Arguably the most tumultuous decade of social change since the Civil War, the Sixties transformed and divided American society – civil rights struggles, a unprecedented militancy and engagement across the spectrum of social and political issues, a war on poverty and inner city blight, an exponential expansion in environmental awareness, space exploration and exploration of the inner self, revolutionary new music and other cultural expression, a sharpening of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race - and a redefinition of how nations and peoples fought “hot” wars. If you look at America in 1959 and jump ahead to 1969, it seems everything changed.
We will revisit this decade with Frye Gaillard as our guide through his masterful storytelling in A Hard Rain, winner of the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Literary Prize and one of NPR’s Great Reads of 2018. Gaillard weaves together the stories of the protest movements: Civil Rights from non-violent marches to Black Power and urban riots; SDS and the YAF (Young Americans for Freedom); the Free Speech Movement that spread from one college campus to another; the anti-war movement and the pro-war counter-movement; women’s right and the embryonic gay rights movement. At the same time, he tells the stories of political, cultural and social changes from George Wallace to Robert Kennedy, from music to fashion, from changing sexual attitudes to hippies and the drug culture. Gaillard melds multiple themes to present a comprehensive account of this watershed period in modern American history.
