, just shy of 4 years old when MLK was shot, and two days away from my fourth birthday when RFK died.

Mom hated (well ok - still hates) Nixon and Kissinger with a passion I never fully understood until recently.

[lilytea]

118. HA!

anybody who remembers the 60's weren't really born in it

[L. Coyote]

120. Shooting people for political purposes. What do you suppose it was like?

It felt like you could get shot for being a liberal, or a black, or an Native American, of course.

Hell, it still does, but their methods are less obvious now.

[ladywnch]

121. I was 10 when Bobby and MLK were shot

I remember calling upstairs to my mother the morning after he was shot, "mom, they shot Bobby Kennedy.....they shot another one".

It didn't really register. It just kinda felt like it was becoming the 'norm'. Like the nightly 'box score' from the war....x number killed, x number wounded, x number missing...only now it was prominent people at home too.
It was disturbing but it was more like surreal......

[kwassa]

122. Duck and Cover

many of my memories are the same as the others here on this board.

the early 60s with the air raid drills in school, as if huddling in the hallways would protect us when the Soviets would fire their nuclear missiles at us.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, another transformative moment.

JFK getting shot, and then spending the next four days in front of the television until the funeral was over. It is hard to describe how incredibly devastating it was to everyone in the country. It is like discovering that you don't live in a civilized country after all. I also saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live t.v.

I grew up in a college town, and the '60s were major fun, too. I went to Woodstock with a bunch of friends. I went through a brief period of major drug use, then sort of slowed down and stopped. Much sexual experimentation, it was the era for that.

Big demonstrations against the war. Race riots in my high school. Kent State shootings were pretty local, and we knew people who were there.

The music was fantastic throughout, and it was the brief period of time when it was the essential means of communication for young people was music.

when I went to art school in 1970, it was a let-down, it was after Kent, everything turned cool, everyone got into themselves, thought the Vietnam war protests continued. still, I went to school with Gus Van Sant, now a film director, and David Byrne, Cris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth who would later form the Talking Heads.

[blues90]

123. it was a horrifying time

picture the same thing happening now and change the names of those murdered , add in a draft and invision the idea today of the possibility of nukes dropping on your town and be in your late teens waiting for that greetings letter with a draft card in your wallet.

OH you could find a job and on the job training and get decent pay without spending a fortune on college and have healthcare but there was that hovering thought of ending up on a plane to Vietnam and seeing 45 years of video of the presidents head blown apart and seeing 58,000 names on a wall some who you knew. And all these years later we are still bombing people.

You get that past to this present all stuck in your mind and most of your life sorting.

[Born_A_Truman]

125. My memories

My junior year we were living in San Diego during the Cuban missile crisis. It was a very tense time. Dad kept our gas tank full at all times. Why, I haven't a clue. We were doing drop and cover at school, getting under our desks as if they could shield us from a nuclear bomb. Unreal times. Dad got his Navy chief's uniforms out of storage and had them cleaned in case he was called back to active duty. We really felt we were going to have WWIII.

I was a senior in HS sitting in Business Law when a teacher ran by yelling "the president's been shot!" and I remember thinking, "president of what??" I couldn't comprehend MY president, JFK, being shot. Then our teacher confirmed it and that he was assassinated. OMG. We all just got up and left the class and the whole school it seemed gathered in the grassy area in the middle of the school and the PA system was playing the news on the radio.

I walked home in silence. My mother was sobbing. We watched the coverage on our B&W tv in the living room for what seemed to be days. I remember JFK Jr's salute and Jacki in her black veil. The sadness was overwhelming. I had ditched school and went down to San Diego to see JFK when he gave the commencement address at San Diego State. He was charismatic and young and full of hope and it washed over all of us. He couldn't be gone!

[D-Lee]

127. LBJ and his Great Society were incredibly positive

LBJ now is unappreciated for two reasons, I think. First, we tend to remember the end of his presidency, when his Vietnam policy was discredited. Second, the Kennedys pretty much despised him as a yahoo (despite his VP role for JFK) and those to remain standing often control history's subsequent assessment.

The fact that there was a "dump Kennedy" movement has been forgotten and ignored by most -- the reason for that movement was that JFK couldn't get anything passed in Congress (and didn't effectively use LBJ). Lots of style, not much action on substance. The Cuban missile crisis was his great historical boost (although it seems to be unrecognized that almost any president would have acted the same way).

LBJ's early years as president were fantastic -- he secured the passage of civil rights, education and health legislation, all of which still play a positive role even today. He had incredible skill at the legislative process, no surprise given his background. Oh, that Reid had such skills now ...

Without LBJ's contributions to our country, the MLK and RJK assinations would have had a far more negative impact on the country as a whole.

