![]() To them, it seemed only right for the children of the “greatest generation” to help those less privileged to fight battles for justice and equality. These young people were only too willing to take up Kennedy’s call to action, and many did so by joining the civil rights movement. Instead, they found traditional systems that forced them to take required courses, confined them to rigid programs of study, and surrounded them with rules limiting what they could do in their free time. Meanwhile, baby boomers, many raised in this environment of affluence, streamed into universities across the nation in unprecedented numbers looking to “find” themselves. Movies and sports were regular aspects of the weekly routine, and the family vacation became an annual custom for both the middle and working class. By 1960, American consumers were spending $85 billion a year on entertainment, double the spending of the preceding decade by 1969, about 79 percent of American households had black-and-white televisions, and 31 percent could afford color sets. ![]() Entertainment occupied a larger part of both working- and middle-class leisure hours. Material culture blossomed, and at the end of the decade, 70 percent of American families owned washing machines, 83 percent had refrigerators or freezers, and almost 80 percent had at least one car. population was living in the suburbs during the 1960s, the average family income rose by 33 percent. ![]() THE NEW LEFTīy 1960, about one-third of the U.S. These young, middle-class Americans, especially those fortunate enough to attend college when many of their working-class and African American contemporaries were being sent to Vietnam, began to organize to fight for their own rights and end the war that was claiming the lives of so many. However, many of these baby boomers (those born between 19) rejected the conformity and luxuries that their parents had provided.
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