Multiple people born before 1959 have recently been interviewed on their experiences, opinions, and recollections about the 1960’s and 1970’s. They all had different views and remembrances of the events that took place during this time. Those who were interviewed all came from different ethnic backgrounds and lived in different parts of the world at the time.
The first person interviewed had little to say about the Vietnam War except that “it was more of a civil war than anything, and that our involvement was an error.” He said that he didn’t notice much of the civil rights movement in southern California because he did not see a problem in race relations. He stated that “Martin Luther King was not a hero of mine at the time, but he managed to get something done for his race.” In his opinion, JFK was a compromiser because he let the Berlin wall to be built, when he should have taken a stronger stand. He also felt that it was a good thing that Nixon was impeached. He said “Nixon gave everyone ammunition to impeach him by keeping records that he could have destroyed.” Even as a republican at the time, he felt that Nixon should not go on as president. He remembers Watergate vaguely, but knew that it started as a simple burglary of checking on your enemy and checking on the other party, but all the denying and all the lying is what created the seriousness of it.
Another interviewee said that his generation for the most part was sent to Vietnam. He knew people from his school who were sent to Vietnam and did not come back. He personally knew many people who went to college or Canada to avoid the draft. He said that he was luckily never called to war so he did not have to make that choice. He stated that he was against the war and that one time he went to San Francisco to join a peace march. He said that to this day, if there is anything that has to do with veterans, he will vote for it. He said that most of the real action of the Civil Rights Movement happened on the other side of the country. Having grown up in southern California, we did not have the race problems that they had in the south. But one thing that did affect him in regards to the civil rights movement was the media. He remembers turning on a television and seeing innocent people being sprayed with fire hoses and attacked by dogs. He said not only were the African Americans suffering this torment, but also the freedom riders. He stated “I tend to remember that Kennedy, as aggressive and young as he was, didn’t really get hardly anything done. But after his assassination, Johnson pushed through because of the sentiment for Kennedys death, and brought about tremendous civil rights bills that would never have been passed had Kennedy lived.” He didn’t notice much discrimination in the area that he lived, and when an African American sat next to him on a bus, nobody told him to get up out of his seat. In his opinion, “noone is above the law, and if a president lies to the people, then he should be impeached, for the same reason I would have impeached Bill Clinton.” He also stated that “by the way I am an independent, I have never been a registered democrat or republican, all my life I have been independent.”
Before you know it, those who have experienced life during the 1960’s and 1970’s will be gone and we will have noone left to talk to about life back then and what it was like, which is why interviews like these are so important.
