Group Five Worksheet: Vietnam Conflict

1. Was this activism rooted in the origin of the "baby boom" generation in the 1950s? Consider the following points:
   
   
   • the demographic size of the 1960s generation.
     
   • the expectations raised among America's young people by the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s.
     
   • the effect of the 1950s' culture of political and social conformity.
     
   • the image held by children during the 1950s of major American institutions (government, the military, education).
     
   
   
   
2. How did the following events contribute to the radicalization of a significant minority of American youth?
   
   
   • Freedom Summer and student work in the civil rights struggles of the early 1960s,
     
   • the Free Speech movement at the University of California at Berkeley.
     
   • the military draft and resistance to the draft.
     
   • the steady escalation of the Vietnam Conflict.
     
   • the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968.
     
   • the Cambodia incursions and the Kent State killings in 1970.
     
   • the revelation of the secret bombings in Cambodia and Laos.