Historians have debated the causes of the turbulent 1960s. Some scholars have favored a generational explanation. The United States has undergone periodic cycles of reform as each new generation has come of age—about once every 30 years. Thus the twentieth century began with progressive reformers pushing for change, only to give way to the quiet "normalcy" of the 1920s, which in turn was succeeded by the activist New Deal in the 1930s. Similarly, the "consensus" decade of the 1950s preceded liberalism's high tide in the 1960s. In that light, the Port Huron Statement can be read as a call for a new cycle of reform led by the nation's young baby boomers, who grew up during the 1950s. "There had to be a critical mass of students, and enough economic fat to cushion them," suggested one historian.

Other historians are more leery of the generational approach. Consider some of the figures who played pivotal roles in the decade's social reforms: civil rights advocates like Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez, feminist Betty Friedan, environmentalist Rachel Carson, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, drug-promoter Timothy Leary, and rock stars like Bob Dylan and the Beatles. All were born before or during World War II and were not a part of the baby boom generation. In fact, it is possible to argue that, by and large, baby boomers served mainly as foot soldiers in a crusade led by a generation that came of age during the consensus years of the 1950s.

In the end, it may be more useful to focus on specific catalytic events that bonded different generations. Mississippi Freedom Summer was such an event. Student volunteers for Mississippi underwent a kind of on-the-job boot camp, often tutored by radical "veterans" half a dozen years older who had already come to the voting rights project. The newly arrived baby boomers gave up their suburban dress for overalls and work shirts of the sort worn by poor African American laborers in the Mississippi Delta. Workers shared in the terror of frequent harassment and even possible death. Once SNCC volunteers returned to their college campuses, they themselves became catalysts for much of the turmoil that followed. They did not necessarily "cause" the rebellion of the 1960s, but they did help shape much of the discontent stirring beneath the veneer of campus conformity.

1			The student movements and counterculture were a significant part of the upheaval of the 1960s. Read the Port Huron Statement, one of the most prominent articulations of the reasons for and goals of the student movement. What were the complaints of the authors of this statement? What were their demands? http://www.hippy.com/php/article-129.html Now read this essay on the discord of the youth of the 1960s. What does the author perceive as the causes of this unrest? Does her understanding of the youth culture match that of the Port Huron authors? Why or why not? If not, how do you explain the distinctions? http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1983/4/83.04.04.x.html