1965–2000

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s many Americans mobilized to challenge injustice in a variety of social movements. The civil rights, black and brown power, antiwar, Native American, gay, environmental, and women’s liberation movements all imagined a different nation that would abolish inequalities and respect the rights of individuals. The bulging baby boom generation expanded their influence in American society by celebrating new music and culture, ways of living, and forms of protest. A new libertine atmosphere allowed men and women to express new gender roles and sexual identities. But by the late 1970s a new conservative movement reacted against these changes in American life and asserted its plans for more limited government and restrictions on abortion and sexual expression. Public reactions to the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal indicated that other limits had been reached as well, largely increasing public cynicism about politics.