Protests of 1968 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The protests of 1968 consisted of a worldwide series of protests, largely participated in by students and workers.

Background

Background speculations of overall causality vary about the political protests centering on the year 1968. Some argue that protests could be attributed to the social changes during the twenty years following the end of World War II. Others argue that protests were a direct response to perceived injustices, such as those voiced in opposition to the Vietnam War

Opposition to the Vietnam War

The movement against US involvment in the in Vietnam War began in the United States with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years. The US became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in Vietnam, and those who wanted peace. Peace movements consisted largely of...

Non-communist states

After World War II, much of the world experienced an unusual surge in births

Post-World War II baby boom

The end of World War II brought a baby boom to many countries, especially Western ones. There is some disagreement as to the precise beginning and ending dates of the post-war baby boom, but it is most often agreed to begin in the years immediately after the war, ending more than a decade later;...

, creating a large age demographic

Demographics

Demographics are the most recent statistical characteristics of a population. These types of data are used widely in sociology , public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location...

. These babies

Baby boomer

A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...

were born during a time of peace and prosperity for most countries. Permissive

Benjamin Spock

Benjamin McLane Spock was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand...

theories of childrearing, popular in the West, taught them that their happiness was important to others. This was the first generation to grow up with television in their homes. Television had a profound effect on this generation in two ways. First, it gave them a common perspective

Perspective (cognitive)

Perspective in theory of cognition is the choice of a context or a reference from which to sense, categorize, measure or codify experience, cohesively forming a coherent belief, typically for comparing with another...

from which to view the world. The children growing up in this era shared not only the news and programs that they watched on television, they also got glimpses of each other's world. Secondly, television allowed them to experience major public events. Public education

Public education

State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...

was becoming more widely attended and more standardized, creating another shared experience. Chain stores and franchised

Franchising

Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....

restaurants were bringing shared shopping and dining experiences to people in different parts of the world. These factors all combined to create a generation that was more self-aware

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...

and more united as a group than the generations before it.

Waves of social movement

Social movement

Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....

s throughout the 1960s began to shape the values

Value (personal and cultural)

A personal or cultural value is an absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based...

of the generation that were college students during 1968. In America, the Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights movement

The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

was at its most violent. So, too, in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, where it paved the way for an organised revolt against British governance. Italy and France were in the midst of a socialist movement. The New Left

New Left

The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...

political movement was causing political upheavals in many European and South American countries. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

had already started. Great Britain's anti-war movement

Peace movement

A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

was very strong and African independence

African independence movements

The African Independence Movements took place in the 20th century, when a wave of struggles for independence in European-ruled African territories were witnessed....

was a continuing struggle.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

and the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

was another shared experience of this generation. The knowledge that a nuclear attack

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

could end their life at any moment was reinforced with classroom bomb drills creating an atmosphere of fear. As they became older teens, the anti-war movement and the feminist movement

Feminist movement

The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...

were becoming a force in much of the world.

The feminist movement made the generation question their belief that the family was more important than the individual. The peace movement

Peace movement

made them question and distrust authority even more than they had already. By the time they started college, many were part of the anti-establishment

Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture of the 1960s refers to a cultural movement that mainly developed in the United States and spread throughout much of the western world between 1960 and 1973. The movement gained momentum during the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam...

culture and became the impetus for a wave of rebellion that started on college campuses and swept the world.

The college students of 1968 embraced the New Left

New Left

politics. Their socialist leanings and distrust of authority led to many of the 1968 conflicts. The dramatic events of the year showed both the popularity and limitations of New Left ideology, a radical leftist movement that was also deeply ambivalent about its relationship to communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

during the middle and later years of the Cold War.

Communist states

Protests were held in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

, Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, as the first mass protest in Yugoslavia after the Second World War. (The Communist world had already seen at several mass protest after World War II by 1968 - Hungary, East Germany

Uprising of 1953 in East Germany

The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread anti-Stalinist uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day....

and several in Poland.) After youth protests erupted in Belgrade on the night of July 2, 1968, students of the Belgrade University went into a seven-day strike. Police beat the students and banned all public gatherings. Students then gathered at the Faculty of Philosophy

University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy

The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Serbia, founded in the early 19th century within the Belgrade Higher School...

, held debates and speeches on the social justice, and handed out copies of the banned magazine Student. Students also protested against economic reforms, which led to high unemployment and forced workers to leave the country and find work elsewhere. President Josip Broz Tito

Josip Broz Tito

Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

gradually stopped the protests by giving in to some of the students’ demands and saying that "students are right" during a televised speech. But in the following years, he dealt with the leaders of the protests by sacking them from university and Communist party posts. The protests were supported by prominent public personalities, including film director Dusan Makavejev

Dušan Makavejev

Dušan Makavejev is a Serbian film director and screenwriter, famous for his groundbreaking films of Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

, stage actor Stevo Zigon

Stevo Žigon

Stevo Žigon was a famous Serbian and Slovenian actor, theatre director, and writer. His origins were primary Italian....

, poet Desanka Maksimović

Desanka Maksimovic

Desanka Maksimović was a Serbian poet, professor of literature, and a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.-Biography:...

and university professors, whose careers ran into problems because of their links to the protests. Protests also broke out in other capitals of Yugoslav republics - Sarajevo

Sarajevo

Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....

, Zagreb

Zagreb

Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

and Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...

- but they were smaller and shorter than in Belgrade.

In Poland in March 1968, student demonstrations at Warsaw University broke out when the government banned the performance of a play by Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

(Dziady
Dziady (poem)
Dziady is a poetic drama by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It is considered one of the great works of European Romanticism. To George Sand and George Brandes, Dziady was a supreme realization of Romantic drama theory, to be ranked with such works as Goethe's Faust and Byron's Manfred.The...

, written in 1824) at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw

Polish Theatre in Warsaw

Polish Theatre in Warsaw The theatre was initiated by Arnold Szyfman and designed by Czesław Przybylski. Finished in 1913, the facility featured Poland's first revolving stage. It a private enterprise staging Polish and foreign classics, contemporary drama, as well as popular plays.The theater was ...

, on the grounds that it contained "anti-Soviet references". It became known as the March 1968 events.

In the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

Prague Spring

The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...

, Czechoslovakian citizens responded to the attack on their sovereignty with passive resistance. Soviet troops were frustrated as street signs were painted over, their water supplies mysteriously shut off, and buildings decorated with flowers, flags, and slogans like, "An elephant cannot swallow a hedgehog." Passers-by painted swastikas on the sides of Soviet tanks. Road signs in the country-side were over-painted to read, in Russian script, "Москва" (Moscow), as hints for the Soviet troops to leave the country.

The protests

The protests that raged throughout 1968 included a large number of students. Worldwide, campuses became battle grounds for social change. While opposition to the Vietnam War

Opposition to the Vietnam War

dominated the protests (at least in the United States), they also protested for civil liberties

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

, against racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, for feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, and the beginnings of the ecological movement

Ecological and Environmental Movement

The Ecological and Environmental Movement , also rendered as Cyprus Green Party, is a green political party in Cyprus.At the legislative elections, 27 May 2001, the party won 2.0% of the popular vote and 1 out of 56 seats. In the elections of 21 May 2006, the party won 2.0% and 1 out of 56...

can be traced to the protests against biological

Biological warfare

Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...

and nuclear weapon

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

s during this year. Television, so influential in forming the political identity of this generation became the tool of choice for the revolutionaries. They fought their battles not just on college campuses but also on the television screen by courting media

News media

The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...

coverage.

Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

, Rome, London and many U.S. cities saw relatively small protests against university administrations. Some countries, like Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

and Brazil, had more widespread protests against repressive governments

Political repression

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....

. In Paris, Italy and Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, the students were joined by the labor unions

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

.

In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement had turned away from the south and toward the cities in the north with the issues of open housing

Fair housing

In the United States, the fair housing policies date largely from the 1960s. Originally, the terms fair housing and open housing came from a political movement of the time to outlaw discrimination in the rental or purchase of homes and a broad range of other housing-related transactions, such as...

and the Black Consciousness Movement

Black Consciousness Movement

The Black Consciousness Movement was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in...

. The Black movement unified as a movement and gained international recognition with the emergence of the Black Power

Black Power

Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...

and Black Panthers organizations and their support of violence as a means of protest.

The German student movement

German student movement

The German student movement was a protest movement that took place during the late 1960s in West Germany. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students...

s were largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, particularly in relation to the poor living conditions of students.

Students at the University of Madrid
University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a public university in Madrid, Spain, and one of the oldest universities in the world.The University of Madrid may also refer to:* The Autonomous University of Madrid, a public university founded in 1968...

protested the involvement of police in student demonstrations, protested the Dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...

Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

's regime, and demonstrated about trade unions and worker rights.
Students in 108 German universities protested for recognition of East Germany, the removal of government officials with Nazi pasts and for the rights of students.
In what became known as Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...

