Peace,
BJ
She Loves You
BJ
Neblett
©
2004, 2013
January, 1964. Emerging folk singer
Bob Dylan said it first, and best: The
Times They Are A-Changin’. In an ironic twist, it was Dylan’s songs that
were helping to bring about dramatic changes to popular music. Folk music had
always been about real things, real people; real occurrences. Dylan sang about
the things that he saw happening around him; around all of us. What Dylan and
the rest of us witnessed in the ‘60’s were social, political, economical and
cultural changes. Unlike the personal changes controlling my own young life, thanks
to my interest in President Kennedy I had begun to appreciate and agree with most
of the changes taking place in the world. They seemed obvious and natural. What
I didn’t get was why so many adults didn’t seem to understand. It was
frustrating. Most of the changes were clearly necessary and overdue, but the struggle
and methodology wasn’t pretty.
The Civil Rights movement was a
perfect example; a large part of the irony I saw all around me. In Lawrence
Park, the development where we’d moved after leaving South Philadelphia, there
were no blacks. In school we were taught God created everyone equally. That
tenant was part of the American Constitution. And yet, at St. Pius X Grade
School there were no blacks. Furthermore, in class the girls sat behind the
boys; and for the most part women in general were treated like second class
citizens. Ever since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery,
Alabama, bus in 1955, we’d witness protests and demonstrations against
segregation, nightly on the TV news. In the last couple of years those
demonstrations had turned ugly and violent. My fallen hero, John F. Kennedy had
repeatedly urged Congress to pass legislation directed at ending segregation. On
January 23, 1964 the 24th Amendment eliminated the Poll Tax in
federal elections. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B Johnson continued his
predecessor’s efforts, eventually signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And
yet, the often violent practice of segregation, and the demonstrations to end
it, continued.
In May, black youths Charles Moore
and Henry Dee were beaten and killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Although
suspects were identified, the murders would go down as unsolved. The same
month, the NAACP and the Motor Car Dealers Association reached an agreement on
the hiring of blacks. The agreement was the direct result of sit-ins in new car
showrooms in San Francisco and fifty other American cities. In June, legislatures
from southern states led a successful filibuster in Congress, forcing the
Senate to limit debate on a purposed civil rights bill. On the 21st
of June, violence once again flared up in Mississippi as three young civil
rights workers were murdered. It would take four decades before a suspect was
brought to justice. At the same time some 700 young people, mostly from the
north, descended on Mississippi to teach in “freedom schools” and register
black voters. The violence in the south and growing discontent in America’s
black neighborhoods resulted in riots breaking out in several cities including
New York City, Rochester, Chicago, Patterson, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
Later in the year, The Reverend Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace
Prize for his peaceful efforts to end segregation. In a statement that
punctuated the growing rift in the struggle for equality, J Edger Hoover called
King, “The most notorious liar in the country.” The comment resulted from
King’s harsh criticism of the FBI’s handling of racial issues in the south. In 1965
the protests grew as did the violence, with demonstrations and confrontations
spreading throughout the south. As Kennedy had done before, President Johnson
was forced to send in troops to protect protesters marching peacefully from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Political and social leader Malcolm
X had left the Nation of Islam in 1964. An outspoken proponent of Civil Rights,
he believed the group’s policies towards integration to be too soft. Openly
criticizing both the Nation of Islam and Reverend King for their non-violence
stance, Malcolm X called upon blacks to rise up against what he termed the
white man’s rule. On February 21, 1965, as he prepared to address the
Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan,
Malcolm X was shot and killed by three members of the Nation of Islam. By the
summer of 1965, race riots had again erupted in Chicago, Los Angeles and other
US Cities.
Watching live coverage of the
Philadelphia riots on TV, I bitterly vowed to ignore the ongoing struggles for
equality. Camelot was dead. The powers now firmly in charge, the older establishment
America, had killed Kennedy. And it seemed they would soon squash his dreams of
a racially balanced country. There was nothing I could do about it. I retreated
back into my comfortable personal existence, and the world once again receded
into its role as background players in my life’s story. Soon, though, a new
school and some new, caring teachers would reignite my interest in social
issues.
