not become confrontational un- creased . Several prominent Hispan-
til the 1960s . Hoping that Lyndon ics have served in the Bill Clinton
Johnson’s poverty program would and George W . Bush cabinets .
expand opportunities for them,
they found that bureaucrats failed
THE NATIVE-AMERICAN
to respond to less vocal groups .
MOVEMENT
The example of black activism in
particular taught Hispanics the im- In the 1950s, Native Americans
portance of pressure politics in a struggled with the government’s pol-
pluralistic society .
icy of moving them off reservations
The National Labor Relations Act and into cities where they might as-
of 1935 had excluded agricultural similate into mainstream America .
workers from its guarantee of the Many of the uprooted often had dif-
right to organize and bargain col- ficulties adjusting to urban life . In
lectively . But César Chávez, found- 1961, when the policy was discontin-
er of the overwhelmingly Hispanic ued, the U .S . Commission on Civil
United Farm Workers, demonstrat- Rights noted that, for Native Ameri-
ed that direct action could achieve cans, “poverty and deprivation are
employer recognition for his union . common .”
California grape growers agreed to
In the 1960s and 1970s, watch-
bargain with the union after Chávez ing both the development of Third
led a nationwide consumer boy- World nationalism and the progress
cott . Similar boycotts of lettuce and of the civil rights movement, Native
other products were also successful . Americans became more aggressive
Though farm interests continued to in pressing for their own rights . A
try to obstruct Chávez’s organiza- new generation of leaders went to
tion, the legal foundation had been court to protect what was left of tribal
laid for representation to secure lands or to recover those which had
higher wages and improved working been taken, often illegally, in previ-
conditions .
ous times . In state after state, they
Hispanics became political- challenged treaty violations, and in
ly active as well . In 1961 Henry B . 1967 won the first of many victories
González won election to Congress guaranteeing long-abused land and
from Texas . Three years later Eligio water rights . The American Indian
(“Kika”) de la Garza, another Texan, Movement (AIM), founded in 1968,
followed him, and Joseph Montoya helped channel government funds to
of New Mexico went to the Sen- Native-American-controlled organi-
ate . Both González and de la Garza zations and assisted neglected Native
later rose to positions of power as Americans in the cities .
committee chairmen in the House .
Confrontations became more
In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of common . In 1969 a landing party
Hispanic political involvement in- of 78 Native Americans seized Alca-
280
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
traz Island in San Francisco Bay and ger and beards became common .
held it until federal officials removed Blue jeans and tee shirts took the
them in 1971 . In 1973 AIM took over place of slacks, jackets, and ties .
the South Dakota village of Wound- The use of illegal drugs increased .
ed Knee, where soldiers in the late Rock and roll grew, proliferated,
19th century had massacred a Sioux and transformed into many musi-
encampment . Militants hoped to cal variations . The Beatles, the Roll-
dramatize the poverty and alcohol- ing Stones, and other British groups
ism in the reservation surrounding took the country by storm . “Hard
the town . The episode ended after rock” grew popular, and songs with
one Native American was killed and a political or social commentary,
another wounded, with a govern- such as those by singer-songwriter
ment agreement to re-examine trea- Bob Dylan, became common . The
ty rights .
youth counterculture reached its
Still, Native-American activ- apogee in August 1969 at Wood-
ism brought results . Other Amer- stock, a three-day music festival in
icans became more aware of
rural New York State attended by
Native-American needs . Govern- almost half-a-million persons . The
ment officials responded with festival, mythologized in films and
measures including the Education record albums, gave its name to the
Assistance Act of 1975 and the 1996 era, the Woodstock Generation .
Native-American Housing and Self-
A parallel manifestation of the
Determination Act . The Senate’s new sensibility of the young was
first Native-American member, Ben the rise of the New Left, a group of
Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, young, college-age radicals . The New
was elected in 1992 .
Leftists, who had close counterparts
in Western Europe, were in many in-
THE COUNTERCULTURE
stances the children of the older gen-
T
eration of radicals . Nonetheless, they
he agitation for equal opportuni- rejected old-style Marxist rhetoric .
ty sparked other forms of upheaval . Instead, they depicted university
Young people in particular rejected students as themselves an oppressed
the stable patterns of middle-class class that possessed special insights
life their parents had created in the into the struggle of other oppressed
decades after World War II . Some groups in American society .
plunged into radical political activ-
New Leftists participated in the
ity; many more embraced new stan- civil rights movement and the strug-
dards of dress and sexual behavior . gle against poverty . Their greatest
The visible signs of the coun- success — and the one instance in
terculture spread through parts of which they developed a mass follow-
American society in the late 1960s ing — was in opposing the Vietnam
and early 1970s . Hair grew lon- War, an issue of emotional interest
281