Essay About National Liberation Front And Woodstock Festival

Woodstock
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One didnt simply go to Woodstock: one lived through it. In August 1969, the
Woodstock Festival was the largest counterculture event ever staged, attracting some
500,000 people and featuring many of the countrys top acts. Two decades later,
Woodstock has come to mean more than just “three days of fun and music”; it
symbolizes a time of community, exuberance, and intensity since lost. Woodstock
festival gave power to the youth, united people of all ages, races, and sexes, and defined
a generation, making it one of the most important musical events of all time.
In order to understand the impact and importance of the Woodstock Festival one
must first examine the society that preceded the 1960s and set the stage so to speak for
the events of the Woodstock Festival. The end of World War II brought thousands of
young servicemen back to America to pick up their lives and start new families in new
home and new jobs. With energy never before experienced, American industry
expanded to meet peacetime needs. Americans began buying goods not available during
the war, which created corporate expansion and jobs. Growth was everywhere. The
baby boom was underway. Part of the what happened in the 1950s with increased
employment and income, families had more money to buy things. People could afford
single family dwellings and suburbia was born . In the 1950s a big change happened in
public education. In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren and other members of the Supreme
Court ruled that separate facilities for blacks did not make those facilities equal according
to the Constitution . Integration of the public classroom came about across the nation as
a result of this action.
Perhaps one of the things which most characterize the 1950s was a strong
element of conservatism and anticommunist felling which ran throughout much of
society. The phrase “under God” was added to the pledge of Allegiance. Religion was
linked with anti-communism mind-set. Fifties clothing was conservative. Men wore
grey flannel suits and women wore dresses. Male and female stereotypes were strongly
reinforced, girls played with Barbie Dolls and boys played with guns.
When the 1950s are mentioned, the first type of music to come to most peoples
mind is rock n roll. Developed from a blend of Southern blues and gospel music with an
added strong back beat, this type of music was popular with teenagers who were trying to
break out of the mainstream conservative American middle class mold . Popular musical
artists such as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis set the groundwork for what was to
come in the rock music of the 1960s.
Another element of American culture and society that must be examined to
understand the 1960s is the onset of the war in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was the
longest military conflict in U.S. history. The hostilities in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. The Vietnam War was a military
struggle fought in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, involving the North Vietnamese and the
National Liberation Front (NLF) in conflict with the United States forces and the South
Vietnamese army. In 1965 the United States sent in troops in Vietnam to prevent the
South Vietnamese government from collapsing and turning to communism.
It was into this climate that the “Hippie” counterculture of the 1960s was born.
The sixties was an age of the youth. A movement away from the conservative fifties
continued and eventually resulted in revolutionary ways of thinking and real change in
cultural fabric of American life. The youth of the 1960s were not happy to be clones of
the generation ahead of them. Young people wanted change. The changes the youth
would bring about affected education, values, lifestyle, laws and entertainment.
In the sixties civil rights started to make big changes to the culture. People like
Malcolm X preached black superiority, and organized non-violent and violent protests. In
1964 the birth control pill was discovered, and in Colorado it became legal to get an
abortion. The Hippie counterculture developed the lifestyle of “free love”. Womens
liberation was demonstrated in public “bra burnings”. The visible signs of the
counterculture were felt throughout American society. Hair grew longer and beards
became common. Blue jeans and t-shirts replaced