The Movement, 1969-1976

JFK's election in 1960 got America moving again. Time has come today. The Sixties Student Movement and its moral politics of SM, SNCC, and MLK led after JFK's death to LBJ's political and democratic will to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and his Great Society programs. Start the Sixties with JFK and his youthful flare and charisma. In the Middle Passage of the Sixties praise LBJ's political will and MLK's moral charisma to finally reconstruct a Great Society of black and white, of freedom north and south, or greater economic equality amidst prosperity. Praise LBJ's Great Society but blame him for the Rolling Thunder over Vietnam and an unwinnable war from Danang till TET, 1965-1968. The Student Movement ended in Chicago with Days of Rage and the Townhouse bombing when more radical groups like the Weathermen, Progressive Labor, and the Black Panthers took it over, much like Nixon elected ended the liberal movement of the Sixties with law and order. Nixon did nothing to end the Vietnam War as thirty thousand US soldiers died before him and thirty thousand died during his time in office. A cease-fire ended the war in 1974, when Nixon resigned his corrupt presidency with Watergate, after which America would not return to Vietnam. The unwinnable war ended in 1975 with North Vietnam winning. The Movement ended with Nixon's election. There was much protest of US soldiers fighting the Vietnam War from 1965 till its end in 1975, ten years of involvement America regretted over there and here at home. For the Movement people who grew up in SM and SNCC and liberal politics when Nixon won a landslide victory in 1972, it looked like an end of progress forward. With Watergate Nixon was ousted but not brought to justice. America moved on. Students in the Sixties Movement moved on with their lives. They crossed over to career and family. They grew up with the healing process of this time, 1969-1976, and coming back home they chose to make the personal living of a life more political.