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1970s Backlash: Counter-Revenge in Plain Sight [1]
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Date: 2025-07-11
The 1960s upended longstanding norms around race, gender, sexuality, war, and authority. Civil rights legislation, feminist demands, sexual freedom, environmental activism, youth rebellion, antiwar protests, and increased government programs for the marginalized challenged traditional hierarchies. While these movements energized progressives and the marginalized, they also unsettled millions of Americans who felt left behind or disoriented. For them, the 1960s were not an era of liberation, but one of moral collapse, lawlessness, and cultural decline.
The 1970s witnessed a fierce conservative backlash that intensified in response to the sweeping political, legislative, cultural, and social transformations of the 1960s. Yet reform efforts from the previous decade continued well into the 1970s, as the postscript makes clear, further alarming conservatives who viewed the 1960s not as a period of progress, but as an era of national decline. As Pat Buchanan famously put it, “The 1960s were a cultural revolution that left moral wreckage in its wake.” Conservatives reframed the decade as one of moral decay, cultural permissiveness, and social disorder, rather than a time of liberation, justice, and reform. This reframing took hold in the American imagination, effectively hypernormalizing the 1960s as a dangerous aberration rather than a defining moment of democratic expansion.
This hypernormalized narrative became the cornerstone of the New Right’s political identity, steeped in the language of “traditional values,” personal responsibility, and religious morality. It served as both a rejection of the 1960s and a rallying cry for restoring a mythologized past. The backlash coalesced into a potent alliance of religious, cultural, and political forces, fueling the rise of the Moral Majority, influencing the Republican realignment, and reshaping American politics for generations to come.
Their anxiety was also fueled by the belief that America was rejecting Christian values. In the 1962 case, Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court banned official prayer in public schools. In 1963, in Abington v. Schempp, the Court banned Bible readings in public schools. Christian Evangelicals would spend decades seeking to reverse these indignities.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide, striking down many state bans. Though abortion had been largely viewed as a medical or private matter before the 1970s, Roe galvanized conservative Christians, especially white evangelicals and Catholics, into political action. Evangelicals, initially ambivalent about abortion, began shifting their stance under the influence of leaders like Francis Schaeffer and later Jerry Falwell. By the late 1970s, conservative activists reframed abortion as the central, generational moral issue —a proxy for anxiety over feminism, changing gender roles, and sexual freedom. While it took almost 50 years, Christian conservatives would impose their morality on America by overturning Roe.
Phyllis Schlafly founded STOP ERA (acronym for “Stop Taking Our Privileges”) in direct opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, which had passed Congress in 1972 and was heading to the states for ratification. From 1973 to 1977, her grassroots movement lobbied state legislatures to prevent ratification of the ERA. She argued it would undermine traditional gender roles, eliminate women’s legal protections, and lead to unisex bathrooms, women in combat, and the destruction of the family. By 1979, when the original ratification deadline for the ERA expired, only 35 of the required 38 states had ratified it. Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA on January 27, 2020—too little, too late, including the fact that five states subsequently rescinded their ratification.
In 1976, Jimmy Carter, a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, was elected president. He was the first openly “born-again” Christian president in decades. Initial elation by conservative Christians turned to disappointment because of his liberal policies. Carter’s presidency prompted them to organize politically in opposition, not support.
Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson, who founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960, achieved national prominence in 1976 when “The 700 Club” was syndicated. He was a constant voice advocating against abortion, feminism, secularism, and “liberal elites.”
In 1977, James Dobson founded Focus on the Family in Southern California to promote conservative Christian views on family, gender roles, education, and sexuality. It became a major media and lobbying organization for decades.
In 1978, Bob Jones University (BJU), a fundamentalist Christian university in South Carolina, with racially discriminatory policies, including a ban on interracial dating and marriage among students, lost its federal tax-exempt status after the IRS determined that the school’s policies violated public policy against racial discrimination. The university challenged this, claiming the decision violated its First Amendment right to religious freedom. The case became a rallying cry. Religious conservatives, especially emerging leaders of the Religious Right like Jerry Falwell, Paul Weyrich, and Ed Dobson, seized on the case—not because they openly supported racial discrimination—but because they saw it as an example of government intrusion into religious institutions. The case became a key motivator for organizing evangelicals politically, even more than the Roe v. Wade (1973) abortion decision, according to some historians like Randall Balmer.
In 1979, Rev. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority. This political organization united conservative Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons around a platform of “family values,” including opposition to abortion, gay rights, and women’s liberation, and advocacy for school prayer and traditional gender roles. He declared their movement a moral counter-revolution to the 1960s.
