God Can Save Us

Rough Country ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Jerry Falwell ◽  
Protestant Denominations

This chapter discusses the emergence of the New Christian Right or simply the Religious Right as a powerful new force in American politics. The rise of the Religious Right has been examined from all angles, and several key factors have been identified. It clearly depended on leadership. The most visible leaders were preacher Jerry Falwell, whose Moral Majority rallies at state capitals had been gaining attention in the late 1970s, and fellow televangelist Pat Robertson, whose popular 700 Club television program included discussions of social and moral topics. Both were canny entrepreneurs who knew how to attract media attention, and there were conservative political operatives eager to enlist their support. There were unifying issues as well, such as opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and promiscuity, and the more general sense that religion was under siege by secularity and humanism. And there were lingering divisions within Protestant denominations and among Catholics over such issues as social activism, the legacies of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, communism, gender equality, the ordination of women, and theology.

When the Movies Mattered

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
New Hollywood ◽  
Urban Decay ◽  
Uncertain Outcomes ◽  
The Times

The “New Hollywood” that emerged in the late sixties is now widely recognized as an era of remarkable filmmaking, when directors enjoyed a unique autonomy to craft ambitious, introspective movies that evinced a cinematic world of hard choices, complex interpersonal relationships, compromised heroes, and uncertain outcomes. The New Hollywood Revisited brings together a remarkable collection of authors (some of whom wrote about the New Hollywood as it unfolded), to revisit this unique era in American cinema (circa 1967-1976). It was a decade in which a number of extraordinary factors – including the end of a half-century-old censorship regime and economic and demographic changes to the American film audience – converged and created a new type of commercial film, imprinted with the social and political context of the times: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, economic distress, urban decay, and, looming, the Shakespearean saga of the Nixon presidency. This volume offers the opportunity to look back, with nearly fifty years hindsight, at a golden age in American filmmaking.

Print News and Raise Hell

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Joel Zogry
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
Student Newspaper ◽  
Print News ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Democratic Rule

This chapter covers the tumultuous 1960s at UNC and beyond, and at the Daily Tar Heel. The 1960 Dixie Classic, UNC’s most infamous sports scandal, is discussed, as is a 1961 speech on campus by President John F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Movement is covered in detail, as Chapel Hill was a center for protest; the student newspaper took on a new activist role during this time, sending reporters across the South to report on Civil Rights events. The infamous Speaker Ban Law is examined in detail, 1963-1968. In 1963 UNC became completely co-educational, and the changes on campus and the issues facing women students is explored, including the role of the sexual revolution, access to birth control, and the fight over legalizing abortion. The major shift in state politics, away from one-party Democratic rule is discussed, and the rise of conservative politician Jesse Helms, who used UNC and the Daily Tar Heel as examples of extreme liberalism and permissiveness to help build his political base. The Vietnam War, the 1969 UNC Foodworker’s Strike, gay rights, and contributions of later renowned cartoonist Jeff MacNelly on the newspaper are other topics in this chapter

5. The iconic Socrates

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-114
Author(s):  
C. C. W. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
The Us ◽  
Intellectual Integrity

‘The iconic Socrates’ considers Socrates’ role as a gay icon and an icon for civil disobedience. In the Platonism revival of the Florentine Renaissance, the high-minded picture of Platonic/Socratic love focused on the spiritual and intellectual perfection of the beloved, but in an alternative ancient tradition Socrates was presented as a sexual enthusiast, with a penchant for attractive boys. The context of Socrates’ emergence as a major political icon of the 20th century was provided by the US civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, but there is no evidence that Socrates ever actually espoused civil disobedience as a political ideology or performed any act of civil disobedience. Socrates remains a pioneer of systematic ethical thought and a paragon of moral and intellectual integrity.

Then and Now: Participant‐Observation in Political Theory

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Constitutional Interpretation ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Difference

This article examines changes in the study of participant-observation in the field of political theory. It explains that in the early 1960s, political theory was widely considered as a moribund enterprise. Empiricists were pushing a new science of politics, designed to replace the options of constitutional interpretation, impressionistic theory, and traditionalism. But by the mid-1960s the end of ideology screeched to a halt because of growing outrage about the Vietnam War, worries among college students about the draft, and the emergence of a civil rights movement. The academic study of political theory was revived and a series of studies emerged to challenge the fact-value dichotomy, the difference between science and ideology, and the public roles of academics.

Politics as Victimhood, Victimhood as Politics

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Horwitz
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract:The victim has become among the most important identity positions in American politics. Victimhood is now a pivotal means by which individuals and groups see themselves and constitute themselves as political actors. Indeed, victimhood seems to have become a status that must be established before political claims can be advanced. Victimhood embodies the assertion that an individual or group has suffered wrongs that must be requited. What seems new is that wounded groups assert a self-righteous claim that they stand for something larger than their particular injury. The article explores how and why victimhood has become such a powerful theme in American politics. It suggests that victimhood as politics emerged from the contentious politics of the 1960s, specifically the civil rights movement and its aftermath. Key factors include the reaction to the minority rights and women’s movements, as well as internal dynamicswithinthe rights movements.

5. Absurdism, protest, and commitment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
The Cold War

The decades 1960–80 witnessed a seismic shift in modern drama. The rage that came to define, and fuel, much of the drama in the 1960s and 1970s is directed at the audience. ‘Absurdism, protest, and commitment’ shows it is a post-war rage stemming from many sources: the Vietnam War, the Cold War, a feeling of betrayal by government and politicians, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, gay rights, feminism, the growing gap between rich and poor, and ethnic oppression. It is all about denying the audience what it expects of a play, provoking it out of real or perceived complacency, startling, and offending it. The plays of Pinter, Shepard, Beckett, Stoppard, Friel, and Fugard are discussed.

World War II Soldiers of Color in James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone and Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima

MELUS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
Jose Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
War Experiences

Abstract Critics have explored James Baldwin's Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968) and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima (1972) through the emergence of their protagonists as artists, while other scholars have focused on Tell Me How Long's emphasis on black nationalism or Bless Me, Ultima's engagement with Mexican American identity; however, the tensions between art and social protest in both novels has not been explored by scholars in relation to the novels' treatment of the experience of soldiers of color in World War II. This article focuses on the novels' depiction of the military service by soldiers of color, their transformation by those experiences, and how the protests and activism against the racism and discrimination experienced by soldiers of color contributed to the long civil rights movement. I argue that through the war experiences of the protagonists' older brothers in Tell Me How Long and Bless Me, Ultima, both narratives similarly present the contributions and experiences of soldiers of color during the war effort as they faced the dilemma of fighting a war for their country only to be denied full citizenship rights at home, which increased their social activism. Tell Me How Long describes the heroic service of an African American in battle in the Italian front that has a historical antecedent in the 92nd Infantry Division known as the Buffalo Soldiers, while Bless Me, Ultima focuses on the effects of the mobilization period in Mexican American communities in the Southwest and the war's psychological effects on returning soldiers.

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