Full Program Description

Young Blood
A new generation challenges the Establishment
Original broadcast: Monday, June 14, 1999 at 10pm
(check local listings for re-broadcast dates)

"My parents tried to reason with me in political discussions. But the more they tried to be reasonable, the more I revolted, and this isn't true just for me, but for my whole generation. Fortunately, at our age, our enthusiasm and our way of thinking also got us involved in other things . . . into relationships with the girls that we met in our political activities. The best way to seduce a girl was probably to talk about Trotsky or the Russian Revolution."
-- Romain Goupil, student activist (1968), France

More babies were born in the United States in the first ten years after World War II than in the fifty years before it. By 1960, almost half the US population was under eighteen years old. With little more than youthful bravado, young people the world over rose up to challenge authority on everything from foreign policy to popular culture.

By 1968, the conservative '50s economic boomtime had been overtaken by full-blown social and political revolt. In Europe, students rioted and demonstrated for greater intellectual freedom -- and against the rigid values of their parents' generation. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, fear of nuclear annihilation, and the Vietnam war were galvanizing a new generation on the nation's college campuses and beyond -- pitting a vigorous new youth culture against the Establishment.

While some took to out-and-out rebellion, others dropped out, turning instead to an alternative lifestyle which aspired to peace, love, and freedom. Adults raised during the lean years of the Depression and world war were offended by the style as much as the substance of the protests -- and the beat of a new age: In many ways, nothing symbolized the mood of the world's youth more viscerally than the popular music of the '60s -- a powerful new medium that transcended national boundaries and gave voice to a generation's passion.

Under intense public pressure, the US finally withdrew from Vietnam in 1975. With the war's end, the stormy adolescence of a rebellious generation quieted, but for millions the lessons survive: change can come from below as well as above; children can teach their parents; students can influence their schools; and ordinary people have the power and the right to challenge authority and change the world.

The people remember: Civil Rights Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam, student protests in 1968 Paris, anti-war movement, 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Weather Underground, rock and roll, popular culture, hippies, counter-culture, yippies, anti-nuclear campaigns.

Young Blood is produced and directed by Mark J. Davis. Series senior producer is David Espar. Series executive producer for WGBH Boston is Zvi Dor-Ner; Peter Pagnamenta is executive producer for the BBC.

Alfre Woodard narrates.

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