Deranged Debutante

          Rich, white, young, beautiful girl: kidnapped and brainwashed. This was the story of Patty Hearst, which captivated the attention of the nation for years. Patty Hearst was the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, a famous American newspaper publisher of the late nineteenth century, and the great-granddaugther of George Hearst, a multimillionaire. Her privileged upbringing and her rising acting career provided her with socialite status.

Young, beautiful Patty Hearst before her abduction

          Hearst was 19 years old in 1974, when she was kidnapped from her 26-year-old boyfriend's apartment in Berkley, California by the Symbionese Liberation Army. This group, known as the SLA, was a left-wing revolutionary group that was especially active between 1973 and 1975. They were known for their acts of violence, including murders and robberies.
          When Hearst was abducted, the SLA first demanded that their members in jail be released in return for Hearst. Their swap was refused; they then asked the Hearsts to donate 400 million dollars to California's needy. Patty Hearst's father agreed to donate 6 million dollars worth of food, but when he did so, the SLA refused to release Patty because of the poor quality of the food.
          Interest was sparked in the case when the SLA released a recording of Hearst saying her father could have done better with the food. Hearst also denounced her family in other ways, and claimed that she joined the SLA and changed her name to Tania.
          Just a few months later, Hearst was photographed robbing the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. During her time with the SLA, she participated in other illegal activity and declared her love for one of the main members of the group, Wolfe. She claimed that he was "the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known."

            Patty Hearst photographed robbing the Hibernia Bank

          The FBI and the SFPD finally arrested Hearst in September of 1975, along with one other member of the SLA. Upon her arrest, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerrilla." During the months of her pretrial confinement, Hearst continued to identify herself as a member of the SLA. At trial in 1976, Hearst's defense claimed that she been brainwashed and suffered Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological phenomenon in which hostages eventually develop positive feelings towards and side with their captors.
          During the trial, Hearst claimed that she had been sexually abused by members of the SLA, including Wolfe, of whom she had spoken so fondly. She said that she had been imprisoned in a dark, narrow closet for days. The defense claimed that Hearst's behaviors had been a result of this brainwashing.
          The prosecution, however, offered evidence about Hearst's rebellious adolescence. The prosecution undermined her credibility by revealing inconsistencies and omissions in her testimony, especially her failure to provide evidence about other captured SLA members, and ultimately obtained a conviction.
         After many efforts and attempts, Hearst was finally granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton in 2001 and the charges against her were dropped.

Sources:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/hearst/1.html
http://www.hearstcastle.org/history-art/historic-people/william-randolph-hearst
http://www.hearstcastle.org/history-art/historic-people/george-hearst
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Wolfe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bill_Clinton
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hearst/hearstbio75.jpg
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/images/story.bank.rob.jpg

Tragic Poets

          Over time, there have been numerous poets who have been mentally ill, often being depressed, bipolar, or alcoholics. Many of them even took their own lives. Some of the most well-known poets to have taken their lives are Anne Sexton, Randall Jarrell, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Adam L. Gordon, Sergei Esenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sarah Teasdale and Hart Crane.
       
English poet Thomas Chatterton dead at age 17 from suicide by arsenic poisoning

          Each poet had their own personal reasons to commit suicide, but researches compared the works of nine non-suicidal poets to nine suicidal poets and found similarities in the language of the suicidal poets that foreshadowed their downfalls. This research article was called "Word Use in the Poetry of Suicidal and Non-Suicidal Poets," published in Psychomatic Medicine in 2001. The authors and researches were James Pennebaker and Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, both psychologists.
          According to Dr. Pennebaker, suicidal poets used first person singular words like "my" and "I" at much higher rates than those who were not suicidal, and they referenced other people much, much less. There was not much of a difference in emotional content between the two groups, although suicidal poets used words for human interaction much less, such as "listen", "talk" and "share."
          It was also found that poets in particular were subject to a higher suicide rate than other literary writers and the public. Pennebaker noted that while all poets did not show signs of manic-depression or other mental illness, they were not a group that was known to be happy and cheerful. He also noted that the language similarities of poets who committed suicide could serve as "linguistic predictors of suicide" for modern poets today.

