Strayer Ch 24 pp 734 - 739

The 20^th Century was a groundbreaking movement in terms of liberation movements. Especially by the 1960s. There were civil rights movements by Africans Americans and Hispanics, there was a youthful counter culture with a large emphasis on “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll;” prolonged by civil unrest and protests over the war in Vietnam. In France there was a large student protest against the Fifth Republic’s values because the government hadn’t provided adequate housing or facilities for students to be educated. The movement attracted the middle class and was brutally put down by the police, which spread to a movement of 9 million workers striking. There were also protests in Germany and Italy. In that same year there were protests in Czechloslovakia aiming to reform the communist regime from the inside out, but the Soviet Union sent in troops and tanks to crush what they considered a revolt to their absolute rule. These movements were largely led by scholars, students and activists. Che Guevara in Latin America was one of these revolutionaries, but he was not fighting through the use of Gandhian peaceful protest tactics. He and other revolutionaries were actually in military skirmishes with Latin American regimes. Feminism also really took off in the 1960s. It became more of a global effort because even communist regimes started to acknowledge feminist movements. Feminism had kind of stalled after the 1920s. It was like, where could it go after women gained the right to vote? The movement in the 60’s focused on things like having sexual liberation and having iconoclastic irreverence towards holidays such as Mother’s Day and institutions such as the Miss America contest. There were also calls for equal rights for gays and lesbians.  They looked back to 19^th Century womens movements  for ideas since there was nowhere left to go with the woman’s vote.