the 60s part 1

"The 60s" is a movie about the life of several people during the years of the Vietnam War, segregation, and the "hippie" movement. We are presented with a family of three children facing different paths and a black family involved in the black rights movement being led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The father of the first family, Bill Herlihy, is a conservative army veteran whom is also a Republican. His daughter, Katie becomes pregnant at a very young age, This angers him to the point that she is driven out of her house, and she moves to San Francisco to live freely with the hippies. His eldest son, Brian, after failing to obtain a football scholarship for college, enrolls himself in the army to follow in his father's footsteps. The youngest son, Josh, is a pacifist who becomes a part of the antiwar movement. In this family we see a manifestation of the events of the 60s. We see a young man fighting in the Vietnam war, another who stands against this unjustified war, and another who decides to raise her child in the free, unprejudiced, yet imperfect environment created by the hippies. The father of the second family is Baptist man who teaches his family of the power of a pacific revolution. He, along with his son, Emmet, participates in the marches led by Dr. King. He teaches his son that no matter how much discrimination they face, they should never give in to the anger. Instead, they should stand up for the rights they deserve in a pacific way, like Ghandi. By the end of this first part, we see Brian in Vietnam scared while watching his fellow soldiers die, Katie giving birth far away from her family, Josh protesting the war, and Emmet holding dead his father, whom has been shot as a result of police brutality, in his arms

In summary, we are presented with war, racism, liberal thinking, conservative thinking, pacifism, and murky politics, all things that made up this pivotal decade in American history.