Fierce Memories, Fresh Histories

Abstract

In contrast to most periods in American history, the Sixties refuses to die. Symbols and issues that emerged four decades ago continue to roil our politics and culture today: battles over abortion and gay rights, conservative attacks on “the adversary culture,” the revival of a mass antiwar movement, even ads for Howard Stern's soft-core radio show that feature the same clenched fist design created by the New Left. When William Faulkner wrote in 1951, “The past is never dead. It's not even past,” he could have been referring to the decade that lay just ahead as well as to the long shadow the Civil War cast on southern memories. During the 1960s, the primary messenger of news in the United States became, for the first time, a visual medium rather than the printed word. And some of the most powerful televised images—now endlessly recycled on every kind of screen—were...