, Czechoslovakia's first secretary Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubcek
Alexander Dubček , also known as Dikita, was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia , famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring...

began a period of reform, which gave way to outright civil protest, only ending when the USSR invaded the country in August.
In January, police used clubs on 400 anti-war protestors outside of a dinner for U.S. Secretary of State Rusk.
On January 30, 300 student protesters from the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

and the National Theater School were beaten with clubs by state arranged anti-protestors.
Orangeburg massacre
Orangeburg massacre
The Orangeburg massacre was an incident on February 8, 1968, in which nine South Carolina Highway Patrol officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina, fired into an aggravated but unarmed mob protesting local segregation at a bowling alley, hitting most of them in their backs. Three men were killed and...

- On February 8, a civil rights protest in Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, also known as "The Garden City," is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city is also the fifth oldest city in the state of South Carolina. The city population was 12,765 at the 2000 census, within a Greater Orangeburg...

, turned deadly with the death of three college students.
In February, protests by professors at the German University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

demanded the resignation of the university's president because of his involvement in the building of concentration camps during the war.
In February, students from Harvard, Radcliffe
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

, and Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

held a four-day hunger strike to protest the war.
10,000 West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

students held a sit-in against American involvement in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.
People in Canada protested the war by mailing 5,000 copies of the paperback, Manual for Draft Age Immigrants to Canada to the United States.
On March 1, a clash known as battle of Valle Giulia
Battle of Valle Giulia
The Battle of Valle Giulia is the conventional name for a clash between Italian left-wing militants and the Italian police at Valle Giulia, Rome, on March 1, 1968...

took place between students and police in the faculty of architecture in the Sapienza University of Rome.
On March 8, the 1968 Polish political crisis began with students from the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...

who marched for student rights and were beaten with clubs. The next day over two thousand students marched in protest of the police involvement on campus and were clubbed and arrested again. By March 11, the general public had joined the protest in violent confrontations with students and police in the streets. The government fought a propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

campaign against the protestors, labeling them Zionists. The twenty days of protest ended when the state closed all of the universities and arrested more than a thousand students. Most Polish Jews left the country to avoid persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...

by the government.
In March, students in North Carolina organized a sit-in at a local lunch counter that spread to 15 cities.
In March, students from all five public high schools in East L.A. walked out of their classes protesting against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. Over the next several days, they inspired similar walkouts at fifteen other schools.
In March, Italian students closed the University of Rome
University of Rome La Sapienza
The Sapienza University of Rome, officially Sapienza – Università di Roma, formerly known as Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy...

for 12 days during an anti-war protest.
On March 6, 500 New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

(NYU) students demonstrated against Dow Chemical because the company was the principal manufacturer of napalm
Napalm
Napalm is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, primarily as an anti-personnel weapon...

, used by the U.S. military in Vietnam.
On March 17, an anti-war demonstration in Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, England. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from their surname, "Grosvenor".-History:...

, London, ended with 86 people injured and 200 demonstrators arrested.
Japanese students protested the presence of the American military in Japan because of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

.
In March, British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

students turned violent in their anti-war protests (opposing the Vietnam War), physically attacking the British defense secretary, the secretary of state for education and the Home Secretary.
On March 28, the Military Police of Brazil killed high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto
Edson Luís de Lima Souto
Edson Luís de Lima Souto was a Brazilian teenager student killed by the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro after a confrontation in the restaurant Calabouço, in downtown Rio de Janeiro...

at a protest for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. The aftermath of his death generated one of the first major protests against the military dictatorship.
On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

, was killed, sparking violent protests in more than 115 American cities, notably Louisville
Louisville riots of 1968
The Louisville riots of 1968 refers to riots in Louisville, Kentucky in May 1968. As in many other cities around the country, there were unrest and riots partially in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. On May 27, 1968, a group of 400 people, mostly blacks, gathered at...

, Baltimore
Baltimore riot of 1968
The Baltimore Riot of 1968 began two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Rioting broke out in 125 cities across the United States, and spread to the city of Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, April 6. The Governor of Maryland, Spiro T...

and Washington, D.C.
1968 Washington, D.C. riots
Five days of race riots erupted in Washington, D.C. following the April 4, 1968 assassination of Civil Rights Movement-leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil unrest affected at least 110 U.S...
On April 23, students at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

protested the school's allegedly racist policies, three school officials were taken hostage for 24 hours. This was just one of a number of Columbia University protests of 1968
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...