By the end of the 1970s, conservative Christians had become a major political force, thanks to coordinated organizing, new media outreach, and strategic framing of moral issues like abortion, school prayer, “family values”, and opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Reagan courted them explicitly, speaking their language of “traditional values,” condemning government overreach, and opposing abortion. He famously said, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.” The decade also fueled a reemergent Christian Nationalism that would only grow stronger over succeeding decades.
The Right developed a new mythos asserting that the moral chaos of the 1960s had broken the nation. The family was disintegrating. Schools had lost discipline. Cities were violent. Patriotism was under attack. Liberal elites were mocking traditional values.
The decade resulted in a dramatic political realignment. Previously, conservative Christians didn’t vote or largely voted Democratic. In 1980, a New York Times/CBS News exit poll reported that 61% of born-again white Protestants voted for Reagan. The decade also saw the rise of white identity politics that were disguised as “law and order” and “reverse racism.” Christian identity politics were expressed through the rise of evangelical populism. Suburban resentment politics grew, especially among white homeowners angry about busing and urban decline. This created a cultural coalition of backlash voters: white, suburban, Christian, anti-bureaucracy, anti-elite, and deeply nostalgic for a mythical pre-1960s America.
Reagan also won because of profound dissatisfaction over the economy. The 1970s were marked by severe economic turmoil that shook public confidence in postwar prosperity. The decade saw stagflation—a rare combination of high inflation and high unemployment—triggered by two major oil shocks (1973 and 1979), rising global competition, and the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system when Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. Stagflation in the U.S. lasted roughly from 1973 to 1982, with its most intense period between 1974 and 1980. Deindustrialization, a taxpayer revolt, and growing disillusionment with government solutions accompanied this. These crises undermined New Deal-style liberalism and fueled the rise of free-market, anti-government ideology.
Blue-collar whites, already uneasy with racial integration and cultural change, experienced economic decline. Conservatives reinterpreted this pain not as market failure or inequality, but as moral failure. Hardship was blamed on welfare dependency, affirmative action, and permissiveness. The backlash reframed economic anxiety as loss of control, cultural decline, and reverse discrimination. Racism was coded as economic populism. This all set the stage for the conservative political shift of the 1980s and Reagan’s disastrous trickle-down economics.
The hypernormalization of the 1970s framed the decade as a period of national decline, chaos, and moral decay, masking the deeper structural transformations underway. In this narrative, economic crises were blamed on government overreach, cultural permissiveness, and the supposed excesses of the 1960s. Social problems like poverty, inflation, and urban decay were not seen as policy failures or global shifts, but as the natural consequences of abandoning “traditional values.” This view downplayed the real causes of economic instability—such as globalization and energy dependence—and instead fueled the rise of culture wars and identity politics on the Right. The decade’s complexity was flattened into a cautionary tale: a hypernormalized warning that freedom, reform, and dissent would lead to disorder. This narrative helped pave the way for the Reagan Revolution and a reassertion of conservative control over American politics and memory.
PS: Despite economic challenges, disillusionment post-Vietnam, and political backlash from the Right, the 1970s continued many of the social justice gains of the 1960s—not with revolutionary rhetoric, but through laws, court decisions, local actions, and community organizing.
1 Black Freedom, Civil Rights, and Racial Justice
**Extension of Voting Rights Act (1970, 1975): Expanded protections for language minorities, and lowered the voting age to 18 (leading to the 26th Amendment).
**School desegregation via busing: Continued court orders enforced integration in Northern cities (e.g., Boston, 1974).
**Affirmative Action: Expanded in employment and education (e.g., 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke upheld its constitutionality while banning racial quotas).
**Rise of Black political power: More Black mayors and officials elected in major cities (e.g., Maynard Jackson in Atlanta, Coleman Young in Detroit).
** The first Black Studies program in the U.S. was established at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) in 1968, following a months-long strike by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front.
2 Youth, Anti-War, and Counter Culture
**The 26th Amendment (1971) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, a major youth victory linked to the “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” argument during Vietnam.
**Anti-war activism created pressure that led to the Paris Peace Accords (1973) ending direct U.S. military involvement.
**The draft ended in 1973, shifting to an all-volunteer military, largely due to anti-draft activism.
**The War Powers Resolution (1973) was passed over Nixon’s veto, limiting presidential power to commit U.S. troops to combat without Congressional approval.
**Public debate over drug criminalization intensified; marijuana decriminalization became law in 11 states by 1978.
**Expansion of alternative media through the rise of underground newspapers, FM radio, zines, and independent publishing reflecting countercultural and radical perspectives
**Music festivals (e.g., Woodstock 1969, Altamont, and others in the early 70s) influenced mainstream music, art, and attitudes toward authority.
3 Women’s Rights
**Title IX (1972): Banned sex discrimination in federally funded education, leading to massive changes in women’s access to sports and academics.
