My School Writings

The Wonders of The 60's

Okay, so, a bit of backstory on this before I put the actual writing here. In my class, we had to research things about the 60's, and what happened during that decade. I... had some issues with research, but not with writing the peice itself. I think I was one of the last done, but it was definitely worth it. I had took my time on reasearch, and on writing and getting the grammar the best I could at the time, and got an A+. I, don't think I got anything lower than an A on my writings this year... huh. Anywho, this took about a month to write (research + draft + final copy), and I was quite proud of it. But, here it is, The Wonders of The 60's.

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Wonders Of The 60's 

         ~Kaitlyn~

        The 1960's was a time when everything was changing. There were multiple activists out in the United States peacefully, and sometimes not peacefully, protesting to end segregation. This was called the Civil Rights movement. But that wasn't the only thing that was going on at the time. Sure, it was a massive thing going on in the decade, notwithstanding, there were some positive events as well. Things that happened varied from early protests, to segregation, even to a World's Fair — and they all shaped where we are in this world today. Early protests started mostly everything about the Civil Rights Movement. It had started way before the 1960's; furthermore, not far from after the 13th Amendment was signed. Although slaves were now free people, they still, however, did not have the same rights. For example, in 1884, Ida B. Wells was asked to give up her 1st class seat on a train to a white man. Ida refused and then was apprehended temporarily so they could get her off the train. The people in that car of the train then applauded for the people who had apprehended her. However she did get the justice she deserved, and then it was taken away from her again. She then decided to become a journalist, and afterwards, once people read her passages, people agreed with her. This was one of the first protests to end segregation.

      But, of course, protests happened for years after that, as in the 1950's and 60's this continued in different ways. Like in April 14 of 1964, 20 people were arrested for lying on subway streets in protests, and a few days before that, there was a subway fire because of a protest, and as well as a racial picket that derided a mayor, however, peacefully. These were some protests that most likely were not really known about. There are some that thousands of people know about as well, like the Freedom Rides — seven African Americans and six whites — mounted a Grayline Bus in Washington to protest segregated buses. Or the March Of Washington — most people know it for when Martin Luther King, Jr. made the speech "I have a dream". And not only grown adults protested. Have you heard of Hard Rock Nine? Hard Rock Nine were a group of African American women that went to and all-white school, at the time, of course, and got it desegregated. Many people fought to end segregation and eventually won.

        Now, segregation was a large factor of those 10 years, but what exactly was it? Segregation, in this decade, was the separation of the two skin colors— white and black. This became a policy enforced by a series of southern laws, which became known as The Jim Crow Laws. Segregation was in the 11 states of the former confederacy, addition to Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. Segregation became legal in those states, and were named the Jim Crow Laws. According to Melvin and Dorothy (AN: AKA, My grandparents I interviewed), there was little to no segregation in our area, only racism — and there still is today. Things that were segregated varied from coke machines to the US army. In WWI, the army was segregated, and blacks boycotted afterwards. In 1941, Roosevelt desegregated the US army, and in 1948, all of the military became desegregated. Melvin Meyer believes that all of this had to happen in order to be where we are in this time.

       Not everything about the 1960's was atrocious, people had fun as well! One of the most interesting, but fun things that went on was the World's Fair in 1964. It was a 646 acre 'fantasy land' that included 134 pavilions. 88 countries and 23 US states participated in the fair. Admission for a child was 1 dollar and for an adult, the price was $2 — 1 dollar then was about $8.10 now, and two dollars was about $16.20. There were many companies showing off what they can do. There were Disney's Animatronics which, in fact, were a very large hit. One of them looked like Abe Lincoln, which made a child say, ' I thought he was dead'! There was a performance of the animatronics called 'It's a Small World', and as Melvin said, "The thing that stuck out the most to me in the worlds fair was the show it's a small world. Just how the animations sang and danced stuck out a point to you." Dorothy said, " My favorite thing was the Futurerama. The only thing that was right so far was that there was a phone that you could see the other person while you were talking." The World's Fair definitely brought some joy into other people's lives. 

      The 1960's was a scary time with all of the violence and protests, but there was still a lot of fun in the world. If all the things that happened did not, we would not be where we are today, most likely without all the things we have today. However, I wish that history doesn't repeat itself, as if this happened again it could get worse. I believe this decade taught humanity of how we should all be equal, no matter how we look, act, or believe in.

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So, the writing itself was 831 words long. I had lots of fun writing it, for some odd reason. But, back to what I was going to say. Was it good enough? Is there anything that could be improved? Please leave it in the comments if there is, and have an amazing day!

~ Kate Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