America Dreaming

by Laban Carrick Hill

  President Johnson announces an increase in military personnel in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and that he will double the monthly draft quota.

  President Johnson signs the long-awaited Medicare bill that provides medical assistance financed through social security for persons over the age of sixty-five.

  President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

  During a heat wave, riots break out when police arrest a black drunken driver in the predominantly black Watts area of Los Angeles; six days of violence results in four thousand arrests, $40 million in damage, and thirty-five deaths.

  Congress passes a law making it a crime to burn draft cards.

  The Department of Housing and Urban Development is established.

  Approximately 70,000 to 100,000 protesters participate in weekend anti-war protests in forty cities throughout the nation.

  20,000 anti-war protesters march in Washington, D.C.

  A Quaker, protesting the Vietnam War, burns himself to death in front of the Pentagon.

  American troops in Vietnam total 170,000.

  The post–World War II Baby Boom, producing over 4 million births a year since 1954, ends as the birthrate falls below 20 per 1,000.

  On the final day of a Christmas truce in Vietnam, President Johnson announces that since peace efforts of the past thirty-seven days have failed, the United States will resume bombing raids on North Vietnam.

  By the end of this year, American casualties in Vietnam are 1,340 dead, 5,300 wounded, and approximately 150 missing or captured.

  First approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1960 as an oral contraceptive, “the pill” has become a popular adopted phrase.

  The Grateful Dead begin performing in San Francisco.

  1966

  Controversy arises over the draft when student demonstrators are reclassified as 1-A, placing them at the top of the draft.

  LSD, a hallucinogenic drug, comes under federal regulation.

  The first person to be caught burning his draft card is convicted.

  The Selective Service announces that college deferments will now be based on academic performance.

  About 350 persons buy ad space in the Washington Post declaring their refusal to pay taxes to support the Vietnam War.

  The U.S. combat toll in Vietnam reaches 3,047.

  The United States forces fire on targets in Cambodia for the first time.

  President Johnson characterizes those who oppose the war in Vietnam as “nervous Nellies,” as 10,000 persons picket the White House and 63,000 have pledged not to vote for any pro–Vietnam War candidate.

  Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael is elected head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

  The Black Panther Party is formed.

  At an EEOC meeting in Albuquerque, only one commissioner shows up, and fifty Chicano leaders, including “Corky” Gonzáles, walk out, protesting the lack of Mexican-American staff and efforts.

  Star Trek premieres on television, along with Batman, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Mission: Impossible, The Monkees, The Hollywood Squares, and The Dating Game.

  A sniper shoots James Meredith, the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962, during a “pilgrimage” to Jackson, Mississippi. To show the state’s black population it has nothing to fear, the SNCC, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference continue the march.

  Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces that military strength in Vietnam will increase to 285,000.

  Rodolfo Acuña starts teaching the first Mexican-American history class in Los Angeles.

  César Chávez and the National Farm Workers Association march from Delano to Sacramento.

  “Corky” Gonzáles is fired from the Neighborhood Youth Corps director-ship, promising that “this day a new crusade for justice is born.” He founds the Crusade for Justice in Denver.

  The farm-worker solidarity march from the Rio Grande to Austin takes place.

  The first Alianza public protest takes place: a three-day march from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to present demands to the governor.

  The AFL-CIO executive council admits the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, merged from the NFWA and the AWOC.

  By a 5–4 margin in its Miranda v. Arizona decision, the Supreme Court decides an accused person has the right to remain silent, that an attorney can be present during police interrogation, and that an attorney will be appointed if the defendant cannot afford one.

  The House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee recommends lowering the draft age from twenty-two to nineteen or twenty.

  Led by Betty Friedan, disillusioned delegates from the President’s Commission on the Status of Women form the National Organization for Women (NOW); by fall NOW’s membership will reach 300; by the end of the decade, NOW will claim 8,000 members.

  Black violence erupts in slum areas in sixteen cities.

  After five hours of near-rioting by 4,000 whites, Martin Luther King Jr. says he has “never seen such hate—not in Mississippi or Alabama—as I see in Chicago.”

  Timothy Leary proclaims LSD as the sacrament of his new religion.

  Tijerina and 350 members of La Alianza occupy Kit Carson National Forest Camp Echo Amphitheater on behalf of Pueblo de San Joaquín de Chama. Within a week, state police, rangers, and sheriff’s deputies move in. La Alianza “arrests” two rangers and tries them for trespassing.

  The Treasury Department reports that the Vietnam War is costing $4.2 billion a month.

  Congress establishes the Department of Transportation.

  At 320,000, American troops outnumber regular South Vietnamese troops.

  Bestselling books include Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and Masters and Johnson’s Human Sexual Response.

  A ratings code is instituted by movie studios.

  The mental standard of U.S. military inductees is lowered from a score of 16 to 10, out of a possible score of 100.

  American fatalities in Vietnam number 6,407.

