General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: You Tell Us: When Did The Spirit Of The '60s End? [View all]frazzled
(18,402 posts)were the events of 1968: the assassinations of King and Kennedy, even the shooting of Andy Warhol, the race riots that followed King's death ... and late in that year, the election of Richard M. Nixon. It was really hard to feel that peace, love, and understanding could prevail after that. Flower power felt like a weak weapon to wield against assassins and racial divisions. And of course, all things related to cultural styles must change.
Certainly, Woodstock would take place the next year, billed as a "Festival of Peace and Music"; and indeed it was the apotheosis of the "spirit of the 60s." We were at the very acme of the flower-power cultural moment. But apotheosis means that it's all downhill from there. By 1974, I remember that my husband cut his long hair. Maybe that marked the end of the 60s!