Sources:

http://www.sff.net/people/lucy-snyder/brain/2006/02/suicidal-poets.html

http://www.scaryplace.com/SuicidalPoets.html

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/14

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/9

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/11

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Lindsay_Gordon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Yesenin

http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/mayakovsky/

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/658

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/233
http://www.darkromance.com/dr-bod/dr-bod-vol_1_03/dr-bod-030730-death-chatterton.html

http://www.poemhunter.com/thomas-chatterton/

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Pennebaker

Tradition Goes Out the Window

A comic that mocks the Sexual Revolution

    Chivalry, abstinence, and tradition are three words that were no longer so strongly stressed by the 1960s, thanks to the Sexual Revolution.

    The Sexual Revolution was the liberation of established social and moral attitudes toward sex, as the women's liberation movement and developments in contraception instigated greater experimentation with sex, especially outside of marriage. 

    This new concept of sexual liberation was extremely controversial at the time; it included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships. Following closely behind were contraception, public nudity, the normalization of homosexuality, and the legalization of abortion. 

    Many question how this came about to begin with; there are a few theories, but it is argued that one specific cause alone can not be attributed with this large phenomenon. One suggested trigger for the modern revolution was the development of the birth control pill in 1960, which gave women access to easy and reliable contraception. Another theory is that the revolution was more directly influenced by the financial independence gained by the women who entered the workforce during and after World War II, making the revolution more about individual equality.

    Purchasing an aphrodisiac became "normal". Sado-masochism ("S&M") gained popularity, and "no-fault" unilateral divorce became legal and easier to obtain in many countries during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. All of these things became acceptable in a society that once ostracized women for having a baby with a man to whom she wasn't married to. 

    Other contributions that helped bring about this modern revolution of sexual freedom were the writings of Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich, who took the philosophy of Karl Marx and similar philosophers, and mixed together this chant for freedom of sexual rights in modern culture.

    America's perspective was rapidly changing, and many were on board. Beginning in San Francisco in the mid 1960s, a new culture of "free love" emerged, with thousands of young people becoming "hippies" who preached the power of love and the beauty of sex as part of ordinary life. This is part of a counterculture that exists to the present, for today "hippies" would not be very socially acceptable. 

    Free love continued in different forms throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, but its more assertive manifestations ended abruptly, or disappeared from public view, in the mid-1980s when the public first became aware of AIDS, a deadly sexually transmitted disease.

    The Sexual Revolution permanently altered America's view on abstinence, homosexuality, and more controversial issues like abortion. Although it opened many doors, there are still debates going on to this day about whether or not many of these practices are morally just; and I don't see everyone agreeing on one set answer anytime in the near future. 

Sources: 

http://www.greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons,%20favorites/qqxsgNew%20sexual%20revolution.gif
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=sexual+revolution&tbs=dfn:1&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=nDOHUMCwH4St0AHD1YCICA&ved=0CBsQkQ4&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=721d8d413178fdae&bpcl=35466521&biw=1211&bih=684
http://www.isis.aust.com/stephan/writings/sexuality/revo.htm
http://sixtiesbritain.co.uk/history/2010/05/25/history-the-oral-contraceptive-pill/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_nudity

http://www.exodusglobalalliance.org/whatishomosexualityp93.php
http://www.bpas.org/bpasyoungpeople/what-is-abortion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce
http://www.egs.edu/library/herbert-marcuse/biography/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html

The 1950's Housewives

When World War II broke out, a majority of American men left the country for war.  As a result, the women took over the jobs (such as factory jobs) in America that those men previously had.  The war ended in 1945, and as the 1950s rolled around, the men were reclaiming their previous jobs.  Consequently, women's roles changed back to the housewife status, their priority being housekeeping and caring for their husbands and children.

