Causes of the Civil and Social Rights Movements in the 60's and 70's

I believe that the civil and social rights movements, strongly prevalent in the 60's and 70's, were not caused by happenstance. instead caused by the younger generation who were not alive or at least old enough to see the horrors of the second world war and the Great Depression, dissenting against their parent's worldviews.

It is natural for teenagers to rebel against their parents. be it caused by hormonal swings or social climates encouraging said rebellion, ever since the 1920's when being a teenager became real, they have rebelled.  I believe understanding this is crucial to understanding the mindset of young people in the 1950's

Adults of the 1950's had struggled through not only the decade of the Great Depression but also the fear and horror of WWII. So By the 1950's, when it seemed like the bloodshed and poverty was finally over, it makes sense that most Americans would want a quiet life. The idea of raising the "Nuclear Family", and spending the rest of your life in peace, would obviously sound wonderful. After all, after seeing over 15 years of chaos, a boring life doesn't seem too bad. So these adults did just that. The mother stayed home, the father worked, the children went to school, and the world kept spinning. Boring, cookie cutter, certainly unfair to women, but everyone went with it. That is, the system worked perfectly, for older people. Even in the mid-1950's and 60's, the younger generation dissented against the concept of their parent's boring lifestyle. This can be seen as early and the beatnik's who constantly created media that attacked their parent's way of life. Soon after, came, of course, black leaders of the civil rights movements, the main leaders, in the beginning, being young people, just like the beatniks. it seemed that once the black civil rights movement took center stage in the 60's, the floodgates for every other oppressed or minority group to rise up in for their beliefs and rights. the important thing to note is that most leaders of these groups were young. For instance, MLK was only in his late 20's when he began leading his own party of the civil rights movement.

This is why I believe that from the mid-1950's to the end of the 1970's is when the civil and social rights of minority groups were so prevalent, they were started and spearheaded by young people who not only disliked their parents rigid and cookie cutter worldviews but saw and wanted change in their country. Change that the adults of the time were less apt to fight for.


http://www.ushistory.org/us/46c.asp

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr