Screening: 1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation

1968 was a pivotal year in U.S. and global history. In the United States, students protested the Vietnam War. In France, they protested university conditions and sparked worker strikes across the country. In Mexico City, they protested state violence. This was also the year when the peaceful protest known as the “Prague Spring” flourished in Czechoslovakia, when Martin Luther King planned a Poor People’s March on Washington, and when Robert Kennedy ran for president. But the backlash against all of these stirrings was fierce. King and Kennedy were gunned down. Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Disarray in the American peace movement allowed Richard Nixon to become president. This documentary combines riveting archival footage and insightful interviews—with Jesse Jackson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carlos Fuentes, Pat Buchanan and others—to recreate an extraordinary year. The emerging picture is one of turmoil and anguish but also one of hope. The Vietnam protests ultimately led to a winding down of the war. The French uprising spurred university reforms in that country. The Prague Spring, though ground down in 1968, planted the seeds of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution of 1989. After the screening of the film, Professor Salim Yaqub will make a brief presentation and lead a discussion.

Sponsored by the IHC and the Center for Cold War Studies and International History