1968: Minnetrista Takes Us Back
Seminal in tone and historic in proportion: M61 grenades, Molotov cocktails, rifle butts, fiery hoses, howling canines, hostile missions, army tanks, burning buildings, political scandals, ascending rockets, sensational Rock-bands, senseless assassinations, televised protests, racial unrest, rampant poverty, social death. Explosion. Expression. Explosion.
The year was 1968.
Perhaps no other year, in the last century, has yielded more historical consequences—of racial, national, social, and international dimensions—than 1968.
It was the year Martin Luther King, regarded by many the greatest moral crusader of a generation, was gunned-down in Memphis, Alabama, on the top balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
It was also the year President Lyndon Baines Johnson had to come to terms with the unwinnable war he was waging in Vietnam—a war inherited from his running-mate, who, three years prior, had fallen victim to a sniper’s bullet at the prime of his presidency.
It was the year the sure-to-be next Democratic President of the country, Robert F. Kennedy’s life was stopped short while on the campaign trail.
The smoke of assassination, betrayal, and loss was thick in the air.
But it was also the year when the public sphere began taking seriously its critical role, its civic duty, as watchdog and legitimator of government. The functions of government, it was beginning to find out, depended wholly on the compliance or courageous opposition of the people—“Everyday People,” as Sly Stone called them in his hit record released that year.
In defiance against what they considered grotesque misuse of government privilege, protests became the tall order of the day. Droves of citizens dashed into the streets, surrounded by signs and placards in honor of whatever causes they supported. From the Vietnam War abroad, to the Nigger War at home, those who chose to make noise in the name of humanity did it unabashedly. Some even went further down the corridor of extremism, blowing up and burning up buildings to call attention to the many issues they felt the Johnson administration had abandoned in its War efforts.
1968 is also a special year because it—along with the years preceding it—produced the finest work advocacy journalism had ever manifested. While mainstream media networks were working overtime—as they always are—in sensationalizing the war, televising graphic battle scenes for the amusement of a deceived public, remarkable voices like Malcolm X, I.F. Stone, Martin Luther King, Jr., Utah Philips, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Grace Lee Boggs, Harry Belafonte, Coretta Scott King, and even Sammy Davis Jr., rose up in pale comparison; writing, broadcasting, singing, speaking, preaching, and editorializing about a much different reality—of a harmless Vietnam population being blown out of existence; of a national, racial unrest in need of as much attention as the international war was receiving.
The year was, indeed, seminal in tone and historic in proportion, and with the help of Minnetrista Cultural Center & Oakhurst Gardens, we can visit—at least partially—some of the wonders that made it so.
Minnetrista, located close to the downtown area of Muncie, is featuring an exhibit, from now through January 7th, which strives to bring back some of those memories, retell some of those tales, and rekindle some of those spirits which made 1968 not only a memorable but monumental year.
The exhibit isn’t nearly as large as one might expect—for a project bearing such magnitude—but it does well in capturing the essence of the moment with sound recording samples from the period (The Rolling Stones, “Jumping Jack Flash,” The Beatles, “Revolution” & “Lady Madonna,” Diana Ross & The Supremes, “Love Child,” Sly & The Family Stone, “Everyday People,” etc.), a TV set built with several recordings to commemorate the social and political ramifications 1968 brought forth, pictures and magazine cover stories frozen-in-time 40 years ago, historical artifacts of various conditions, and cue card-length posters to provide meaningful information about the era that defined a whole generation. It also features great work of text written in commemoration of ’68. Taylor Branch’s At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (a personal recommendation), Benjamin Quarles’ The Negro in the making of America, and Charles Kaiser’s 1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture, and the Shaping of a Generation are noteworthy mentions.
The sections are divided to address specific issues of substance ’68, and the years that introduced it, brought forth. Included are The Civil Rights demonstrations, the Vietnam War demonstrations, the presidential campaigns, and the changing musical landscape (British Invasion). In between are splattered mentions about the racial, social, and political ramifications the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy accounted for.
One picture of great significance displayed was of two women, part of a larger group, peacefully protesting against the Vietnam occupation—but with signs that established the double-consciousness of their struggle. One lady held up a sign that asked: “DOES NAPALM TEACH DEMOCRACY?” while the other’s was less ambivalent: “DEMOCRACY at home PEACE abroad.”
Another important feature was the discovery of a white posterboard with large black letters inscribed on it: “Honor King: End Racism.” It was donated by a current university professor who had worn it, shortly after the King assassination, in hopes of preserving the legacy of moral vigilance King nurtured tirelessly for nearly two decades.
But perhaps the greatest highlight of this exhibit is the local focus it keeps on the national and international events that fateful year yielded.
One poster detailed how much unscathed Muncie wasn’t from the nationwide racial tensions. “Trouble at Muncie Schools” is the header. The background:
A fight between black and white students broke out at Southside High School at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 30, 1968, apparently because several white students shouted names at and traded insults with a group of black students. Police were called in and used tear gas to break up the brawl. Nine black and two white students were arrested, and approximately 75 students left the school grounds. The direct cause of the fight was uncertain, but school officials noted that tension had been building for a while.
The principal, accepting no personal responsibility, blamed it all on the evil deeds of “agitators from outside.”
Another poster, in chronicling the human toll of the Vietnam War (reportedly 58,168 dead and 153,303 wounded), lists Indiana’s share of that total: 1,500.
One other, more upbeat, discovery is a flyer for a March 27th, 1968, concert which featured the late, unquestionably great guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, on top bill. The event was “for all ages,” though a Muncie Star Press reporter wrote, in review, that Hendrix didn’t disappoint in smashing his guitar into the ground—as he was known, and loved, for.
The year was 1968, and whether it was The Weather Underground, The Chicago Seven, The Black Panther Party, The White Panther Party, The Youth International Party, SNCC, CORE, or SCLC, activism—direct agitation—was one of the only media through which accountability was brought to bear on the powers that-be.
The exhibit organizers did a fine job putting together something worth touring and exploring—and like the Jimi Hendrix concert, it is truly for all ages. More so the young. It’s a collections of memories that, although falls short on substance and purpose, although fails to inspire anything beyond the obvious, although unable to distinguish itself from any other exhibit of its kind, manages to leave a discernible impact on anyone lucky enough to visit.
1968 is an inextricable part of American, Vietnamese, and World history that cannot, should not, must not, be forgotten so easily—lest we make the same mistakes we spent the last 40 years correcting and recovering from.
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