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1 other thing people need to look at: the 1946 to 1964 time was damn good for ALL people, even Blacks, compared to the 1930's. Word was the Great Depression was just nasty and there was a LOT of racism.
No, it wasn't a good time for all people. There was just as much racism from 1946-1964 as there was during the Depression. Maybe even more so because black folks as a group finally had the temerity to speak up.
No, it wasn't a good time for all people. There was just as much racism from 1946-1964 as there was during the Depression. Maybe even more so because black folks as a group finally had the temerity to speak up.
I would agree that being black in that time period would probably not have been much fun. However, as time travel to the past (not necessarily the future) is impossible, such discussions are somewhat meaningless.
I would agree that being black in that time period would probably not have been much fun. However, as time travel to the past (not necessarily the future) is impossible, such discussions are somewhat meaningless.
I was born in 1944 and turned 20 in 1964, so I grew up in this time period.
When I was young, up to the age of 10, the main thing I recall is the pervasive fear that saturated everyone. The A-bomb, then the H-bomb, especially the H-bomb. When the Russians exploded one, it terrified this country. As long as we were the only ones with atomics, everything was dandy, but we trusted no one but ourselves.
The economy was not good everywhere at the same time, and while some folks prospered, as many suffered. There were as many layoffs as jobs because of all the huge industry that was geared to the wartime production suddenly had to gear down. Many of the industries that sprung up died, and the entire rail industry hit the skids. The pervasive fear of the late 40s and early 50s never lessened.
As a kid, I heard the term 'nervous breakdown' a lot. Women didn't get divorced; they had nervous breakdowns and went to live with their relatives, leaving their husbands and kids. Men had them too. No one could ever define what a nervous breakdown was exactly- it was a catch-all for everything from chronic depression to PTSD.
I had a stable family life, and my family did all right as farmers and ranchers. Well enough to buy a house in town, which made my mother happy and allowed us kids to go to better schools and have more friends our age. When I entered Jr. High in the 7th grade was a shock, though; for the first time, I met a lot of kids a year older whose families were doing worse than mine.
Some of he girls were marking time, waiting to turn 14 so they could marry their boyfriends, and their boyfriends, 2-3 years older, and their boyfriends were all done with school but the 8th grade, when they were old enough to leave for jobs pumping gas or as construction grunts. There weren't many good choices for either the boys or the girls whose families weren't middle class wealthy.
I still know some of those kids. They mostly have been divorced a few times since then. Some ended up doing better, but most just got along, bumping off the bottom and sinking back to it all their lives.
Would I go back and live there forever? No way. Despite all it's troubles, the late 60s were a better time and most folks were better off, and this lasted into the mid-70s.
If I was to pick a decade to live in forever, mine would be the late 80s to late 90s. We shook off the troubles of the 80s and things were pretty good for everyone until the millennium.
That time period had great music, and was one of great changes that were good and bad equally, but I am not nostalgic. Those times played a large part in what's going on today 50 years later, and were not nearly as happy or stable as some people believe. For sure, they were nothing like Happy Days, the TV show that seems to have laid that nostalgic veneer on them.
Would I go back and live there forever? No way. Despite all it's troubles, the late 60s were a better time and most folks were better off, and this lasted into the mid-70s.
That time period had great music, and was one of great changes that were good and bad equally, but I am not nostalgic. Those times played a large part in what's going on today 50 years later, and were not nearly as happy or stable as some people believe. For sure, they were nothing like Happy Days, the TV show that seems to have laid that nostalgic veneer on them.
Oh yeah! The late 60s to mid-70s were just great considering Vietnam and all. Some of us had one hell of a good time!
Happy Days of course. But you forgot Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi, all spinoffs. And let's not forget All in the Family and its spinoffs, Archie Bunker's Place, Maude, The Jeffersons and spinoffs from those.
This was no different than the "family" TV series in the 50s portraying the idyllic life we were all supposed to be living. Sadly, reality doesn't always square with fantasy.
Along with the duck-and-cover A-bomb drills, the 50s also treated us to the Forgotten War I've not seen mentioned yet, Korea. I was five when my father left to fly in it for the Marine Corps and seven when he returned. I doubt he had a good time either; especially not all that long after his WW II years in the Pacific.
I would agree that being black in that time period would probably not have been much fun. However, as time travel to the past (not necessarily the future) is impossible, such discussions are somewhat meaningless.
How is it meaningless? This whole thread is based on the premise of going back in time. That is what everyone is discussing. You only need to speak to a black person who lived during that time to understand what it was like for them. It's almost as if you don't want to believe what it was like to be a black person living during that period even with all the evidence that can easily be seen, read or listened to.
My father was born in the mid 1950s. In his city, there were certain neigborhoods Blacks couldn't buy homes in. Today, anyone can buy a home anywhere they want, provided you have the money. In his state in those days, it wasn't hard for anyone to register to vote, but in the Deep South, where his parents are from, Jim Crow was the law of the land. One reason his parents left, and my father would be born in the North, raised there too.
Generally, this it the way I see it. This is what I can do.
1) Registering to vote was no problem for me. When I turned 18, I went to the library, picked up a form, put my information on there, sent it in. A month later I voted in a local election, and this also happened to be 2004, my first time voting for a President. In 1946-1964, I would not have had it so good. All kinds of tricks were used to keep Blacks from registering to vote in the South. I live in Georgia.
2) Attend any university that I please. I did that, and got a Bachelor's degree. I would not have been able to do this so easily, not in the South anyway.
3) No Jim Crow institutions. The library I go to, anyone can go to it. This is the rule throughout the nation. No one can tell me where I can and can't go. No more Jim Crow in terms of schools. I went to school based on where I lived, not based on what race I was. No Black or White water fountains, no Black or White bathrooms.
4) I can buy a house anywhere I want, and so can anyone else. You have the money, you can buy the house. Someone else doesn't like that you are of a certain race living in that neighborhood, said person can kick rocks. The only way said person could stop someone is through illegal means.
5) I can eat, travel, date/marry, wherever, whomever I please. No laws can prevent that.
1946-1964 vs now and the future. I will take now and the future.
i would never want to go back to such a socially conservative and racist era when everyone wanted to move out to suburban hell, and destroy our (formerly) amazing cities.
As a woman, would I want to live in a perpetual cycle of 1946-1964?
Hell NO!
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