WoodStock 1969 - 11th Grade History Term Paper

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Woodstock 1969​

Ben Thompson​

4/20/05 ​

7th Hour​

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Woodstock 1969 was a three day long festival of peace and Music that drew over 400,000 people. The festival was very socially and politically significant. During the late 1960’s, the counter culture movement exploded, questioning the morallity and politics of the time. Many factors contributed to the arising of the counter culture movement. Woodstock was the peak of the movement, and hope for human advancement.

The 1960’s were by no means one big fun party. The decade was not a bunch of stoned people with flowers in their hair flashing peace signs, but a very socially and politically turbulent time in American history. Probably the biggest social change in America during the 1960’s wasn’t what we bought, but where we bought it. Shopping centers began replacing downtowns. No longer relying on public transportation, shoppers needed more space to park their big cars. After World War II, members of America’s growing middle class wanted their own automobiles, forget hand crafted cars, praise Henry Ford’s mass produced gas guzzlers. The nation’s financial resources were engaged in a war in Vietnam, and its emotional resources engaged in a war on drugs and crime, there was precious little left of either left over for a war on poverty. Just as they would in prosperous 1990s, in the prosperous 1960’s those who held wealth looked at those who didn’t as a diminishing, but bothersome group. Many of the wealthy believed that America’s abundance was so great that something had to be wrong with anyone that was poor. The children of the decade looked at the world around them with an analytical eye, and spent a lot of time inside themselves deciding what was really important. A lot of them reached the same conclusion; we all live on the same planet, and are all part of the human race, so why act so immoral towards one another? We should be spending our energy to grow spiritually, rather than economically. It seemed that by 1967, the real political choice America faced was between constructing a Great Society or maintaining and orderly one, it is not surprising that so many chose the latter over the former. (Isserman, 202)

In the 1960’s, it seemed that America’s spirituality was fading away. The more citizens that attended church, the less that traditional content of their faith seemed to matter to them. The Protestant Minister Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was preaching an updated version of social gospel. To be a sincere Christian, he told audiences of all races, was to combat, nonviolently, the injustice meted out to racial minorities and the poor. (Isserman, 242) The liberal call to action excited many young Protestants who had not expected their churches to participate in changing anything. On College Campuses, one professor put it “It was a Christian’s duty to support all those movements which open up opportunities for God’s children to be their best selves” Many Christians of the time saw no reason to remain in classifications that were merely putting Christian labels on material causes. They either abandoned organized religion or searched for a more intensely spiritual alternative. Zen was something many of them chose. Zen seemed to draw in those that had been part of the antiwar movement, and had previously indulged in psychedelics. Maharishi Maresh Yogi traveled from India to the United States promoting Transcendental Meditation (TM.) TM was the ability to learn to sit and concentrate for 20 minutes, each morning and evening before meals. “Expansion of happiness is the purpose of life” Maresh wrote. “The wars that break out, are the result of tensions generated by tense, irritable people, rather than political or economic conflicts.” The counter culture questioned organized religion, and embraced spiritual growth.

In 1965, the first major riot of the 60’s broke out. On August 11th, white police officers pulled over black Marquette Fry on suspicion of drunk driving. As the officers questioned him, a crowd began to gather to watch and listen. Fry, who was acting uncooperative, began to be beaten by the officers. Fry’s mother and brother, who witnessed the scene, charged at the police. They were also arrested. (Wright, 41) The crowd began to shout insults and throw rocks at the officers. The police headquarters had to call in 25 car loads of officers to control the crowd. They failed miserably. The Watts ghetto of Los Angeles literally erupted in flames. The first major riot of the decade was underway, there would be hundreds more, most of which were sparked by police incidents.

In addition to all the cultural struggles in America’s homeland, a very controversial war was raging over seas in Vietnam. The acronym “FUBAR” became a well known term. Napalm was not an acronym, but rather the shortening of two chemical names, naphthalene and palmitate. When lit, napalm produces lethal amounts of carbon monoxide, and will eat through anything or anyone it touches. From 1962 to 1971, an herbicide known and “agent orange” was used to defoliate more than five million acres of Vietnam Territory. The United States air force spread eleven million gallons of the chemical. (Wright, 98) While the war continued, more and larger crowds gathered outside the white house crying “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Protesters also demonstrated outside the Dow Chemical Company plants. On August 4th, 1964, President Johnson went on national television to announce a change in the Vietnam War. Two days earlier, LBJ claimed, North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked the US destroyer Maddox in international waters. Secretary of defense claimed this was an “unprovoked attack.” Because of this claim, congress passed a bill named “The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.” This gave LBJ the power to take military action in Southeast Asia, without the actual declaration of war by Congress, as required by the U.S. constitution. During an interview on national television, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was asked about the motives behind the attack on Maddox. Rusk replied, “I have not yet been able, quite frankly, to come to a fully satisfactory explanation… there is.” The real reason Rusk couldn’t find a satisfactory explanation, was because the attack had never taken place, certainly not the way Johnson said it had. The Pentagon Papers said two months prior to the attack, U.S. government officials met in Honolulu to discuss the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. They met to discuss the resolution before the event took place. On august 2nd, Maddox was patrolling off North Vietnam, performing secret hit and run operations. The first attack on Maddox was that of three Vietnamese patrol boats. Maddox crippled the patrol boats, was undamaged, and continued patrol. The second attack on Maddox was either a misinterpretation of radar data, or was simply invented to justify increasing US military action. It didn’t really make a difference, because of the “unprovoked attacks” the Johnson administration would begin bombing North Vietnam.