  The United Farm Workers wins a contract with DiGiorgio Corp.

  Time magazine names “Twenty-five and Under” as its “Man of the Year.”

  1967

  Approximately 25,000 hippies pour into Golden Gate Park to conduct the first “be-in.”

  By the end of the month, 380,000 U.S. troops are in Vietnam.

  The Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) is formed on college campuses in Texas.

  The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, defining presidential succession.

  The Alianza Federal de Mercedes changes its name to Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres.

  Sponsored by the Spring Mobilization Committee, the largest anti-war protests to date are held in New York (100,000-125,000) and San Francisco (75,000).

  Riots break out in the black ghetto of Cleveland, the first of 159 riots that will occur this summer.

  General Westmoreland criticizes anti-war factions as “unpatriotic.”

  Mohammed Ali loses his heavyweight boxing title for refusing army induction.

  The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) is incorporated in San Antonio.

  One Jackson State University student dies during rioting.

  In New York City, 70,000 demonstrate in support of American military involvement in Vietnam.

  The Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres national convention is held in Albuquerque, organized by Tijerna. Here for the first time the idea for La Raza Unida is discussed.

  “Summer of Love” takes place in San Francisco.

  Congress gives the president the power to cancel the draft deferments of most graduate students.

  Twenty-six are killed during a riot in Newark, New Jersey.

  The worst riot of this century breaks out in Detroit, where blacks, who comprise one third of the city’s population, are unemployed at double the national average; 2,000
are injured, almost 500 buildings are damaged or destroyed, and 43 people are killed.

  Movie premieres include: The Graduate, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Bonnie and Clyde, and In the Heat of the Night.

  President Johnson appoints the Special Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the riots in Detroit and 120 other cities.

  The United States has 464,000 troops in Vietnam.

  President Johnson approves $20 billion for military actions in Vietnam during fiscal year 1968.

  In Washington, D.C., an estimated 100,000 people gather at the Lincoln Memorial to protest the war in Vietnam; about 50,000 of the demonstrators then march two miles to the Pentagon to hold a vigil.

  250 students representing seven Los Angeles colleges and universities meet to form United Mexican American Students (UMAS).

  Tijerina conducts an armed raid in Tierra Amarilla on the Rio Arriba County Courthouse to make a citizen’s arrest of D.A. Alfonso Sanchez.

  The UFW wins contracts with Gallo, Almaden, Franzia, Paul Mason, Goldberg, the Novitiate of Los Gatos, and Perelli-Minetti.

  David Sánchez dissolves Young Citizens for Community Action to form the Brown Berets self-defense group in Los Angeles. The Brown Berets begin a series of pickets in front of sheriff and police stations.

  More than 100 Chicanos demonstrate at the East L.A. Sheriff’s substation against police brutality.

  Following the draft protests, General Lewis B. Hershey, head of the Selective Service System, instructs local draft boards to cancel deferments of persons who have participated in demonstrations.

  In response to General Hershey’s directive, a coalition of some forty anti-war groups disrupt registration centers nationwide.

  The Federal Bureau of Narcotics reports that the number of known drug addicts has increased to almost 60,000, with about half of them between the ages of twenty-one and thirty.

  The number of American troops in Vietnam has increased by over 100,000 to a total of 486,000, exceeding the total number of Americans troops involved in the Korean War; the tonnage of bombs dropped in Vietnam exceeds the total tonnage that the United States dropped in Germany during World War II.

  The American death toll in Vietnam this year is 9,353, nearly 3,000 more than the previous six years combined.

  1968

  Since January 1, 1961, the total American death toll in Vietnam has risen to 15,997.

  Benita Martínez founds El Grito del Norte newspaper in Albuquerque.

  Vietcong troops launch a surprise massive offensive during the Tet truce in South Vietnam, costing 1,110 American lives.

  State police fire at South Carolina State College students attempting to desegregate a local bowling alley; three persons are killed and thirty-seven wounded.

  César Chávez begins a twenty-five-day fast at Forty Acres, near Delano. He states he is fasting in penitence for farm workers’ moral problems and talk of violence.

  Draft deferments are abolished for most graduate students.

  The President’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) warns that massive black unemployment, unfulfilled civil rights promises, and the government’s reluctance to enforce civil rights laws are pushing the country toward two “separate but unequal” societies.

  More than 1,000 students peacefully walk out of Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles.

  César Chávez breaks his fast at a Mass in a Delano public park with 4,000 supporters, including Robert Kennedy, at his side.

  700 Chicano students walk out of Lanier High School in San Antonio, Texas. Soon 600 more walk out of Edgewood High School.

  Denver Chicanos begin a boycott of Coors for discriminatory hiring.

  A grand jury indicts the “L.A. 13” for conspiracy to disrupt the peace in organizing the school walkouts.

  East L.A. native José Sánchez, nineteen, is the first Chicano to publicly resist the military draft.