This role of women though, was more flexible than it had been in the past.  A large number of women actually kept the jobs that they had while the men went to war.  The numbers of marriages and births rapidly increased in the 1950s, but at the same time, the number of women in the work force was also increasing.

Regardless of the increasing numbers of working women, it was still looked down upon if women worked, especially if her family already had a sufficient amount of money.  It was looked down upon and a woman was deemed "selfish" if she had a job outside of their house but their family was making enough money already.  It was still more culturally accepted for the woman to stay home, her focus being on creating and caring for a family.

Because of this changing role of women, the number of women attending college decreased during the 1950s.  Many were instead getting married directly out of high school, around the age of 19.  Women who DID attend school were encouraged to take classes in housekeeping and financing, being that they are expected to take care of those duties in the house, while their husbands worked.

SOURCES:
http://www.sivaramaswami.com/en/2008/08/28/what-men-want/ (picture)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/p_mrs.html
http://1950s.weebly.com/womens-roles.html
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii

"The King"

Almost everyone knows who "the King" is.  Elvis Presley is commonly referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll."  Elvis was an American singer and actor, born in Tupelo, Mississippi.  He lived from 1935 to 1977, passing away in Memphis, Tennessee.  While a very popular actor, appearing in many commercials, TV shows, and movies, his first being the film Love Me Tender, I am going to focus on Elvis's true passion, singing.

As a teenager, Elvis enjoyed listening to pop and country music the most.  His first record label was with Sun Records in 1954 in Memphis, Tennessee.  In 1955, Elvis was sold to RCA Victor, and within a year he became a huge rock and roll sensation.

It wasn't just the voice and music that this man made, it was his handsomeness, humor, and charming character that made him so undeniably appealing to Americans.  Women all over were "wooed" by this man's charm and the dance moves he pulled off so well on stage.

Proving his popularity, Elvis won many awards during his lifetime.  Some of the most impressive being the Golden Globe award in 1973 (for best documentary film) and the Golden Laurel Award in 1966, for best male performance in a musical film (Tickle Me).

Elvis is very clearly one of the most famous entertainers of the 20th century, due to his charm, talent, and personality.  He is still very well-known to this day, and probably will be for years and years to follow.

The video below is of one of Elvis's most famous singles, "Jailhouse Rock" (1957)



Sources:
http://www.funscrape.com/Search/1/elvis.html (picture)
http://www.elvis.com/about-the-king/biography_.aspx
http://www.rcarecords.com/
http://www.goldenglobes.org/
http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000394/
http://www.sunrecords.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049452/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056585/

Reverse Commute

      After the Great Migration of African Americans to the industrial and urban areas in the North, the  subsequent sudden population shift of millions of African Americans back to the South in just 35 years needed some explanation. Analysis of migration data showed that the deindustrialization of the Northeast and Midwest, the growth of jobs in the south, the lower cost of living in the South, and family ties in the South were all factors of this "New Great Migration" beginning in 1965 and becoming more prevalent in the late 1900's.

          Two of the largest groups of people to contribute to this migration were recent college graduates and the middle-class. The populations dramatically dropped in New York and Northern New Jersey as they rose in the Southern United States, especially in Florida, Georgia and Texas. In fact, Georgia and Texas became known as the "brain gain" states because they brought in the most African American college graduates from 1995 to 2000. 

          Outside the Confederacy, the African American population in Maryland rose steadily, especially in the areas surrounding Washington D.C. Analysis showed that the African American population also shifted from Northern metropolitan areas like Chicago and Los Angeles to Southern metropolitan areas, especially Atlanta. The cities in California lost more African Americans than they even gained in the 1900's.

African American population according to 2000 census. Darker states show a greater population.

                                          

          The New Great Migration was especially concentrated in the cities and states with the most economic growth, like Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas.

          The effects of this migration and resulting population shift impact the government today. As more and more middle-class African Americans leave the North to go to the South, it is more difficult for government officials to count on tax revenues in the North. Also, the owners of African American business are now suffering from losing patrons, customers, church members, etc. to the South. 

