Tag: Anti-War Movement

On a Class Project

The kids in Mr. Jones’s class were always having fun.

It’s not that the sophomore World History course was easy or that Mr. Jones was not a disciplinarian, no. It’s just that for most high school classes, you walk out and pretty much forget about that subject until you have to go back to class the next day. But that wasn’t the case with this particular class. Mr. Jones made the subject interesting. The kids would talk about what they had discussed that day at lunch, during recess, after school, and on weekends. Mr. Jones was one of those teachers whose lessons stayed with his students years after they left his classroom.

In 1967, Ron Jones was facing a challenge. His kids were having a hard time relating to his lessons. Now, remember that the 1960s was a decade where American young people were questioning, well, pretty much every convention in that society. Choices about clothing, hair styles, music, sexuality, and gender roles as well as racial relations were called into question. The anti-war movement, which many saw as an anti-establishment movement, was growing as the decade wore on an more Americans and Vietnamese were being killed and wounded. So, Mr. Jones had a hard sell to convince his pupils that history was important.

One day, at the beginning of class, Mr. Jones wrote on the chalkboard, in big letters, STRENGTH THROUGH DISCIPLINE. He then ordered the students to sit at attention when they took their seats until he gave them permission to sit at ease. When asking questions, the students were required to stand and to preface each question with, “Mr. Jones, sir,” before composing a short question. Rather than bristle under these new rules, the kids loved it. It was like a game, one said later, and it was different and new to them. Day two of the new order, Jones wrote STRENGTH THROUGH COMMUNITY, began lecturing on the dangers of individualism, and said that he wanted the students to become part of what he claimed was a national youth movement called The Third Wave. He said that kids all across the nation were getting exited about the new movement, and that they found peace and happiness by rejecting personal goals and achievements for the sake of the greater good. The students, who first thought of the new rules as a lark, began to quietly and respectfully listen to what Mr. Jones was saying. You could see that they were soaking it in, Jones reported later.

Day three saw a new slogan on the board: STRENGTH THROUGH ACTION. Jones passed out membership cards, thereby making the group somewhat “exclusive.” He told three of the students to secretly report to him when fellow students weren’t following the rules. Surprisingly, over twenty students made secret reports of rule breaking to Jones. Also, he heard that some of the students at the school who weren’t in the class were interested in joining the movement, and he agreed that these other students could join but had to pass specific tests to insure that they, too, would follow the rules. What had started as a class of 30 soon grew to over 200 students in the school who joined the New Wave movement.

Mr. Jones was facing some pushback. Some students who weren’t part of the New Wave complained that they weren’t allowed to join. Parents of kids in the class had called the school expressing concern because their children were quoting Jones to them, quoting the three slogans, and had changed their behavior at home. They were more involved in the family the past few days, they reported, and were concerned that Jones had started some sort of a cult. The students were actually eager to go to school, they said. One student, a large kid on the football team, volunteered to act as a bodyguard for Jones in case there was any trouble. It was all getting out of hand.

So, Jones called an assembly of all the New Wave members. He said that a national announcement would be made on Television that day, and that they would be able to watch it live on a TV set up in the auditorium. Student guards were placed at each entrance to insure that only card-carrying members of the New Wave would be admitted. At the beginning of the assembly, some of the New Wave students started chanting the three slogans over and over. Finally, when it was time for the broadcast, Jones turned on the TV to show…a blank screen.

Then, as the students watched eagerly, Jones started a film on the large screen behind the TV. It was a Nazi propaganda film. That’s when Jones announced that the students had been involved in an experiment. He apologized if anyone was hurt or if the experiment had caused harsh feelings between friends or family.

But he had taught a lesson his students would never forget: It’s oh so easy for a society so slip into fascism.

On an Old Hippie

The fact that the word “hippie” is in the title of this story instantly marks me as being old. No one uses that word anymore, and anyone who knows it was from the period 50+ years ago when it was part of the cultural and social landscape. The word came from the idea of someone who was “hip” or “hep,” as in someone who was “in the know” and “wise” as opposed to someone who had no idea about what was cool or popular or “in.” In the 1960s and ’70s, a hippie was someone who was on the side of the anti-war, pro-drug legalization, anti-establishment youth movement. The opposite of a hippie would be a “square,” someone who supported the traditional values and power structure in the western world. You could tell which side someone was on based on how they dressed, what hairstyle they wore, and the language they used as well as how they voted and what issues they supported. And, while the overwhelming majority of hippies were young, this story is about one such hippie who was older.

In many ways, this old hippie was against type for many reasons besides his age. He was from the American south, from a traditional background, and had, as a younger man, indeed supported the establishment. But, as he aged, his politics changed. There’s an old saying that someone is more liberal in politics as a youth and more conservative as they age. So, this older man went against this trope. He had seen the effects of the American policy of the Vietnam War, for example, and he became horrified by how morally wrong it was. He became an anti-war supporter. Also, he began to wear his hair longer, much longer than what traditional society would say was acceptable for a man in his 60s. Remember, during that time, men who supported the establishment would not consider having long hair. Yet, this man wore his almost shoulder length. He would decry traditionalist men as “short hairs” because they cut their hair so short like the establishment was used to.

And the music he liked went against type as well. His favorite group was Simon and Garfunkel, and the song by this duo that was his favorite was Bridge over Troubled Water. He would listen to that record over and over for hours at a time. At that time Simon and Garfunkel’s reputation was more anti-establishment and anti-war, and this man embraced those sentiments as well. Finally, his dress also mirrored that of the younger, hippie group. He wore pants that slightly flared at the bottoms, a style known at the time as “bell bottoms.” Instead of wearing a tie and dress shirt as he did when he was in his working years, he wore a loose-fitting shirt and kept it unbuttoned low on his chest. At times, he would run around his property dressed only in shorts with no shoes or shirt, his long hair flowing behind him.

That property was a farm he’d purchased a few years before. In his retirement, he worked to make it more self-sufficient, less dependent on things like chemicals and pesticides. That emphasis on environmentalism was also a mark of the hippie, and this old man saw the wisdom of embracing those concepts in an effort to get closer to the land. Ideas like this meant more to him as he grew older, because his health wasn’t good. He had a bad heart, you see, and he knew that he didn’t have much time to live. The men in his family died young, he said, and he had wasted so much time going for money and position and power instead of working to seek happiness in himself rather in the things he owned or the position he held. That, too, was a mark of a hippie–the rejection of what the establishment considered to be the important things in life. Friends from his old life would stop by to say hello, and they often left complaining about that old hippie who wasn’t the man they knew years before. “I wanted to talk business,” one old acquaintance said after leaving the farm, “and all he was interested in was how many eggs his hens were laying.”

He died of a massive heart attack at age 64, at his farm. He said that he wanted to live to see the Vietnam War end. And that’s what happened. He received a call a few days before his death telling him that the war was over. On the other end of the call, the voice of Richard Nixon said, “We’ve negotiated a peace with North Vietnam. The war’s over. I wanted you to know.”

Lyndon Johnson, the old hippie, could rest, now.