1968: those of US who LIVED through IT

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dazzledbylight

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Well, it's the 50th Anniversary of that god-forsaken year... :|

I've seen the birthdays list off & on, so I know there are some of us who endured it; younger and older than me (64).
Oh, everyone's welcome! Get some first hand stories from outside of your families who might have talked about it.
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I'd like memories of where you were, how you felt about the different events that shook America, and the World around the dates each event happened.

What I don't want is trolling, or long, ranting political diatribes from any trump supporters, other Conservatives, or far left folks.
Of course, politics is all part if this, so short, more quiet comments are fine.

This thread is for memories and consoling, esp because how thing are currently.

Details later in the year- I just finished RFK: A Raging Spirit by Chris Mathews. A good read, very insightful, learned a lot, and sad.

Upcoming near events are Tet Offensive and LBJ's not rerunning.
 
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One other thought. It'll be interesting to see how those of us boomers might have reacted somewhat differently according to whether we were in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Third (set) of this time, generational bracket.

Once I remember the journalist's name I'll add her comment about this.
 
Where to start? In the summer of '68, I went to my first concert to see The Doors. My second concert was seeing The Jimi Hendrix Experience. 1968 was a great year, music
wise. Politically and culture wise it was a horrible year. Dr. King, then Bobby Kennedy was killed. Riots and cities being burned down. Cops beating up on anti-war or any
kind of demonstrators. No end in sight in the war in Vietnam. I was in junior high school. I fondly remember telling this girl in my English class "you remind me of Janis,"
and she then jumped on my lap and kissed me saying, "that is so sweet...thank you.
I was a Communist for a few months. To sum it up..1968 had some nice moments, but
overall it was a horrible bloody year.
 
Hey, thanks for dropping by.

I was in my sophomore year in HS. My first concert was back in 65 (taken by friend's father) but it was the first time (out of 3 times that year) I saw The Who. In fact the last of their 3 shows in the NYC area The Who were 2nd out of 3 bands. The Doors were the headliners! But Morrison was drunk, or too stoned and left the stage after a few songs. People stated throwing chairs :ohmy: My friend and I got out of there quickly!

Concerts and hanging out w friends etc were the bright spots in a horrific year!

And my HS was situated between the north and south campus of a city college, so there was stuff involving that as well.
 
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More thoughts about my first concert in 1968 seeing The Doors.
There were rumors Jim Morrison was dead floating around. I had read
abut the riots at previous shows. So, I didn't know what to expect.
I was relieved, when I saw Morrison waiting offstage to come on.
It was in Asbury Park, NJ where I saw them. I believe it was August 31,
1968.
Anyways, the show went on smoothly, until Morrison discovered he could make girls scream by jumping off the stage. He did it twice. I remember
Ray Manzarek looked a bit pissed at Morrison's antics.
They closed the show with "Light My Fire." I was really hoping to hear
"The End" though.
 
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More thoughts about my first concert in 1968 seeing The Doors.
There were rumors Jim Morrison was dead floating around. I had read
abut the riots at previous shows. So, I didn't know what to expect.
I was relieved, when I saw Morrison waiting offstage to come on.
It was in Asbury Park, NJ where I saw them. I believe it was August 31,
1968.
Anyways, the show went on smoothly, until Morrison discovered he could make girls scream by jumping off the stage. He did it twice. I remember
Ray Manzarek looked a bit pissed at Morrison's antics.
They closed the show with "Light My Fire." I was really hoping to hear
"The End" though.
I'm so jealous. I wasn't around for that, but in my teen years I went through a Doors/Jim Morrison phase (long after he died). Thought he was very attractive. Plus when you're a teen you like those messed up dangerous brooding guys.

Some women never get over that phase. Maybe they should consult that Houston preacher.
 
I'm so jealous. I wasn't around for that, but in my teen years I went through a Doors/Jim Morrison phase (long after he died). Thought he was very attractive. Plus when you're a teen you like those messed up dangerous brooding guys.

Some women never get over that phase. Maybe they should consult that Houston preacher.

I was lucky. My first concert turned out to be The Doors. Morrison definitely
had charisma. Most of the night, he hardly moved just hung on to the microphone stand and sang. I had the biggest crush on Grace Slick.
I guess so did a lot of teen guys. :lol:
 
Yeah, I could see that about GS.

As 1968 Big Politics goes yesterday or Tues was when President Johnson said he was not running for reelection! :ohmy:
It was SO shocking to most people, even to many professionals following politics! It's rare to not run for a second term.
My jaw was hanging open watching on our modest size B&W TV.

Eugene McCarthy was already in the race. But I was listening to then pretty liberal radio host "the father of talk radio" Barry Gray here in NYC, who'd had on many of RFK's close and newer aides. I was hoping he'd get into the race.

Anyway it was a wild evening. I should look up the NYT, and the then liberal leaning New York Post ! This was not your Sean Hannity's, Fox News, Limbaugh's paper of the day back then! I definitely was reading the NYP almost every day, especially because of it's liberal leaning columnists.
 
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Ok...
Well April...

:sigh: MLK is assasinated. It was so shocking
NYC did not have riots. Then Liberal-Republican Mayor Lindsay got enough locally well known people in Harlem, Bedstuy, Brownsville to help people stay calmer.

In Indiana Robert F Kennedy breaks the news (he was told on his campaign airplane) to the rally in a black section of Indianapolis (he was heading towards anyway), where they had not yet heard.
It was a short and very moving speech. Indianapolis stayed calmer as well.

It's a speech well worth looking up.

Columbia University students and up occupying five buildings in campus!
back to February

Newsman and broadcaster Walter Cronkike delivers his report on the ongoing Vietnam War that contradicts official USA governmental reports.

I had started to turn against the war in '67, but it shocked a lot of people!

Back to March,
Professor Eugene McCarthy stuns New Hampshire voters and the nation when he comes in a close second to President LBJ.

RFK announced he would run for president. He had been undecided for months.
He was our NYS Senator, and I was thrilled. I had watched him begin to change to being a more empathetic, compassionate man over time. My mom (a person who believed in fairness, compassion, and who had watched him during the televised McCarthy Hearings [overzealous Communist "witchhunt"]) said to me "he's changed" .

It turns out that Bobby always had a generous, compassionate streak in him, but his hard-nosed father Joseph P Kennedy hated that. So Bobby to hide that part of himself. ( Chris Mathews book - RFK: A Raging Spirit)

The Czech President resigned. Moscow gets nervous.
 
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May

Students in Paris, France stage intense, even bloody demonstrations, which eventually labor joins in on some days later.

I only learned this recently ( didn't know why back then, thanks public radio(!), but that it began as a more cultural revolt. One example given was a young person at dinner time was not allowed to speak unless spoken to. A very stifling atmosphere of then Charles de Gaul's France .
Just read that a University West of Paris- the late teens, early twenty yr olds were demanding to be allowed to sleep together should they want to.
Eventually, as said it involved major changes in France when the unions joined in

Ralph Abernathy MLK's successor to the SCL gets a permit for You he our People's Match and Encampment in the DC Mall.
 
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June
As the enigmatic Sci Fi character Kosh said: "and so it begins"...
(while really June 5th - I may not be able to get on line)

I'm in my sophomore year in HS (15 yrs old). I started becoming involved in politic s, issues by around 12, 13.

Following the Presidential campaign, rooting for Bobby Kennedy, not VP Hubert Humphrey.
The California Primary. We wouldn't hear the result on the East Coast/NYC till around 4A.M. so I went to sleep. With my trusty transistor radio near by because after pop/rock radio in the day one station also had NYC talk radio on politics and culture that I'd tune into later!

A bit after 4AM I wake up with the weirdest stomachache I'd ever had. Wtf!?

I soon think of my radio. But instead of the California Primary results - I'm slammed by the shockwave if Bobby being shot. I barely sleep after that.

I wake up to go to school, not wanting to go, my folks looking as dazed as I felt. I drifted through the day. I don't remember much of it. I was in a special Music and Art school so lots of us, and certainly some teachers had more liberal views. Plenty of us were absolutely miserable, and praying frantically in our minds for his health. I guess I didn't see the tv footage till evening :sad: . My dad, of course had bought the paper.I

Turns out ( I guess I'd forgotten in the subsequent decades) that one of my favorite columnists was there in the Ambassador Hotel pantry right near by when it happened! I just read his comments in yesterday's Sunday Daily News.

It doesn't take much for me to be back in that time.
 
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I might have gone to a friend's house after school on the 5th. We'd stare at the tv, and we' were living in a surreal "dream".

June 6th
Like the night before, I was awoken by that same strange stomach ache (never had it again later like that).
This time though I grabbed instantly for the transistor radio... just catching Frank Mackewitz's announcement of Bobby's passing. I barely got any sleep the few hours I had left before getting up for school.
I was definitely in "zombie" land, totally devastated - but having to present some level of functionality. I'm sure some my teachers were just as much.

Came home- my sister and I watching TV, me later in bed listening late into the night to the talk radio that had had so many of Bobby's campaign people, friends, some of JFK's people over the past several months.
 
June 7
Yesterday was when his casket laid in state at St Patrick's (5th Ave & 50th/49th Sts) for 24 hrs.

People were on line for hours. My friend and I were there between 4-6 hrs. Though it was early June I think we had close to 90°F, with humidity, and sunny. Some folks did faint from dehydration. So quite and solemn, people conversed when they did, quietly.

We finally got in and went to kneel in the back pews. At one point when we were still there Jackie Kennedy walked in, and up the aisle. Talk about surreal.

We eventually walked up ourselves. The draped flag had been removed. One of those moments when things fade out of your attention, and all my focus was to gently reach out and gently touch the left wooden corner, think of or whisper "good-bye" (while making sure I didn't trip, or burst out crying- got through ok), before we exited to the right.

We then went across to the other side of 5th Av for a while longer. There were many TV trucks and tons of thick cable snaking around everywhere! Tens of thousands of people came to pay their respects. And it was still unreal!
 
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June 8th
Finally, today was the day that he would be taken by train from St Patrick's in NYC to Penn Station to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia just outside of Washington DC .

M y dad went with me to 34th St between 6th and 7th Ave. People waiting patiently for the funeral procession to pass, silver Hearst in the lead.

When I got home I had to study for end of year tests. The train was hours late. My sis and I watched the whole thing.

People lined pretty a lot of the whole route. A single person, here and, a lot of families - from their houses, crowds in the big towns to cities. White, black, young, middle aged, old, poor, blue collar, middle class. Just about every type of person in that part of it the country. Often with hand made signs.

In Philly (they mentioned a few days earlier this week [I thought it was just outside of DC), a while group of black people came together to sing "Black he Battle Hymn of the Republic".

The whole trip was of the most moving things I've ever seen., Some of you might want to take a look on youtube.
 
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