And I still respect LBJ's positive influence, even though I absolutely opposed Vietnam from the very beginning of the protests, when we were starting petitions and teach-ins ... and even though I was a great McGovern supporter. And, given that Eisenhower and JFK were in favor of Vietnam involvement, it would be a gross error to blame LBJ entirely for the view that Vietnam involved some type of American interest because he was following the assessment of other American presidents (I was really a child when Eisenhower got us involved and thought it was really stupid to think we should get involved in something the French couldn't handle).

History will eventually get it's LBJ assessment right, probably recognizing him as a great success for his social legislation and a great failure for Vietnam. I suspect that LBJ's seeming depression at the end of his term came from his recognition that such would be the case and would keep him from being recognized as another FDR.

Bush's abuse of the Constitution, government, and the electorate, and his war crimes -- compared to LBJ's actions -- are like trying to compare a volcano with an anthill (see post 109).

As to your specific questions, I remember the RFK last couple of speeches before his assination -- where he seemed to undergo a great blossoming and finally depart from those few final vestiges of his pretty cold-hearted career history. I remember the MLK riots (but don't forget we had a few years of riots, starting with the earlier Watts riots, so riots were a lot less unusual then and had a context -- and on that assination, the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis has an incredible display which makes out an absolutely convincing case of a conspiracy and Ray's guilt as the gunman). On Malcolm X, the shooting just seemed very fishy and I thought it would take a good while before the reasons became clear -- and that, while the Black Power movement seemed necessary to move blacks forward, couldn't see what the Muslim influence (with its lessening of the influence of women and history of involvement in the slave trade) brought to the table; nonetheless, I was really looking forward to the development of his thinking and thought his death a great tragedy.

I've gone on at such length because you seem to want actual details. Hope this post helps!

[jdadd]

128. Here is my story......

In about 1959 when I was in 5th grade, our class was given a talk by the local civil defense chapter about the importance of building a home bomb shelter. This scared the shit out of me! I took the literature home and gave it to my dad, Dad said he "didn't want to live in a world after such an event, and he'd take his chances without a bomb shelter." I also remember all the home and Car radios had special marks on the dial to identify emergency (Civil defense) channels. Funny story about the bomb shelters, about ten or so years ago, a local contractor gave a bid to demolish a house, six miles north of here to make way for an Outback steakhouse. He found a home bomb shelter, made of re enforced concrete, he had to rent larger equipment, than he owned, to get the job done. He lost his ass on that job. He didn't bother to inspect the property prior to submitting his bid.

I was just a month shy of my 15th birthday when Kennedy was assassinated. I was in 9th grade mechanical drafting class when we got the news, Some of my classmates actually cheered. I remember Mr Steen, the teacher, getting really angry at these students, and giving them a good ass chewing, I sat there in total disbelief. The next four days are kind of a blur, I spent them watching the proceedings on tv, and hanging out with my buds at the local hangout, The sandwich bar, I can still hear the drums. I was playing the pinball machine, when someone came in, and told us that Oswald had been shot.

1966 was probably my best year of the sixties, I got laid, fell in love, and had my first heartbreak. 1967 was pretty good, the Summer of love, I got laid, a lot! The whole sex game changed that year. I was out of school, and scared of getting drafted. I was 1-A and waiting for the inevitable letter from the draft board. The deaths of Malcom X, Bobby Kennedy and Martin luther King just added to the general confusion I was going through at that time. In 68 I got my first "real job" at Westinghouse electric, which I held for 22 years. The Letter from the draft board came in Dec of 68. as it turned out, I was one of the lucky ones that didn't get sent to Nam, I read Soul on ice by Eldridge Cleaver about this time. This book gave me a deeper understanding of race relations. I spent my tour in Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Germany.

The sixties were like a roller coaster ride for me, I learned a lot, the sixties formed the liberal person that I am today.

[LWolf]

130. I was born in 1960.

Too young to remember JFK, except that family was still talking about him when I was old enough to remember.

I listened to the adults around me, and understood things from the perspectives that they shared.

I knew that the assassination of JFK devastated my mom. There was horror, and anger, for MLK, and I sat in front of the tv with her as she sobbed broken-heartedly in 1969.

I knew my grandparents feared for their friends Molly and Bill, who were active in the civil rights movement. There were many worried conversations about them.

I didn't fully understand the scope of the times, but I knew it was an angry time. When young men in our circle played "Alice's Restaurant" on the guitar, I, and the rest of the kids, sang along.

I was 10 or 11 when my mother took me to hear Angela Davis speak; it was from that time forward that I became more aware of the social and political issues that lay underneath the events during my first decade of life.

Why?

[TahitiNut]

132. False premise. It wasn't "LIKE" anything. That's why it was chaotic.

It was a time that had no peer in our history.

[ensho]

133. I was shocked that the govt. didn't close EVERYTHING down when

Kennedy was killed in order to get the murderers.

it was a terrible time and left scars that are still raw

it ain't over