Screenshot of Walter Cronkite’s broadcast on the opening night of the 1968 Democratic Convention
WHO were you in 1968?
A few months ago at a San Diego Free Press contributor meeting, a group of us shared stories about where we were, what we were thinking and what we were doing in 1968, a watershed year for many of us. It was fifty years ago that so many baby boomers came of age against the backdrop of first Martin Luther King’s assassination, then Bobby Kennedy’s. It was a year of civil rights protests, school walkouts, university sit-ins and broad civil unrest.
At the summer Olympics in Mexico City, American medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest of racial discrimination. That same year Cesar Chavez announced that he would begin a fast to promote nonviolence within the ranks of the United Farm Workers.
The Tet Offensive occurred in 1968. There were 549,500 American troops in Vietnam at the time. (The draft would be imposed a year later in 1969). This would be the next to the last year of LBJ’s presidency. North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, heightening Cold War tensions.
These are just a few of the events that rocked our world in 1968.
The SDFP editors invite you to submit articles, poems or original artwork on the topic of 1968.
While many of us were in the thick of it, so to speak, those too young to grasp a clear picture of the politics or what was happening in the streets were clearly affected by the popular culture. And there have been even younger generations who have only heard stories from their parents and siblings and now their grandparents or studied the late 60s and early 70s in school.
We’d like to hear from all of you this month. You can make it short and sweet — 400 words (or less) and a photograph or send something longer.
Music has an amazing ability to transport us to a specific time, place and state of mind. I hope the musical selections below unlock memory, set you to writing. And unlike 1968, we can now totally relax while we toke or munch on some mj and rock out.
We played singles! On record players, the new stereo systems and eight-track tapes!
These now “classic rock” singles were released in 1968: Sympathy for the Devil ( Rolling Stones); All Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix); While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Beatles); Hey Jude (Beatles); Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Stones); Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin and the Holding Company); Born to be Wild (Steppenwolf)
Motown releases #1 hit Heard it Through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye); More Motown here.
Movie releases in 1968 include 2001 Space Odyssey and The Graduate, Planet of the Apes and Rosemary’s Baby. More here.
Send your submission to contact@sandiegofreepress.org
Put “1968” in the subject line of the email.
Attach photos (personal or in public domain) to the article.
Anna Daniels
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I was in kindergarten at Fuerte Elementary School. We lived on Explorer right off of Avocado in El Cajon close to Mt. Helix. I vaguely remember hearing about Robert Kennedy being shot and also vaguely remember my parents taking part in an anti war protest. Interesting thing is they were your typical white suburban mid century middle class (and for lack of a better term) 30 something yuppies. Hardly anything counter culture about them. In retrospect, you could say our living room looked like something out of a SHAG painting. My older sister (eight years) was I suppose your typical teen of the time. She liked The Beatles, Stones, DC5, The Monkees, and was discovering stuff like Hendrix, The Yardbirds, all the harder edged music for the time. Years later my mom told me about one of our neighbor’s son who was in fact in Vietnam during that time and several years later after separating out of the service got into some legal trouble and did a very long prison stretch. Not sure what for.
So anyway as crazy as this sounds, I actually remember all this. Sorry for the long winded post but you asked.
Chris, thanks for an interesting recollection. You fall into the category of the “too young”, who have thought about that time through the lens of what others eventually told you. I am savoring the allusion to the Shag painting.
In January 68 I was on USS Perkins DD877 In Sasebo Japan returning to the World from Viet Nam.
I was 20 years old and was finishing our tour. The NORKS took the Pueblo and we were in a large task Force that was sent to the waters off North Korea.
We were not happy to be there and do nothing. I was fairly liberal until that occured. In June 68 I turned 21 three days after my term of enlistment. I did not vote for any liberals in November when I could legally vote for the first time and I haven’t since.
Do you want a cookie?
that’s either a reference to Prizzi’s Honor, which wasn’t released until 1985, or a nasty reply.
I’m just responding to how he’s boarding that never voted for any liberals since getting out of the Navy in 1968. Plus not giving much of a answer why.
The Democrats ran Both Houses and the White House.. LBJ and his Cronies Did NOTHING to rescue them We were there ready… Willing and Able to put a ton of hurt on the Miscreants. There was no reason to leave our Shipmates behind…
Democrat does not always = liberal. George Wallace come to mind? And liberals themselves are not always on the same page. It’s called being human. Most liberals (stating the painfully obvious) were against the war, and yet we got into that war because of LBJ. Well really we kind of were already but more so because of him.
HHH?? McCarthy???
LBJ???
So by your logic, one should never vote are a particular party because of past sins? I’m a veterans also so don’t say I’d feel different if I was in you shoes.
By My logic If you are burned …
I vote for No liberal
I joined the Hippie Movement by reading Life and Post magazine pictorials, and eventually finding myself gravitating to the local Haight Ashbury conclave of Oceanbeach.
The memories have somewhat faded into a purple haze, but a few stick out. The Inbetween, a coffee house/flop joint, where crappy instant coffee was available during open hours, and were one could just sort of veg for some period of time. There were do gooders who were college students in various colleges in the area, and occasionally they’d take someone who had taken too many pills, or entered in to a mental abyss on some psychedelic journey, to a local medical facility, usually County Hospital. At the time the SDPD operated the ‘ambulance’ services, which usually meant that if one used their ‘services’, one was also confronted with an arrest for some sort of violation.
There were more caves/grottoes along the south cliffs beyond the pier, and provided shelter for various types of counter culture rituals, smoking grass, or boiling hotdogs, beer, and baked beans in the can over a small fire of drift wood.
There were some colorful characters, Space Man, as I recall, who did some sort of art… and due to his poverty could only afford inhalants as his escape vehicle from this earth. Indian, who knows what his ancestry was, just everyone called him that. I was known by various names, Hans and Serape, the latter due to my wearing a serape rain or shine, hot or cold.
The main gathering point was the foot of Newport, and the game was to see how well one could avoid being arrested, since it was also the popular stopping point for the SDPD.
Survival depended on bumming enough spare change for a tray of Zeke’s fries, 50 cents, at the outside pick up window, (no shoes, no shirt, no service, for the dinning room…).
Alas, the ideas of the hippie movement faded as quickly as the flowers in the hair, and the pathway into the abyss that we see to day was just begun.