Youth Protest in the Americas

Students formed social movements that moved them from resistance to liberation. Persistence of student protestors brought some changes on campuses i.e. new courses in black history and gender studies, reflecting the changing times. Militant students: storming buildings, abusing visiting speakers and battling with the police. 221 major demonstrations on university campuses in first half of 1968 alone.

Baby boom + expansion of higher education = unprecedented number of educated, wealthy college students (for some of whom revolt was a fashion). The spiralling cost of a college education meant that those who successfully gained one immediately began having to repay their debt, and it quickly became obvious that radical militancy did not pay as well as law.

Environmental movement gathered support but also alienated many ainstream Americans by its association with the hippy moviement. The Three Mile Island nuclear disaster did more to discredit nuclear power than any of the intellectual arguments between Commoner and Ehrlich. But, the poor environmental action suggests that the environmentalism of the 1960s protest never effectively moved into the public consciousness.

Politician + journalist Ralph Nader increasingly campaigned on an environmental platform in his five independent candidatures for president between 1992 and 2008. Although he had sufficient support from the children of the 1960s to ensure a media profile, he never had a realistic chance.

Success: The environmental protests of the youth movement in the 1960s and 70s influenced the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Also, the 1972 ban on DDT can be traced back to the origins of Carson's work