How the 4th of July Was Celebrated (and Protested) in 1968

1968 has been called the year that shattered America. But, while it was indeed traumatic, divisive, and deadly, I believe 2020 will take that infamous designation from that year. As someone who lived through the turbulent '60s and 70s and now writes, publishes, lectures, and delivers presentations on that period, I plan to periodically post articles in Divided We Stand comparing the time period 1967 to 1974 to the upheavals we are experiencing now.

There is an oft-repeated saying claiming that history repeats itself. I don't believe that is accurate. A much better saying is that history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, Sometimes those rhymes can be soothing. Other times, like these, those rhymes can be terrifyingly scary. But by comparing past times to today, we can discover ways to move four times from scary to more smoothing.

Here is the 1st of these pieces.

How the Fourth of July Was Celebrated (and Protested) in 1968

Headlines from The New York Times reveal how the nation and the world commemorated Independence Day in what had already been a tumultuous year

By July 4, 1968, America was exposed to the brutal reality of Vietnam’s Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated; riots broke out across the country. Young Americans snubbed tradition and authority. Despite the gains made earlier in the decade in the Civil Rights Movement, racial unrest bubbled in urban centers. For many Americans, this Fourth of July wasn’t marked by Sousa marches and patriotism, but rather a skeptical view of the government’s actions, domestically and abroad, let alone of traditional American values and celebrations. The air simmered with escalating violence, impatient protestors, hardened social classes and new social movements.

As summer started that year, a Gallup poll found that 36 percent of Americans believed the country had a “sick society.” An earlier poll in the spring found that they were closely divided on the issue of the Vietnam War, which by the end of 1967, had seen 11,363 servicemen lose their lives. In that poll, 48 percent believed the war was a mistake and 40 percent believed it wasn’t. By the end of the summer, the number of dissenters increased to 53 percent, while 35 percent held to their convictions that the war was justified.

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