her Party, women moving into the work force, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy Jr., the war in Vietnam, the Kent State protest, and finally the Woodstock festival. The electric subcurrent of the fifties was, above all, rock’n’roll, the live wire that linked bedazzled teenagers around the nation, and quickly around the world, into the common enterprise of being young. Rock was rough, raw, insistent, especially by comparison with the music it replaced; it whooped and groaned, shook, rattled, and rolled. Rock was clamor, the noise of youth submerged by order and prosperity, now frantically clawing their way out. The winds of change began to sweep across America in the late fifties. The political unrest came with fear of thermo-nuclear war and the shadow that had been cast by Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. The civil rights leaders were unhappy with President Eisenhower’s reluctance to use his powers for their cause, in spite of the fact that the nation was becoming more receptive to civil rights reforms. With black organizations becoming more militant, Eisenhower needed to acknowledge the growing movement, and govern accordingly. World politics were still dominated by the conflict between the capitalist nations, led by the USA, and the Communist countries, led by the USSR. The bonds that were keeping people loyal to their leaders were breaking down. In 1960 there was a major split between Russia and China. The Chinese decided that the Russians were betraying Communism and set off on what they hoped would be the world revolution against capitalism. During the fifties, the economic situation was in a constant state of growth. The United States were prospering and the government was clinging to the "golden years." The rise of the giant corporations had a profound effect on American life. A few hundred corporations controlled much of the nation’s industrial and commercial assets and enjoyed a near monopoly in some areas. The mega corporations dominated the seats of economic and political power. They employed millions of workers, a large percentage of whom populated the suburbs that were growing across the country. The changing American economy also experienced dramatic shifts in the composition of the work force. Fewer workers went into traditional fields such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining, and more went into clerical, managerial, professional, and service fields. In 1956, for the first time in the nation’s history, white collar workers outnumbered blue collar ones, "and by the end of the decade blue collar workers constituted only 45 percent of the work force." The sexual composition of the work force also changed as more and more women entered the labor market. The influx of women into the work world that had been accelerated by the Second World War continued in the postwar period. The political groups, and the negative feelings that they harbored towards the present administration, only kindled the flames of revolution. The previous generation was clinging to the "good times" of the fifties, and the youth were looking for a niche to call their own. With the drastic change in child population after the Second World War, divorce became less taboo. As a result, single mothers were forced into the labor market, and with these jobs came independence. The 50’s and all its political, and social change, was only the breeding ground for the free thinking generation that was to follow. In America, a group of militant blacks called the "Black Panther Party" had been dubbed "American’s Vietcong." They were tired with the roadblocks and discrimination that were plaguing the civil rights leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King. They decided to get equality by whatever means necessary. Their members had been involved in shoot-outs with the police, which were, by the radical community, dress rehearsals for the coming Armageddon. The hippie movement was new in the early 60’s, the men only beginning

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