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Overview: The Youth Generation of the 1960s

Martin Luther King

"I Have a Dream" speech on 8/28/63
(Washington D.C.)
(see text)

As part of the March on Washington, King delivered this speech at the base of the Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of about 200,000.

shortly after the March on Washington where the "I Have a Dream" speech was delivered, Congress passed sweeping Civil Rights legislation

video - Speech at Brown Chapel 3/8/65
(Selma, AL)

Robert Kennedy's Impromptu Eulogy for Martin Luther King 4/4/68
(Indianapolis, IN)

2 months after delivering this speech, Robert Kennedy himself was shot and killed in Los Angeles

Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz)

Malcolm X proposed "Black Nationalism" as an agressive alternative to MLK's "nonviolence"; the following audio & visual excerpts were taken from an excellent documentary entitled "El Hajj Malik El Shabazz" by Xenon Home Video (Black History Series, XE-XX-1508).

video - Malcolm X Speaks in Harlem (late 1950s)

Malcolm X Speaks His Mind (early 1960s interview at a Harlem high school)

Malcolm X speech at the Audubon Ballroom 3/29/64

11 months later Malcolm X was shot & killed in this same ballroom

Speech given only 8 days before his assassination

Eulogy for Malcolm X
(by Mr. Ossy Davis, friend)

Optimism turns to disillusionment:

Disillusionment sandwiched between two significant events

violence + drugs + antisocial behavior = disillusionment

Changing American society (and representative musical influences on later music):

 

Listen to examples of Protest Songs

These messages of love & peace carried into the music of 1970s:

Get Together by The Youngbloods
(#5, 1969)

Share the Land by The Guess Who
(#10, 1970)

Signs by Five Man Electrical Band
(#3, 1971)

I'd Love to Change the World by Ten Years After
(#40, 1971)

Black & White by Three Dog Night
(#1, 1972)

Love Train by the O'Jays
(#1, 1973)

 

War by Edwin Starr
(#1, 1970)

One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack) by Coven
(#26, 1971)

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