ABSTRACT
Our collective memory of the Sixties era tends to focus on dramatic episodes or events: the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy; the 1963 March on Washington; the 1965 March on Selma, Alabama; race riots in major cities; the Chicago Democratic Convention; the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the My Lai massacre; or the Kent State and Jackson State shootings. Violent episodes, in particular, seem to have a way of clinging to our historical imagination. So, too, do moments of great triumph-Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington, D.C., in 1963; students protesting on behalf of free speech in California in 1964; an outdoor music festival in 1969 that turned a rainy weekend into an extended demonstration of fellowship and goodwill. In this section, we have included the stories of people directly involved in some of these events. We asked our storytellers to convey what it felt like to be inside a landmark event in history.
