1968 and Today

1968 and Today

                   “The year 1968 is considered one of the most turbulent, and pivotal, twelve month periods in American history,” according to Tom Brokaw. 1968 was truly a crazy year. It was the year of the assassinations of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, of anti-Vietnam War protests, of the Civil Rights movement gaining momentum, of drugs, of women’s-rights and feminism, and much more.  Today, crazy things still happen, but differently from 1968.

          War is a similarity between 1968 and today. In 1968 we were in the Vietnam War and today we are in Afghanistan. There, are many differences between these two wars, though. The Vietnam War there had a draft. The draft called men in their late teens, early twenties, and older to join the war.  Drafts were unfair, mostly because the poorer people had to go to the war if they got drafted, but the richer ones were in college and did not have to go. Later, there was a lottery, where if your draft number was called you had to go to war. Today, there is no draft. If someone is in the war, he volunteered. There probably is not a draft anymore because it did not go over well during the Vietnam War, so America learned from it’s mistakes. Another difference between the two wars is that Afghanistan is not as publicized as Vietnam. Everyone in America knew about Vietnam. There were many anti-war protests. One infamous anti-war protest was right outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Police attacked the protesters, beating them and even gassing them with teargas. There were 18 minutes of pure chaos, police and protesters fighting, hitting, and injuring one another.  In the end, there were hundreds of people injured, and the whole thing had been caught on tape. Today, there are very few anti-war protests, especially none like the one outside of the Democratic National Convention in 1968. In fact, the war does not even cross most people’s minds on a daily basis. There are rarely ever any news reports on Afghanistan, either.

          There are also many differences between 1968 and today. A big difference is race relations. In 1968 African Americans were persecuted on a daily basis. Almost all public places were segregated. Schools, stores, restaurants, buses, and even bathrooms separated the races. There were even protests to stop segregation. The Orangeburg Massacre was one of the many protests to stop segregation. It took place on the campus of the South Carolina State College. It became suddenly violent when police officers began shooting into the crowd. The police officers killed three people and injured 28 others. The protests that went on in 1968, even if they were sometimes violent, did do something, though, because today African Americans are given the same amount of rights as everyone else. In fact, our president is African American.  

          Not just African Americans were protesting in 1968 for equal rights; women were, too. In 1968, some women decided they wanted to stop making coffee and instead make a difference in the world. Women marched on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for equal rights. They burned things like bras as a form of protest. Women from all over the United States went to Atlantic City to join in the protest. These women protesters called themselves the Women’s Liberation Movement. Today, women have many of the same rights men have. There have been studies, though, that show if a man and a women had the same job a man would most likely be paid more. Obviously, more needs to be done so that in the future women and men will be equal, and there will be no favor in gender.

          Drugs are very different today than they were in 1968. Other than the fact that drugs are done both now and then, there are mostly differences between the drug scene now and forty-four years ago. In 68’, drugs were done in public by hippies and other people, too. Drugs such as LSD and weed were commonly used. Today, drugs are much more serious. Not just the drugs themselves are killing people anymore, but also meth labs blow up and kill the chemists. Also, there are many new drugs out. Drugs such as cocaine, meth, and bath salts are popular now. Bath salts, especially, make some people do crazy things. There are cases reported of people actually biting other people’s faces off while on bath salts.

          NASA has not changed as much as drugs have, but the technology and programs have. In 1968, a mission called Apollo 8 began. This mission was the first human- crewed space ship to leave Earth’s orbit, orbit the moon, and return safely to Earth. We have moved forward a lot since 1968. Today, we have rovers on different planets, such as the Rover Curiosity on the planet Mars. Also, now there are not any manned missions by NASA. Instead, if we want to send a man to space we have to join the Russian Federal Space Agency.

          Events that occurred in 1968 affect how and what we do today. It was a time when people protested to get what they wanted, and because of that society ultimately changed. These changes affect our everyday life. These changes are also what make our today different from times back then.