Probably the most famous conscientious objector (CO) the war was a man named Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. He was drafted in 1966, but by then he had converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. When he applied for CO status, he was rejected. In refusing to go to war, Ali explained “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong… No Viet Cong has ever called me ******.” It became the cry for many antiwar African Americans. After being rejected, Ali refused to report for duty. The government fined him ten thousand dollars and sentenced him to five years in prison. (Wright, 112) Ali remained on free bond, while he continued to appeal his conviction. Four years later, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. As time and the war went on, many members of the silent majority began to voice their opinion and speak out against the fighting.

Counter Culture cannot be understood without understanding of its music. To people who fully understood this music, it was something much deeper than electric guitars and voices. The same way a good preacher can preach his message of love, and leave the congregation feeling euphoric, musicians would preach their messages of love and bring masses of people closer together. There is a physical feeling which can come over the human body when one feels connected with music. It’s a feeling that cannot be described in words, but has to be experienced. Hendrix once explained in an interview that “Some musicians play loud and the sound comes out kind of shrill and unpleasant, I play loud hoping that I can wake some people up, because there are a lot of sleeping people out there.” It is not overreaching to say that the Beatle’s long hair led to the way in the changes of our politics, our attitudes, art, music, the downfall of a president, and even the loss of a war. The musician’s talent was unbelievable, with lyrics filled with passionate messages of peace and love. The song “Blowing’ in the wind” by Bob Dylan, became the anthem of the protest movement. When asked, “Which side of the war are you on?” Dylan replied, “Which side can you be on.”

Four young men came together, and had a dream: To create the greatest rock concert of all time. After months and months of careful planning, an event named “Woodstock 1969” began to be advertised. The event’s slogan became “Three days of Peace and music.” The organizers of the event estimated that 50,000 people would be attending the festival. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969 drew more than 400,000 people to a pasture in Sullivan County. From the beginning everything went wrong. Most of their plans for land, construction, public relation, food, security and traffic had crumbled under the four young men’s feet. Their corporate structure rivaled a Disney Fantasy. (Rossenman, 1) For four days, the site became a countercultural mini-nation in which minds were open, drugs were all but legal and love was "free". One of the event’s organizers, said four of them would get together for brainstorm meetings. He felt that he was learning more than contributing, about the new consciousness, the Aquarian age, and a lot about LSD and marijuana. (Makower, 101) The music began Friday afternoon at 5:07pm August 15 and continued until mid-morning Monday August 18. (Woodstock69.com) At one point, there was a 25 mile traffic jam along highway 17B as people tried to get in; a traffic jam without road rage. (Rossenman, 134) From folk-rock ballads of Bob Dylan to acid fantasies of Jimi Hendrix, songwriters expressed the turbulence of the times.

Many of the people who attended Woodstock walked away with a completely different outlook and understanding of life. It was proof to all of those that attended, that the philosophy and spirituality of the counter culture was no joke. Almost instantly, the fences surrounding the music festival were ripped down and the event became free. Things could not have been better for the children of the counter culture, sitting on grass fields, high as can be, listening to wonderful music in cool summer weather. Although Woodstock certainly was the psychedelic spree of all time, it turned out to be much more than that. (celticguitarmusic.com) Food and water were scarce, drugs were everywhere, yet people learned to get by. Every town had its hippies, but now enormous numbers of them had massed in one area. Friday afternoon brought home to everyone there how broad-based the movement really had become. On Sunday, the music had to halt due to rain. However, this did not halt any of the hippies from having a blast. Many of them got naked and slid around in mud. The last performer of the festival was a man named Jimmy Hendrix, who was previously enlisted in the armed forces. He tore through the star spangled banner on his electric guitar, making explosive like noises when he came to the line “The bombs bursting in air.” Hendrix Finished, raised the peace sign to 400,000 overjoyed people, and the event had finally come to an end.

The concert had been the focus of entirely all the nation’s media for three days. Also, something unusual about the event was reported. Not one single act of violence was committed. Three people were born, two people had died, the statistical average for a city of half a million. (celticguitarmusic.com) A city that size would have also had a statistic on crime rate, and this simply didn’t happen at Woodstock. Love had beaten the odds, it was true hope for human advancement. The miracle of peace with one another had occurred, and no one who was there will ever forget it.

 

Jimmi Hendrix is spelled with an i, Agent Orange was mainly used in Laos to defoiliate the Ho Chi Min Trail to stop aid from flowing to North Vietnam from Communist China, also, I think you should have mentioned the peace sign in trash after the concert.

 

thanks for all the comments guys...

 

Wow, the sad face makes me think you didn't really mean it...

 

Sorry, I can be slow to posting and slower to reading it, and I'm bad...I took my time, saw the school thing and made a wrong assumption. I think you did a very nice job on it and covered a great deal. What grade did you get?

 

I haven't got it back yet... my teacher is slow on grading. He's very conservative though, so it will be interesting to see how i do.

 

Overall a good paper. It's almost impossible to condense everything that happened in that time to even a million page book! The only correction I would want to throw in there (this from someone not even a proponent of organized religion) was it wasn't entirely anti-organized religion. Some major players in the 60's were members of organized religion. Father's Daniel and Philip Berrigan were Catholic priests who were major players in the civil rights and anti-war movements. They were at one time at the top of the FBI's enemy list. Dr. King was a Protestant minister and I think the greatest percentage of people involved in the civil rights movement belonged to organized religions. Jews, Catholics, Protestants, all across the board. Also the biggest proponents of the liberation theology movement in Central America came from organized religion.

 

thanks for you comments darkside.

maybe i didn't make it clear enough in my paper, but i was saying that it wasn't organized religion in and of it self people were turning away from, but that people saw the church as fading away from spirituality. clearly organized religion can be a good thing, like all those ministers you mention. they were preaching love and moralitty, while other preachers were turning the loving words jesus spoke into lies.
peace

 

AoXo, looks like an A+ to me, great job!
Carly