Bob Dylan’s songs, along with other
folk tunes of the decade, sharply reminded America of the many short falls and
inequities that still needed to be overcome. At the same time, that very same
music helped to polarize the nation, drawing defining lines between the older
establishment and the younger generation. As the decade progress, the gap
between generations would only widen. And music would be at the core.
On January 18, 1964, the Beatles
made their first appearance on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart, placing I Wanna Hold Your Hand at the number
thirty five position. Following a taped segment on the Jack Parr Show, and the
groups’ first live American TV performance on Ed Sullivan, the song shot to
number one, remaining at the top for seven weeks, eventually being replaced by
their own She Loves You. It was
nearly impossible to take a breath during 1964 without hearing about the group
of mop tops from Britain. On February 3 their LP Meet The Beatles went gold. The same month they began their first
American tour with a concert at Washington, DC’s Coliseum, followed by two
performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall and a second appearance on the Ed
Sullivan Show. They visited Cassius Clay as he trained for his heavy weight
bout with Sonny Liston. Then filming of the band’s first movie, A Hard Day’s Night began in March. The
film was released in the US in August to widespread acclaim.
On the heels of their countrymen, on
June 1 the Rolling Stones arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York to begin their
own American tour. By year’s end, the music charts had been taken over by the
numerous bands of the British invasion. But American music wasn’t quite dead
yet. It had been ten years since the first stirrings of rock ‘n’ roll, and a
new generation of young enthusiasts had grown up. The new American rock held its
own against the onslaught from across the Atlantic with timeless hits like Louie Louie, I Get Around, Where Did Our
Love Go, Rag Doll, Baby I Need Your Lovin’, and Pretty Woman. In 1965 a new electrified genre called Folk Rock, led
by the Byrds and the Mamas and the Papas would claim the air waves. The same
year, Bob Dylan would electrify himself and his music, to the condemnation of
folk purists and the overwhelming approval of the new rockers. But by 1966
Dylan had silenced his detractors, even winning over the support of music
critics. Once again, the pioneering musician had changed the face of pop music.
I had retired my old trusted
transistor radio, partly because of the changes coming out of it. The Beatles
weren’t bad; I didn’t care much for the Rolling Stones or the other British
Invasion bands at the time. Having recently mastered playing the guitar, I
clung to what was left of the old rock ‘n’ roll and slowly gravitated towards
folk music. It would be another year before I fully accepted what was now
passing as popular music. The new friends I encountered at my new school,
especially the girls, would have a strong influence on my musical taste.
While the British were boisterously
invading America, America was quietly and secretly invading Southeast Asia. The
struggle between North and South Vietnam wasn’t a new one. Since the end of the
Second World War when the country was divided, the south had been fighting for
its independence while northern forces were intent on unifying the tiny country
under communist rule. The French gave up its defense of South Vietnam, and the
political mess ended up in the lap of our new young president. Reluctant to
bring the US into another war, Kennedy approved sending non-combatant advisers to aid the South Vietnam forces. The buildup of US aid continued, culminating
in the Gulf Of Tonkin.
On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS
Maddox engaged three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats in the Gulf Of Tonkin.
The three torpedo boats were heavily damaged and four North Vietnamese sailors
were killed. One US aircraft carrier and the Maddox were slightly damaged. Two
days later, the US National Security Agency claimed that a second encounter
between the two forces had taken place. This incident was later proven to be
false. However, the result of the two incidents was the passage by Congress of
the Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution. This gave President Johnson the authority to
assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be
threatened by communist aggression. The resolution gave the president legal
justification for the deployment of conventional forces and the start of open
warfare against the North. By September, US destroyers were regularly firing on
targets in North Vietnam.
