A hard rain : America in the 1960s, our decade of hope, possibility, and innocence lost / Frye Gaillard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gaillard, Frye, 1946- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social change--United States--History--20th century.

Social change.

National characteristics, American.

History.

Race relations.

Popular culture.

United States.

Popular culture--United States--20th century.

Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements.

Race relations--History--20th century.

National characteristics, American--History--20th century.

Nineteen sixties.

Politics and government.

Social conditions.

United States--History--1961-1969.

United States--Politics and government--1945-1989.

United States--Social conditions--1945-.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xvi, 687 pages ; 25 cm

Other Title:

America in the 1960s, our decade of hope, possibility, and innocence lost

Place of Publication:

Montgomery : NewSouth Books, [2018]

Summary:

"Frye Gaillard has given us a deeply personal history, bringing his keen storyteller's eye to this pivotal time in American life. He explores the competing story arcs of tragedy and hope through the political and social movements of the times - civil rights, Black Power, Women's Liberation, the Vietnam War and the protests against it. But he also examines the cultural manifestations of change--music, literature, art, religion, and science--and so we meet not only the Brothers Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, but also Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Harper Lee, Mister Rogers, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Billy Graham, Thomas Merton, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Barry Goldwater, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Berrigan Brothers. "There are many different ways to remember the sixties," Gaillard writes, "and this is mine. There was in these years the sense of a steady unfolding of time, as if history were on a forced march, and the changes spread to every corner of our lives. As future generations debate the meaning (and I seek to do some of that here), I hope to offer a sense of how it felt. I have tried to provide within these pages one writer's reconstruction and remembrance of a transcendent era--one that, for better or worse, lives with us still."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part I: Possibilites. The Movement ; The voices ; JFK ; The Pill and other changes ; Out with the old ; Reality check ; The Wall ; Sixty-one dingers ; The words of change ; The rainbow sign ; Ole Miss ; The missiles and the making of JFK ; Setting the stage ; 'A line in the dust' ; Murder and dreams ; Women's voices ; Birmingham and Dallas ; The Warren Commission

Part II: Inspiration/Loss. LBJ ; The British Invasion ; Freedom Summer ; Cynicism and free speech ; Landslide ; Keepers of the dream ; The blood of Malcolm ; Marches and martyrs ; Billy Graham speaks ; Vietnam ; Rebellion in California ; Grapes of wrath ; The sounds of music ; A nation at war ; RFK ; Black Power ; Music in Alabama ; 'In Cold Blood' ; 'Is God dead?' ; 'You have the right' ; 'We are all Mississippians' ; Measures of progress ; Dispatches ; The road to Riverside ; Rockwell and the power of art ; 'Burn, baby, burn' ; Long, hot summer of 1967 ; Summer of Love ; Joplin and Ronstadt ; Mr. Justice Marshall ; Jonathan Kozol and Mister Rogers ; The war at home ; A Philadelphia story ; The movies ; Dump Johnson ; The last campaigns ; Grief and rage ; Indiana ; 'Is everybody okay?' ; The shadow of death ; Chicago ; A Southern strategy ; The global sixties ; Earthrise

Part III: The unfinished story. President Nixon ; After Black Power, Women's Liberation ; The specter of busing ; The burning river ; Stonewall ; Dylan, Woodstock, and Cash ; 'One small step' ; Toward a bloody ending ; Homecoming ; Redemption.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 626-665) and index.

ISBN:

9781588383440

158838344X

OCLC:

1038034358