.
The admittance of the South African team brought the issue of Apartheid to the 1968 Summer Olympics
1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...

in Mexico City. After more than 40 teams threatened to boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...

, the committee reconsidered and again banned the South African team. The Olympics were targeted as a venue to bring the Black Movement into public view. The entire summer was a series of escalating conflicts between Mexican students and the police.
In April, Spanish students protested at the "fascist regime" of Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

sanctioning a mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

for Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. At the beginning of spring the University of Madrid was closed for thirty-eight days due to student demonstrations. Students protesting against the military dictatorship
Military dictatorship
A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

were killed in Brazil.
On April 20, Enoch Powell
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, MBE was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP and Minister of Health . He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech in opposition to mass immigration from...

made an anti-immigration speech that sparked demonstrations throughout England. His Rivers of Blood speech
Rivers of Blood speech
The "Rivers of Blood" speech was a speech criticising Commonwealth immigration, as well as proposed anti-discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom made on 20 April 1968 by Enoch Powell , the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West...

helped define immigration as a political issue and helped legitimize anti-immigration sentiment.
May 1968 in France - The French May protests started with student protests over university reform and escalated into a month long protest. The trade unions joined the protest resulting in a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...

.
On May 24–27, students in Stockholm instite the occupation of the Student Union Building
Occupation of the Student Union Building
The occupation of the Student Union Building was one of the most talked about events in Sweden in 1968. Students at Stockholm University decided to occupy their own Student Union Building at Holländargatan in Stockholm on 24 May-27 May 1968 to send a political message to the government.The students...

.
In August, the 1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. Because Democratic President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek a second term, the purpose of the convention was to...

in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

was disrupted by five days of street demonstrations by thousands of anti-war protesters. Chicago's mayor escalated the riots with excessive police presence and by ordering up the National Guard and the army to suppress the protests
1968 Democratic National Convention protests
The 1968 Democratic National Convention had a significant amount of protest activity. In 1967, protest groups had been promising to come to Chicago and disrupt the convention, and the city promised to maintain law and order. For eight days, protesters and the Chicago Police Department battled for...

.
In September, the women's liberation movement
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....

gained international recognition when it demonstrated at the annual Miss America
Miss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

beauty pageant. The week-long protest and its disruption of the pageant gained the movement much needed attention in the press.
On October 2, after a summer of protests against the Mexican government and the occupation of the central campus of the National Autonomous University (UNAM)
National Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...

by the army, a student demonstration in Tlatelolco Plaza
Tlatelolco massacre
The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco , was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City...

in Mexico City ended with police, paratroopers and paramilitary units firing on students, killing over a hundred persons.
In October, the Rodney Riots
Rodney Riots
The Rodney Riots were riots and civil disturbances in Kingston, Jamaica in October 1968.The riots were inspired when the Jamaican government of Hugh Shearer banned Guyanese university lecturer Dr. Walter Rodney from returning to his teaching position at the University of the West Indies...

in Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...

, were inspired when the Jamaican government of Hugh Shearer
Hugh Shearer
Hugh Lawson Shearer, ON, OJ, PC was the third Prime Minister of Jamaica, from 1967 to 1972.Born in Martha Brae, Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, near the sugar and banana growing areas, Shearer attended St Simon's College after winning a parish scholarship to the school.In 1941 he took a job on the staff...

banned Guyanese university lecturer Dr. Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian and political activist, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.-Career:...

from returning to his teaching position at the University of the West Indies
University of the West Indies
The University of the West Indies , is an autonomous regional institution supported by and serving 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica,...

. Rodney, a historian of Africa, had been active in the Black power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...

movement, and had been sharply critical of the middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

in many Caribbean countries. Rodney was an avowed socialist who worked with the poor of Jamaica in an attempt to raise their political and cultural consciousness.

Movements that began in 1968

The environmental movement can trace its beginnings back to the protests of 1968. The environmental movement evolved from the anti-nuclear movement. France was particularly involved in environmental concerns. In 1968, the French Federation of Nature Protection Societies and the French branch of Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...

were formed and the French scientific community organized Survivre et Vivre (Survive and Live). The Club of Rome

Club of Rome

The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and...

was formed in 1968. The Nordic countries

Nordic countries

The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...

were at the forefront of environmentalism. In Sweden, students protested against hydro-electric plans. In Denmark and the Netherlands, environmental action groups protested about pollution

Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light...

and other environmental issues. The Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association

The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation which campaigned for equal civil rights for the all the people in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s...

began to start, but resulted in the conflict now known as The Troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

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