**Roe v. Wade (1973): Landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
**Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974): Made it illegal to deny credit based on sex or marital status.
**ERA (Equal Rights Amendment): Passed by Congress in 1972 and ratified by 35 states (though ultimately not adopted).
**Expansion of feminist organizing: National Organization for Women (NOW) grew in influence, and consciousness-raising groups flourished.
**San Diego State University launched the first accredited Women’s Studies program in 1970.
4 Native American Activism & the Chicano Movement
**American Indian Movement (AIM) actions continue:
**Occupation of Bureau of Indian Affairs HQ (1972).
**Wounded Knee standoff (1973) brought national attention to treaty violations and Indigenous rights.
**Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975): Gave tribes greater control over education and government programs.
**Chicano Movement (El Movimiento) expands
**Continued momentum from the 1960s civil rights activism, especially among Mexican Americans in the Southwest.
**Focus areas: land rights, educational equity, political representation, cultural pride.
**Groups like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán) grew on college campuses.
United Farm Workers (UFW)
**UFW secured a historic union contract in 1970 with grape growers after years of strikes and boycotts.
**California passed the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law in the U.S. to recognize collective bargaining rights for farmworkers — a major reform victory.
**The Supreme Court required bilingual education in the 1974 Lau v. Nichols ruling. Failure to provide supplemental language instruction to non-English-speaking Chinese students violated the Civil Rights Act. This ruling opened the door for bilingual education across the U.S,
**The Bilingual Education Act of 1974 (an update to the original 1968 law) gave federal support for programs that helped Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking students.
**Latino political power increased, especially in cities like Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Denver.
**Emergence of La Raza Unida Party (founded in 1970 in Texas) — a Chicano political party aiming to elect Mexican Americans to local and state office. Gains were also seen in school boards, city councils, and some state legislatures.
**Rise of Chicano arts, literature, and theater that celebrated Latino identity and history.
**El Teatro Campesino, founded by Luis Valdez, gained national attention.
**California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) started the first Chicano and Latino Studies program in the U.S. in 1968. It was known as the Department of Mexican American Studies.
**In New York City and other urban centers, the Young Lords Party (modeled on the Black Panthers) marked Puerto Rican activism. Founded in 1969, it pushed for health care, housing, and community control of education. It also worked to combat police brutality, urban poverty, and gentrification, and helped bring attention to the U.S. colonial relationship with Puerto Rico.
5 Gay+ Rights and Disability Rights
**Declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder (1973): The American Psychiatric Association removed it from the DSM.
**First openly gay elected officials: Kathy Kozachenko (1974, Ann Arbor) and Harvey Milk (1977, San Francisco).
**Growing local activism: Cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco began to pass anti-discrimination ordinances.
**Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973): First federal civil rights protection for disabled people; banned discrimination in federally funded programs.
**504 Sit-in (1977): Longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in U.S. history, led by disabled activists (especially Judith Heumann) demanding enforcement of the law.
**Independent Living Movement expands: Based on Ed Roberts’s model, centers opened across the country.
6 Anti-Poverty
**1974 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Amendments expanded minimum wage coverage, raised the federal minimum wage incrementally from $1.60/hour (1971) to $2.30/hour (1978), and improved overtime protections and child labor laws.
**Food Stamp Act Amendments (1970s) expanded eligibility and standardized benefits nationwide, and eliminated the requirement to buy stamps (1977), making the program more accessible to low-income families.
**The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was launched in 1974, and school lunch and breakfast programs expanded to combat childhood hunger.
**Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was created in 1972 to provide cash assistance to elderly, blind, and disabled people with low income.
Expansion of AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits grew during the early 1970s, including the introduction of Earned Income Disregard (1971), which allowed recipients to work part-time and keep some benefits.
**Housing and Community Development Act (1974) created the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, replacing many categorical urban aid programs with flexible local funds for housing, infrastructure, and poverty alleviation.
**Section 8 Housing Assistance (1974) provided rental subsidies to low-income families, enabling them to rent privately owned housing, marking a shift away from public housing toward vouchers.
**Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA, 1973) replaced earlier job programs with federal funds to local governments and nonprofits to hire and train unemployed people. Targeted the poor, displaced workers, and veterans, and supported job creation during economic downturns of the mid-to-late ’70s.
**Indexing Social Security (1972): linked Social Security benefits to inflation, ensuring that retirees didn’t fall into poverty due to rising costs. Helped stabilize elderly poverty, which declined significantly from the 1960s through the 1980s.
7 Environmental Reform
**The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was launched in 1970.
**First Earth Day (1970) brought together 20 million Americans, linking environmentalism to grassroots activism.
**The Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), and Endangered Species Act (1973) were passed.
Day 173: days left to January 20, 2029: 1,289 days
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