As Russia and Communist China
continued to supply the northern forces of Ho Chi Minh, President Johnson steadily
increased the number of American troops supporting the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN), through his policy of “graduated pressure”. In March of 1965
more than 150 US and South Vietnamese planes bombed two bases in North Vietnam
in the first of the Rolling Thunder raids. On April 6 Johnson authorized the
use of ground troops in combat operations. By year’s end American troops in
Vietnam numbered nearly 185,000. Within a year that number would more than
double. Meanwhile, the Joint Chief of Staff organized a war game code named
Sigma II. The secret operation tried to gauge reaction to continued conflict
with Hanoi and the Viet Cong. Ironically it predicted that continued escalation
would result in diminished public support for the president’s policies. They
were right. In 1965, a new type of demonstration began to appear on college
campuses along side of those supporting desegregation. The college students
were now protesting America’s growing involvement in Southeast Asia. In
Washington DC, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held its first
anti-Vietnam war rally.
President Johnson’s State of the
Union address in January of 1965 highlighted his goals for his Great Society.
The agenda called for extensive programs including combating diseases; doubling
the war on poverty; stricter and more extensive enforcement of Civil Rights
Laws; reforming immigration laws, and support for better education. The program
attracted support for a time, but Johnson’s Great Society would soon fall
victim to the escalating, undeclared war in Vietnam.
While tensions in the cold war between
the US and the Soviet Union had eased, a different conflict between the two
countries continued in the atmosphere above the earth. By the time Ed White
became the first American to walk in space on June 3, 1965, testing of nuclear
devices underwater, in the atmosphere and in space had been banned by a 1963
agreement between the US, the Soviets and the UK. Nuclear testing continued
above and underground on a limited bases, eventually giving rise to more
college protests. But the Soviets had caught America and the world by surprise
with their successful launch of Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth,
in 1957. Since then the US space program had been playing a game of catch up. Having
successfully concluded its pioneering Mercury Program, NASA set its sights on
fulfilling President Kennedy’s mandate of reaching the moon. The manned Gemini
Program, begun in 1965 placed two astronauts in a single craft. Its successful
rendezvous in space with a second capsule in December of that year, and the eventual
docking of the two crafts in 1966, paved the way for the more ambitious Apollo
Program.
My interest in the race for space
continued as I faithfully watched each launch live on our 19” black and white
TV. Slim, attractive color televisions, along with remote controls were rapidly
replacing the old boxy sets of the fifties. My practical, thrifty father
stubbornly stuck with our old square Emerson.
Dad had been promoted to chief plant electrician at his work, receiving
a commensurate raise in pay. But modern conveniences were slow to arrive at the
Neblett household. It would be 1970 before Dad bought an air conditioned car,
and Mom received a dishwasher and a color TV. The summer of 1965 central air
conditioning was finally installed in our house. The same year my second car, a
1957 Chevy, lost its home as the recreation room was expanded into the garage.
Still not old enough to drive, and under the surveillance of some nosy
neighbors, it became more difficult to sneak away for a night of joy riding.
Modern conveniences took a hit on
November 9, 1965, when a major power failure hit the East Coast of the US. Just
after 5:30 PM, New York City experienced a blackout that quickly spread,
eventually encompassing nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada. The
outage, which lasted for up to thirteen and a half hours in places, was blamed
on a malfunctioning switch at a station near Niagara Falls.
After blowing a shot at the National
League Pennant in 1964, my Phillies ended the ‘65 season in sixth place, eleven
and a half games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. LA would go on to defeat the
Minnesota Twins four games to three to clench the World Series title. Minnesota
had won their first pennant since 1933 when the team was based in DC as the
Washington Senators. But the Dodgers had plenty to celebrate as well during
their 97 game winning season. Pitching aces Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax had won
23 and 26 games respectively. Koufax also pitched a perfect game on September
9, becoming the first left hander to do so since 1880. The overpowering
southpaw won the Cy Young award in 1963, 1965 and 1966, retiring in 1966 at the
age of 36 due to arthritis in his left elbow. Elsewhere, San Francisco’s Willie
Mays hit his 512th home run on May 4, surpassing Mel Ott’s
longstanding record.
My own stuttering career as a
pitcher would have a brief resurgence as I fumbled my way through my first
encounter with public school.
