Forty years later

Who Was the Real Victim?
Testimonies of some of those impacted by the events of 1968, which describe a time of change and confusion, leaving  for many a void

by Maurizio Maniscalco

The October issue of Newsweek featured a multicolor cover entitled, “1968: The Year that Changed Everything.” Everything… Well, reading the issue doesn’t clarify what they meant by everything. It offers some episodes, a few ideas, an attempt to compare it with the Paris riots in May, and a quick reflection on the fact that nobody died in Europe during all the chaos of the riots, while here, during the same months, many civil rights leaders lost their lives.
I have very vivid memories of those years. I was old enough to soak up like a sponge all the black and white images I saw on TV and what I managed to understand from newspaper articles. But perhaps I wasn’t old enough to understand what was truly happening at the heart of this country. So, having accepted the task of putting together this article, mostly for my own curiosity, I got on the phone and began calling people who are my age (and older), to ask what that mythic year meant for them. This is not a scientific analysis or statistical inquiry, just a kind of random sampling of professors, lawyers, doctors, musicians, computer system experts, clerks, mothers, and even members of religious orders, from all over the U.S., from the megalopolis of New York where I live, to the vast spaces of the Midwest, in which I asked them a very simple, direct question: “What does 1968 mean for you?”

Questioning authority
Jim, born and bred in South Dakota, answered, “There were a series of events that occurred that weakened the relationship with authority and institutions, bringing a sense of disorientation and confusion, above all in people like me, who’d never doubted their relationship with authority and institutions.” What series of events? Rick, a company manager, shot back immediately, “Racial upheaval. I lived in the same neighborhood as Henry W. Maier, the Mayor of Milwaukee, who became a target for blacks after the assassination of Martin Luther King (April 4th) and Robert Kennedy (June 6th). That summer, I spent at least three weeks closed up in the house, with a curfew imposed, and National Guardsmen on every corner.” Jack, a software expert, said, “In the suburbs of Washington, D.C., where I grew up following in the tracks of my older brother, that was the year of marijuana and LSD.
“These drugs came out of the blue and became faithful companions in all that confused rebellion and idealism, which was made up of just music and some groundless chatter. This is what characterized our microscopic and inconclusive little group of blacks and whites.” Sharon, a mother, grandmother, and college professor, was in Los Angeles when Robert Kennedy was killed, just after announcing his victory in the California primaries. Her mother was part of the Senator’s electoral campaign team. “It was the end of a dream that we all believed could come true. My family also hung around with hippies, and there had been a joyful optimism that seemed to spring from simply saying, ‘Make love, not war.’” Jon, a musician, said few in the U.S. were aware of what was going on in Europe, and nobody was particularly interested, except for little groups like the Underground Weathermen Organization and the Black Panthers.

The world’s problems
A New York friend said, “Why should we have cared about Europe? It represented decadence; it couldn’t even rid itself of Hitler without our help. We didn’t see Europe as our enemy; we just ignored it. We already had the Soviet Union and Communism as enemies. Here we had an energy of hope that turned into rage and bewilderment with the murders of King and Kennedy.” David, a long-time university professor, said, “I was in Toronto, finishing my PhD and teaching. All of a sudden, the world around me became anti-American, where there had been a lot more consensus about the Vietnam War than there is now about the one in Iraq. Even the notorious Tet Offensive, from a strictly military point of view, was a disaster for the Vietcong, not for the U.S. Army. But the wind had changed, and the media gave the final shove convincing everyone that the war was lost–and they succeeded easily. With the deaths of the Kennedy brothers, the unbounded hubris they had instilled in everyone–we can resolve all the world’s problems!– changed to delusion and violence. The institutions didn’t know what to say or do. Nor did the Church. Today, we see the consequences in the institutionalized tribalism (we’re not what we are, but the ideological label we stick on ourselves) and reason’s evasion of responsibility.”
Fr. Jerry, a parish priest in Minnesota, said, “I have extremely vivid and intense memories of that year. I remember exactly where I was, with whom, and what I was doing when I heard of the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and King. Why? Because it was a time of great idealistic striving, and we saw them as paladins of a great hope and passion for the truth. I was a university student, and I marched. The Bishop of Minneapolis marched too. We weren’t marching against something, but because of the insuppressible desire for meaning that was exploding inside us.” Asking Fr. Jerry to talk about it was like bringing him back to those times, “As if it was yesterday,” he said. “The country was always upheld by very strong patriotism. The victorious Second World War and the Korean War had bound souls together, but now this patriotism was taking form as a restlessness full of questioning, a questioning that was lacerating and painful and, for some, transmuted into violence.”

The miracle of change
Yes, there was the war–but who could ever love a war? A tragedy, but not enough for world upheaval. And there was the middle-class lifestyle, the exaggerated materialism and consumerism, but only for little groups with no conscience or weight. There was also an explosion of drugs and music as liberation from conformity, but this was neither a search for the ideal nor even mere ideology. It seems like 1968 was a mystery in which we know all the facts, the characters, and even whodunit, but we are missing the name of the victim.
Who is the victim? Maybe the hope that man could work the miracle of change, that man could build a true and just society.
Richard, the last person I called, a teacher in Miami, gave me the words of this song. “It’s the only thing I remember from 1968,” he told me.

Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham? Anybody
here seen my old friend John?
Anybody here seen my old friend Martin? Anybody
here seen my old friend Bobby?
Didn’t you love the things that they stood for? Can
you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed lotta people but it seems the good they die
young…

It made me think of the words of our friend Claudio Chieffo: “We need Someone to free us from evil, because the whole world’s stayed just the same.”
Today, as in 1968.