          Today, as this population change still continues, scientists and sociologists are looking into the motivation and everlasting effects of this continual change.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2004/05/demographics-frey

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/25/how-budget-cuts-will-change-the-black-middle-class/the-black-middle-class-is-leaving-the-north

http://breastcancerdisparity.yolasite.com/resources/Black%20People%20in%20US%20map.gif?timestamp=1291385909843

Erased from History?

Members of the Black Panther Party

    The Black Panther Party was a progressive political organization that stood in the pioneer of the most powerful movement for social change in America since the Revolution. It is the only black organization in the history of black struggle against slavery and oppression that was armed and promoted a revolutionary agenda. This party represents the last great advance by the mass of blacks for equality, justice, and freedom. 

    The Party's ideals and activities were so radical, it was at one time criticized by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." Despite the demise of the party, its history and lessons remain so controversial that established texts and media would erase all reference to the Party from American History. 

    The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton, the seventh son of a Louisiana family relocated to Oakland, California. In October of 1996, around the time of the assassination of black leader Malcolm X, Newton gathered a few of his longtime friends, including Bobby Seale and David Hillard, and developed a skeletal outline for this organization. 
    Originally it was named the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. They used the black panther as the symbol for the party because it was a powerful image, one that had been used effectively by the short­lived voting rights group the Lowndes County (Alabama) Freedom Organization. The term "self defense" was employed to distinguish the Party's philosophy from the dominant non­violent theme of the civil rights movement. 
    Immediately, the leadership of the Party outlined a Ten Point Platform and Program. This Platform & Program articulated the fundamental wants and needs, and called for a redress of the long­standing grievances, of the black masses in America. The blacks were angry because they were still alienated from society and oppressed, despite the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War. Moreover, this Platform & Program was a proclamation that demanded the needs be met and oppression of blacks be ended immediately, a demand for the right to self defense, by a revolutionary ideology and by the commitment of the membership of the Black Panther Party to promote its agenda for fundamental change in America.
    The Black Panther Party played a major role in the history of the blacks; they finally decided that they would stand for nothing less than the equality, justice, and freedom that they deserved. They decided that the color of their skin was not going to stop them from attaining these goals of freedom. Some believe that their ideals were a bit too radical, but would the black people have ever made it where they are today without the advances of this party?

     

Sources: 

http://designermagazine.tripod.com/BlackPanthersPIC1.jpg

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/68134/Black-Panther-Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution

http://www.biography.com/people/j-edgar-hoover-9343398

http://www.biography.com/people/huey-p-newton-37369

http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-seale-9477529

http://www.blackpanther.org/speakers.htm

Naropa Institute: Major in Self-Awareness

          Imagine days in college filled with Indian classical music, yoga, nature, meditation and consciousness. Pushing your mental limits and looking within yourself is just part of the experience of Naropa Institute. Located in Boulder, Colorado, Naropa Institute was established in 1974 by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.  

Naropa Institute Ceremony

          Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was the eleventh descendant in the line of Trungpa tulkus, who were very influential teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche went to England to study comparative religion and philosophy at Oxford University. He later moved to America, publishing six books and establishing three meditation centers and a contemplation university, known as Naropa Institute.

Chogya Trungpa Rinpoche

          Many famous intellectual artists and scholars have attended Naropa Institute, such as AllenGinsberg, Ken Wilbur, Anne Waldman, John Cage, and Meredith Monk. Naropa is especially known for teaching many Beat poets. Ginsberg, Waldman, and Cage later founded a poetry department at Naropa.

Based in the world’s wisdom traditions, the curriculum at Naropa fosters a sense of spirituality and respect of diversity.  Naropa’s students take these basic principles from the institute into the real world, caring for and helping others as well as environmental stewardship. The belief is that each personality will be able to benefit from some way at Naropa. For example, many students are musicians, poets, environmentalists, activists, peacemakers, and bookworms. Each student is unique and creative in his own way.

