Good stuff on the fifties Marty. I remember tuning into Jean Shepard on the
radio at night with the radio right next to my ear. Then I would share his
dialogues with friends.
Yes, this hopefullness of the late 50's I also remember. Many of our parents
were hopeful for change esp. an end to racism and even a hope for peace. The
progressive people(our parents) voted in John Kennedy. I attribute my active
participation in the movement and even my decision to join the Weathermen to
a strong patriotism that I picked up from my parents who were avid Kennedy
lovers. We stood for hours on a corner near our house just to see Kennedy
drive by in his motorcade. It was a cold day but he stood up in his vehicle
without a coat and waved to us.
So long sixties list,
davidel
----- Original Message -----
From: Marty Jezer <mjez@sover.net>
To: <sixties-l@lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 2:03 PM
Subject: Re: [sixties-l] Glad The L's Back
> At 06:34 AM 6/6/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> > Anyway, I remember the later 50's as being an
> >extremely exciting and hopeful period. We felt change in the air.
> >Gretchen Dutschke
>
> Speaking of the complexity of generations, we need a fresh look at the
> fifties. The conformist, organization man, suburban buttoned-down repress
> fifties was the mainstream reality, but there was so much going on beneath
> the surface. As Abbie Hoffman once said, "there wouldn't have been the
> sixties, if not for the fifties." Or something like that.
>
> Bebop and hard bop, the first folk revival (a breakthrough for what the
> Almanacs/Weavers were trying to do), the beats and abstract
expressionists,
> the sick comics (Lenny Bruce,
> Mort Sahl, etc.) iconoclasts like radio's Jean Shepherd, the Village
Voice,
> doo wop (and white kids getting seriously into black music), not to
mention
> in politics the ban the bombers
> (Committee for Nonviolent Action and SANE), the NYC air raid protests
> (Catholic Workers and WRL). The consensus that dominated the corporate
> fifties began to fracture in the mid-fifties and it was from the
> underground ferment that the new left and the counter-culture was born.
> The civil rights movement had it's own antecedents but the fact that so
> many young whites were ready to embrace the cause stems from the ferment
of
> the fifties.
>
> Just wingin' it,
>
> Marty Jezer
>
>
> --
> Marty Jezer * 22 Prospect St. * Brattleboro, VT 05301 * p/f 802
257-5644
>
> Author:
> Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words (Basic Books)
> Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (Rutgers University Press)
> The Dark Ages: Life in the USA, 1945-1960 (South End Press)
> Rachel Carson [American Women of Achievement Series] (Chelsea House)
> Check out my web page: http://www.sover.net/~mjez
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