1968 Revisted -- Not So Great Flashback

1968

I was three years old in 1968, and very unaware of what was happening 65 miles west of my Central Valley Home in the San Francisco Bay Area, but since moving to the Bay Area I have found that those events have shaped the region over for the past four decades. The late 60’s and early 70’s left good and bad imprints for those who love living here in California and in San Francisco.

So last night, it was with great interest that I settled in to watch Tom Brokaw’s retelling of the year. It originally aired on Sunday on the History Channel, but thanks the DVR it saved me the commercials for this two hour special.

After it was over I felt like what I got was very superficial. Brokaw moved well through all of the major events of the year and the editing and music made it quite easy to watch, but what he failed to address was the cultural impact of the year. Seeing the impact of what was left in the Haight after the Hippies vacated and this former working class neighborhood and how it was transformed was left unsaid.

Brokaw did a cursory look at the impact of drugs and interviewed Haight Ashbury Free Clinic Founder Dr. David E. Smith and tried to speak of the dark side of the days but it way to little.

For the alternate view Brokaw interviews Conservative Pat Buchanan who called 1968 "the most divisive year in American history." This might have been the biggest overstatement in the show. My wife shouts out immediately “How about the Civil War.”

As a Bruce Springsteen fan the almost two hours was worth the his screen time. He was introspective and spoke of how it shape him and his music. Interviews with The Daily Show's John Stewart and the Smothers Brothers were funny and insightful.

I guess the real nugget was how much has not changed. The war quotes and political unrest very very similar and Spooky. 500,000 men figthing in Vietnam and we need to send another 100,000 or Winning the Fight over there or Orangeburg Massacre (Jena). How little has changed and that is what Brokaw missed.

The show tried to touch on the Vietnam War, the Presidential Election, Political unrest, Civil Rights, Women’s movement, Cultural Icons. This was prepared for the MTV generation with small bits and pieces and no real depth. This could have been a great project, and probably need to be done in Ken Burns style in 12 parts, but this documentary just made you wish for more. It came into focus that this was more about hawking Brokaw’s new book “Boom” then giving you any substance. The story was there, but Brokaw just stop short I guess it was a nice neat news package.

The show re-airs Saturday, December 15 05:00 PM.

1968 timeline - courtesy of the History Channel

• January 22 - Rowan & Martin's variety show Laugh-In debuts.
• January 23 - North Korea captures the USS Pueblo.
• January 30-31 - The Tet offensive in Vietnam shatters the American public's image of the war.
• February - The 1968 Winter Olympics open in Grenoble. Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy wins three gold medals in alpine skiing; Peggy Fleming takes the only U.S. gold, in figure skating.
• February 1 - Eddie Adams snaps the Pulitzer-winning photo of South Vietnamese Police Chief Nyguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer.
• February 1 - Priscilla Presley gives birth to Elvis's only child, Lisa Marie, at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis.
• February 8 - Highway patrolmen in South Carolina shoot into a crowd of black college students protesting a segregated bowling alley; three die and 27 are injured in what becomes known as the Orangeburg Massacre.
• February 8 - George Wallace enters the presidential race as an independent.
• February 16 - The Beatles travel to India to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In the Grammy Awards on February 29, album of the year goes to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
• February 19 - The PBS children's show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood debuts.
• March 12 - President Johnson wins the New Hampshire presidential primary by a surprisingly narrow margin over anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy.
• March 16 - Sen. Robert Kennedy announces he will run for the Democratic nomination.
• March 16 - U.S. soldiers, under the command of Lt. William Calley, kill more than 300 Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre.
• March 25 - The TV show The Monkees airs its last original episode.
• March 31 - President Johnson announces he will not seek reelection to the presidency.
• April 4 - The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. Riots break out in cities across the U.S.
• April 10 - In the Heat of the Night, a thriller exploring black/white social issues, wins five Academy Awards including best picture. Mike Nichols is named best director for The Graduate. The ceremony is postponed for two days due to the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.
• April 11 - President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
• April 23-30 - Anti-war protestors, led by Mark Rudd and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), shut down Columbia University. The protest will continue, in various forms, into June.
• April 29 - The Broadway musical Hair opens, creating a sensation with its profanity, irreverence for the American flag and its nude scene.
• May 13 - The United States and North Vietnam begin peace talks in Paris.
• May 13 - After massive student protests erupt in Paris, French workers join them for a one-day general strike in which nearly 800,000 people march through the streets protesting police violence and calling for the fall of Charles de Gaulle's government.
• May 30 - The Beatles begin recording the White Album. It will top the charts.
• June 5 - Senator Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan after winning the Democratic primary in California.
• July 25 - Pope John Paul VI publishes Humanae Vitae, condemning birth control and abortion.
• July 28-29 - The American Indian Movement is founded in Minneapolis.
• August 8 - Richard Nixon wins the Republican nomination for president.
• August 22-30 - In Chicago, police and anti-war protestors clash outside the Democratic National Convention, leading to the arrest of the Chicago Eight (later the Chicago Seven) - some of whom were Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden. Hubert H. Humphrey is nominated as the Democratic candidate for president.
• September 7 - Members of a new Women's Liberation Movement protest the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City.
• October 17 -Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their arms in Black Power salutes while receiving their summer Olympic medals.
• November 5 - Richard Nixon wins the presidential election.
• November 5 - Democrat Shirley Chisholm of New York is first black woman elected to Congress.
• November 22 - William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols share the first interracial kiss on U.S. television in the Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren."
• December 3 - Elvis Presley's "68 Comeback Special" airs on NBC.
• December 24 - Apollo 8 orbits the moon, sending back the "Earthrise" picture credited by many with fueling the environmental movement.

For further information on '1968', go to http://www.history.com/1968