by Robert Wilkinson
As I promised you at the beginning of this journey, I gave you the music as it unfolded, and what the network news offered us then about what happened at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, NY in August 1969. I wanted to keep the vibe as light as possible, which is why I’m putting this commentary last. Today is my take on the times before and after Woodstock, since that’s what we who lived in those times were experiencing then.
Hopefully this will provide some perspective about the months running up to the festival and the aftermath of what happened to our nation in the months after this event. Remember there were no cellphones, no internet, no alternative media, no indie anything, and long distance calls cost a fortune.
Because of the social revolution that took off in the mid-50s, the 60s brought a new attitude about basic human rights to millions through a confluence of events. It was a time when history itself was swirling with a new national promise for a better world despite the turmoil of the times.
It was a unique point in US history, where there was a sense of unity and understanding among millions which transcended words. It had been years in the making, and culminated in that Summer of 1969, after which the seeds scattered around the world over time in an infinite variety of forms. These seeds persist to this day, despite the public white noise of our times.
”We Shall Overcome”
The first half of the 60s was a constant drumbeat of the Civil Rights Movement, the Free Speech Movement, the Antiwar Movement, the American Folk Music Revival, and other collective efforts that gave millions of people a sense of being able to question, open and in public, the oppressive, destructive mindset of the past. Many assumptions about human rights, social justice, economic inequality, and the necessity of war were being challenged. While there were many tunes associated with the times, “Blowing in the Wind, “The Times They Are A-Changing,” "Masters of War," "With God On Our Side," and “Eve of Destruction” really did mobilize a national and international dialog and give us all a sense that big changes were in the air.
Whether marching in the streets, getting educated, or just singing folk songs around a fire, it was a time when people dared to repudiate the war machine and its enablers, and openly defied and decried racism and destructive cultural assumptions, often to our physical peril. It had been building for years and by 1969 had culminated in a national dialog about who we were as a nation.
Because of global radio and television, music took on an importance in pop culture unknown before that era. It began in the 50s, when radios were everywhere. Many types of music became widely known thanks to radio and television, since Ed Sullivan had been introducing “youth music” to a huge audience beginning with Elvis, who blazed so hot they wouldn’t shoot him below the waist.
Radio and television brought music to the entire world, which in turn led to young people everywhere hearing music they’d never heard before. Broadcasting was designed to appeal to the youth mass market, so radios played to our demographic all over the world. And music was evolving into what culminated at Woodstock.
A “quickening” happened in 1967 when the legendary 1967 “Summer of Love” bloomed and “peace, love, and flower power” were in the air! It was a magical time, when a greater sense of something going on in a big way was sensed by millions of people my age. Free concerts, free clinics, low cost cooperative food kitchens, food banks, and co-op grocery stores which developed in the late 60s and early 70s across America and other nations all challenged the capitalist model. And the music became psychedelic, with Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and countless other acts cracking the US mass market thanks to the Monterey Pop Fest in June 1967 and the movie about that unique event which went national later that year.
Then came 1968, which was perilous and very polarized due to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy. It was a grim time when things got very ugly. The war played on, there was rioting in the streets, and we hit a national turning point with the turmoil in Chicago and the stolen election where Nixon’s dirty tricks and backchannel deals stopped the peace talks. Protests happened on a regular basis all across the nation, and the system became very heavy handed.
By 1969, millions of people of every age from all walks of life were openly in a national dialog about ending the war and were openly defiant of Nixon and the war machine. We came together as a national voice (to whatever degree that was possible), and by August we were at the high water mark of what was later termed “Woodstock Nation.”
It was a time when the collective “we” knew who was part of the problem, and who wanted to be part of the solutions we needed to stop a useless, illegal, and immoral war, fulfilling the promise of The Great Society and living in peace with other nations. Yes, that’s how idealistic we were, and how naïve we were. Rein in the warmongers, rein in J. Edgar Hoover, and create a fair and just society.
Hippies and Freaks Played For the Ratings
Woodstock happened a bit by design, but mostly by accident. As you know from the posts on the event, it was poorly planned, chaotic, and lost money as an event. The show was a huge financial loss (and a huge mess as well!), and no one really had any sense of what had happened, other than it being the biggest music festival that ever happened. It didn’t really become a legend until the movie came out, and that helped the promoters recoup their losses.
During that weekend, just as they had done every night for years and would do every night for years to come, the television networks broadcast the war, and when they could, the war protests, the riots, and the heavy handed responses orchestrated by the Nixon administration. Everything about the young was mocked. The long hair, the music, the dress, our views that peace is better than war and is attainable in concrete way, and our renunciation of the assumptions of reactionary politicians.
The networks and papers pretty much played up the worst caricatures and problems of our generation every time they could. Of course, that is not surprising since we were challenging the system itself, and our media has been an instrument of government propaganda since Project Mockingbird. They always played the slant that those in power wanted to project to the public. At least now they’re questioning many things they never did before, since they’ve found that the truth matters.
Cruising Down the Time Stream Since Then
And so we walked on into our adult lives. Throughout the 70s and 80s there was an unceasing drumbeat of criticism about everything that was “wrong” about the 60s youth, even though we still succeeded in stopping the Vietnam War, attempted to secure equal rights for women and minorities, got the EPA, Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act passed, and all those other things that so many take for granted today. We questioned authority and still got some very good things accomplished.
What happened in the 60s was a glimpse of the promise, not the fulfillment of that promise. “All You Need Is Love” and “Give Peace A Chance” were songs offering a different way than the prevailing systems of those times. Our times too. That’s why they’re still relevant today.
As I gave you a while ago, John Lennon put it this way: "The thing the 60s did was show us the possibility and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibilities." And of course, those possibilities ran contrary to what the government wanted, and so were squashed at every turn. By May 1970 Kent State and Jackson State made it clear the government was willing to kill us in the streets and college campuses for no reason at all other than that they could.
Still, as the Grateful Dead Shaman sang, “we will survive.” Over the years I’ve found that those who were there and were part of the collective awakening never forgot that experience, and still hold those ideals as values. We’ve gotten older, but still remember when we could look into other people’s eyes and know, beyond words, exactly where their heads and hearts were at about war and peace.
There are millions around the world who still hold in our hearts the hope for a better world of love, peace, and equal rights for all. And countless numbers of us have passed these values on to our children and grandchildren.
Millions still carry the Light, the Truth, and the Magic of those times, even if these look differently in the 21st century than they did then. Whether 8 years old or 80, we hold those values and the determination to make a better world however we can, as well as the resolve to carry those values forward until our last breath. The seeds of Woodstock Nation will endure until the end of time and beyond. And the best of it will keep flowering in the decades to come.
And that’s the way it is on August 18, 2019....
© Copyright 2019 Robert Wilkinson
Masterfully articulated, Robert - thank you. As part of that generation and one who has never lost the vision, never given up the job of helping those seeds continue to flourish, it is validating to hear it summarized so well.
Posted by: Valerie BE | August 18, 2019 at 03:30 PM