During the 1960s, students across America rose up to demand reform. On campuses from Berkeley to New York, they demanded desegregation, unrestricted free speech, and withdrawal from the war in Vietnam. Highly idealistic and inspired by periodic successes, the students believed they were creating a new America.During the 1960s, young Americans on and off campuses challenged conventional lifestyles and institutions. They protested the materialism, consumerism, and mania for success that drove American society. They urged people to explore alternative patterns of work and domesticity. They challenged traditions surrounding sex and marriage. And they argued that all paths to deeper fulfillment, even those involving illicit drugs, could be justified. They believed they were creating a new America.The 1960s with the student movements and the counterculture that offered the most dramatic challenges to American policies and conventions. But the truth is, idealism crossed generations and permeated almost all levels of public life. Perhaps no period in American history has been filled with such an expansive and ambitious sense of possibilities—such a grand, inspiring sense of what Americans could achieve.And not every reform or vision advanced during the 1960s survived into the 1970s. American capitalism did not collapse under the pressure of student revolutionaries. Consumerism remained an essential element of American society. And many of the conventional institutions and practices of both Wall Street and Main Street persisted.The 1960s did create a new America. The question is, was “new” better? (don't know if that's 75 words)
