3. Social Revolution

1968

You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom. ―— Malcom X

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I was born in late 1967, on the cusp of revolution. It was time of conflicts in gender, race, and sexuality, both within the home and on the streets. Governments were being challenged, rules and morays were shifting while the existing cultural standards resisted the change. It was a mixture of rebellion and repression, a social-cultural whirlwind. The world was in a state of unease and unrest. Traditions and rules were being questioned by most, while others did all they could to maintain the status quo.

In the year of my birth, the worldwide sensation,The Beatles, released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the magazine, Rolling Stone published its first issue, the androgynous model Twiggy became a fashion icon, the first African-American Supreme Justice, Thurgood Marshall, was confirmed, the Loving v. Virginia case made interracial marriage legal nationwide, the first successful heart transplant was performed, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS) was created, presidential hopeful John McCain was shot down over Vietnam, becoming a prisoner of war, and cities throughout America were exploded in rioting and looting in protest of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

*photo credit