         At the commencement of the year, each Naropa member bows, signaling respect and thoughtfulness. To graduate, students must perform Warrior exams, which are in-class oral tests in which students speak of their learnings and accomplishments. Most classes are taught on the floor and promote self-reflection in order that students challenge themselves personally and deepen their trust in their own worth and goodness.

         As spiritual and pure as Naropa Institue seems to be, there was supposedly a scandal at a 1975 Halloween party. According to a 1979 account from student editor, Tom Clark,  the founder Trungpa ordered the poet W.S Merwin and his girlfriend to strip. When they refused, Trungpa’s security guards forced them to take off their clothing, ignoring their calls for help. Other scholars complained that students such as Allen Ginsberg had an unhealthy fascination with Trungpa’s preaching of Tibetan Buddhistm. They believed that “Tibetan theocracy created a dangerous exclusivity and elitism in literature.”

         While their has been some obvious controversy about the Naropa Institute, there is no doubt that it has produced some of the greatest minds of the time, especially those to later produce literature. 

Sources:

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/chogyam-trungpa.php

http://www.naropa.edu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naropa_University

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~greg.c/tibet.html

http://www.ox.ac.uk

http://www.poemhunter.com/allen-ginsberg/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anne-waldman

http://johncage.org

http://www.meredithmonk.org

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5646

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/123
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=chogyam+trungpa&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1186&bih=622&tbm=isch&tbnid=paKrsv7de5iKVM:&imgrefurl=http://www.cynthiamacadams.com/chogyamtrungpa_1.html&docid=awJebDVYC84K-M&imgurl=http://www.cynthiamacadams.com/images/trnugpa1_lg.jpg&w=386&h=573&ei=SBN2UNvCA42v0AHY14GYAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=898&vpy=142&dur=21&hovh=274&hovw=184&tx=95&ty=113&sig=106803548166308161713&page=1&tbnh=127&tbnw=89&start=0&ndsp=27&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0,i:109
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=naropa+university&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1186&bih=622&tbm=isch&tbnid=LUG8-BLxTSvPYM:&imgrefurl=http://shambhalatimes.org/2009/03/02/acharya-simon-luna-and-the-santiago-gong/&docid=dwvQLy-vhmgP4M&imgurl=http://shambhalatimes.org/files/2009/02/santiago1.jpg&w=720&h=480&ei=sRN2UPO4BofB0QHO3oGoCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=379&sig=106803548166308161713&page=1&tbnh=121&tbnw=171&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0,i:152&tx=62&ty=49

Power to the Blacks!

A group of African-Americans doing the Black Power symbol.

    The Black Arts Movement was founded in Harlem by writer and activist, Amiri Baraka. This movement can be seen as the artistic branch of the Black Power Movement. This movement inspired black people everywhere to establish ownership of publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. 
    Many blacks of the time actually encouraged separate communities, and therefore separate arts and music from the whites. This may seem ironic to some because all anyone every heard was that the blacks wanted equal treatment and this just doesn't seem like the way to go about getting it.
    BAM sought “to link, in a highly conscious manner, art and politics in order to assist in the liberation of black people”, and produced an increase in the number and visibility of African-American artistic production. Literature, drama, and music of Blacks “served as an oppositional and defensive mechanism through which creative artists could confirm their identity while articulating their own unique impressions of social reality.”
    Before Blacks could inspire others, they had to first change the way that they viewed themselves. For generations, they had been belittled and told that they were inferior to whites, and now they had to break free of the oppression and become their own people. They had to escape from the white norms and strive to be more natural, a common theme of African-American art and music. 
    By breaking into a area typically reserved for white Americans, artists of the Black Power era expanded opportunities for current African Americans. Today's writers and artists recognize that they owe a large amount of their success to the Black Power's explosion of cultural orthodoxy. 
   

"I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that," said Ishmael Reed, a modern American poet.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                             Sources: 

http://ww2.madonna.edu/NEH/05/tunite.jpg

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/blackarts/historical.htm

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Black+Power+Movement

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/750