  Students and parents picket Lincoln High School and the LAUSD Board of Education, demanding teacher Sal Castro’s reinstatement.

  Chicanos sit-in at the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education: thirty-five parents, students, and Brown Berets protest Sal Castro’s suspension.

  Young Lords Organization (YLO) in Chicago takes over Armitage Street Methodist Church and renames it the People’s Church for their headquarters and to start a day care.

  LAUSD Board votes to return Sal Castro to the classroom.

  UMAS and the Black Student Union (BSU) unite, and Rosalío Muñoz is elected UCLA student body president.

  A Gallup poll finds that 49 percent of the respondents feel that committing American troops to Vietnam was a mistake.

  Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota wins a surprising 42 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary; President Johnson wins 48 percent.

  The number of U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam reaches 19,670.

  In a nationally televised speech, President Johnson, with his Gallup poll approval at a record low of 36 percent, announces that he will not seek or accept nomination for another term and that he is unilaterally ordering a halt of the bombing in North Vietnam.

  While supporting a strike of black garbage collectors in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death; forty-six persons are killed in race riots in Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Detroit, and 100 other cities.

  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibiting racial discrimination in the sale and rental of houses and apartments.

  At Columbia University in New York City, 800 to 1,000 students occupy several campus buildings to protest Columbia’s ties to Pentagon-funded research and the university’s plans to erect a gymnasium in a low-cost housing area.

  The United States and North Vietnam open peace talks in Paris.

  Nine anti-war protesters, led by the Revs. Philip and Daniel Berrigan, burn 400 draft records at the Selective Service headquarters in Catonsville, Maryland.

  Shortly after his win in the California Democratic primary, Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles.

  Protesters at the Miss America Pageant throw bras, girdles, and high heels into a “freedom trash can.”

  “Consciousness-raising” begins in women’s liberation groups.

  General Creighton W. Abrams takes over the command of U.S. troops in Vietnam from General Westmoreland.

  American troops in Vietnam total 541,000.

  New books include Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

  Richard M. Nixon wins the Republican presidential nomination in Miami Beach; Spiro T. Agnew is his running mate.

  The FBI reports 61,843 state marijuana arrests, a 98 percent increase from 1966.

  An estimated 30 percent of the population attends elementary and secondary schools; 950 colleges register 1.6 million students, a 50 percent increase since 1963.

  President Johnson announces the end of all bombing in North Vietnam, and Hanoi agrees to include the South Vietnamese government and the National Liberation Front, or Vietcong, in the negotiations in Paris.

  In one of the closest elections in American history, Richard M. Nixon wins the presidency with 43.4 percent of the popular vote, beating Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey and American party candidate George Wallace.

  Members of the newly formed American Indian Movement (AIM) capture national public attention by occupying Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

  The number of American combat fatalities in Vietnam reaches 30,057 as troop levels increase to 540,000 during the year.

  Yale College begins admitting women.

  Hair premieres off-off-Broadway.

  Between June 1963 and May 1968, some 15,000 persons are arrested during 369 major civil rights demonstrations.

  1969

  After ten weeks of deliberations, American and North Vietnamese delegates agree on the shape of the table to be used when the South
Vietnamese and National Liberation Front representatives join the talks.

  The American combat death toll in Vietnam—33,641—has surpassed the 33,629 lives lost during the Korean War; by the end of the month, U.S. troops will peak at 543,482.

  Governor Ronald Reagan orders the National Guard to spray anti-war protesters with the same skin-stinging powder used against the Vietcong in Vietnam at the University of California at Berkeley campus.

  President Nixon announces the withdrawal of 25,000 troops from Vietnam.

  A radical splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society called Weathermen carry out violent demonstrations in Chicago.

  Chicago YLO takes over a vacant lot that was slated to be a $1,000–membership private tennis club and transforms it into a children’s park.

  The First National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference is sponsored by the Crusade for Justice.

  A three-day conference is organized at Santa Barbara by the Chicano Coordinating Council of Higher Education to create a plan for curricular changes and provide service to Chicano students. Student organizations statewide change their name to El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA).

  East Harlem Garbage Offensive in El Barrio is organized by Young Lords Party (YLP) in NYC.

  The first “Chicano Liberation Day” is organized by “Corky” Gonzáles.

  YLP establishes a free breakfast program and testing for lead poisoning and TB, leading to NYC investigations into epidemics.

  Rosalío Muñoz burns his draft card at the induction center in downtown Los Angeles.

  YLP opens office in Newark.

  People’s Church Offensive take over Methodist Church at Lexington Avenue and 111th Street after congregation refused to allow Young Lords to run community programs at the church.

  Católicos por la Raza clashes with police as it demands church programs for Chicanos in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Los Angeles.

  Several days of rioting and marches follow a police raid on Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

  First conference of La Raza, a Chicano rights political group, is held in Denver.

  Astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first person to land on the moon.

  H. Rap Brown resumes his leadership of SNCC.