Protests of 1968
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The protests of 1968 – the most famous of which were May 68 in France and civil rights movement in the United States – comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against military and bureaucratic elites, who responded with an escalation of political repression.
In capitalist countries, these protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement in the United States, which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party. In reaction to the Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States and even into London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. Mass socialist movements grew not only in the United States but also in most European countries. The most spectacular manifestation of this were the May 1968 protests in France, in which students linked up with wildcat strikes of up to ten million workers, and for a few days the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government. In many other capitalist countries, struggles against dictatorships, state repression, and colonization were also marked by protests in 1968, such as the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against the military dictatorship in Brazil.
In the socialist countries there were also protests against lack of freedom of speech and violation of other civil rights by the Communist bureaucratic and military elites. In Central and Eastern Europe there were widespread protests that escalated, particularly in the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, in Warsaw in Poland and in Yugoslavia.
See also
- 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity
- 1968 Miami riot
- Counterculture of the 1960s
- Axel Springer AG
- Catonsville Nine
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Feminism in France
- Glenville Shootout
- Movement of 22 March
- Situationist International
- Yippies
- Stonewall riots (which occurred the next year)
- American Power and the New Mandarins, book by Noam Chomsky
- Hippies
- Summer of love
- Happening
- Fluxus
- Hot Autumn (which occurred the next year in Italy)
- Long Hot Summer of 1967
- List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States
- Cordobazo (which occurred the next year in Argentina)
- Revolutions of 1848