Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Author Frye Gaillard explores the turbulent 1960s in his new book, and shares his thoughts on the decade that changed America.
The turbulence of the late 1960s came to a head 50 years ago this week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. The whole world was watching as club-wielding police clashed with protestors, while political fractures were on spectacular display inside the convention hall.
Front page of Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) on August 28, 1968.https://t.co/FqdE9O9dYi pic.twitter.com/NyzXkudafU
— The '60s at 60 (@the_60s_at_60) August 28, 2018
The county was already a powder keg following that year’s murders of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Sen. Robert Kennedy, and the escalating protests over the Vietnam War.
It was a defining point in a decade that began with the optimism of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. Frye Gaillard calls it a decade of hope, possibility and innocence lost. It’s also, he says, “for better or worse, still lives with us” through echoes of idealism and cynicism.
He joins Mike Collins for a conversation on how the era shaped the country.
GUEST
Frye Gaillard, author, A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost