The 1960s Counter Culture (USA) Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. An extremely influential singer, Bob Dylan, originally from Minnesota wrote songs which reflected a growing sense among many that the world was becoming radically different. One of his most famous songs reflected this sense of impermanence, saying "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the_____."

Answer: wind

Bob Dylan's art and life develop in times of change, a sense of inevitable fluidity.
His song, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" appeared in early 1964. By this time, Dylan's songwriting had developed far beyond his original folk roots. Some said he was inspired by writers like Arthur Rimbaud and John Keats; certainly, his writing became increasingly more haunting and suggestive.
It is important to remember the extent of his importance on the entire world of music: As a songwriter, he filtered into his writing several different approaches, from confessional singer/songwriter to stream-of-conscious narratives. As a vocalist, he paid little attention to the convention that a singer was supposed to have a melodic voice. Just by singing as he did, he reshaped the public's sense of a vocalist in popular music. As a musician, he jumpstarts several kinds of pop music, including electrified folk-rock and country-rock. Dylan's influence was evident especially during the 1960's when he was most popular-- most critics say that the Beatles' movement toward experimentation in the mid-'60s never would have happened without him. Simply put, Dylan was a breaker AND maker of conventions.

2. What is the first name of the famous American philosophy professor, writer, scholar who made popular the phrase "Turn On, Tune In, Drop out?"

Answer: Timothy

He once wrote of his experience with psilocybin mushrooms that he "learned more about... (his) brain and its possibilities... (and) more about psychology in the five hours after taking these mushrooms than... (he) had in the preceding fifteen years of doing...research in psychology." ("Ram Dass Fierce Grace", 2001, Zeitgeist Video) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary
Incidentally, his bodily remains have been sent into outer space.

3. San Francisco, California became very important during the 60's in part because of its many artists and its physical beauty. It had as well the famous Haight Ashbury district through which tourists were taken in buses, with guided tours of the "hippies" in the streets. One particular time was called "The __ of Love."

Answer: Summer

San Francisco, California has one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It has been a mecca for writers and artists from Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain to Allen Ginsberg and Ken Kesey in the 1960's. It has, of course, the world-famous City Lights Bookstore in the area called North Beach. During the 1960's people came from all over the world to feel themselves part of an international sense of "awakening." One important strand of 'awakening' involved people who were callied "hippies." These became known as free spirited people in all senses.

It is important to note that before this, people were (if they were lucky) called "hip" or smart, savy and cool.

4. In San Francisco as well, there were regular concerts featuring groups such as Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead and many others. These were held in a huge auditorium on Fillmore Street organized by the famous person named____.

Answer: Bill Graham

Before computers and bar codes, "Bill Graham Presents" printed their own concert tickets. Many of them are sold now for a lot of money because they are so exceptional as pieces of a period and as things of beauty in their own terms. People buying tickets were said to have handed them back at the door so that now these tickets have remained in virtually mint condition. The Fillmore was named because of its location at the corner of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard.

The Fillmore became the place for psychedelic music and counterculture in general, with perfomers like "The Grateful Dead", "Cream", Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, "The Doors" and Janis Joplin.

5. Which of the following was NOT a famous novel first published in the 1960's?

Answer: The Catcher in the Rye

Literature in the sixties had many lines of interest. There were many writers, North and South, writing of racial tensions, such as Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Walker. Many writers began to write of women's issues specifically, like Sylvia Plath, Mary McCarthy and Betty Friedan.

Others in different ways challenged the conformism of the 1950's. such as Joseph Heller and Ken Kesey, among many. The title "Catch 22" became a phrase reflecting some people's sense of being trapped and powerless. "The Feminine Mystique" was a highly influential part of developing feminism.

6. There was a lot of student protest across the United States during the 1960's. In the beginning, many of the protests were intimately linked to Civil Rights. Later, they became more allied to anti-Vietnam war protests. Some youthful energy died down as the decade went on, especially with the growth of the Black Panther Movement and the appearance of the Weather Underground. What was the name of a famous student movement in the mid-sixties which originated because of First Amendment to the American Constitution issues?

Answer: The Free Speech Movement

The student movement took many different directions in the sixties. Many students took the movement as a time to question the quality of their education. Others became highly active in the Civil Rights Movement. Unquestionably, the one issue many young people had to deal with was the Vietnam War, particularly since nightly news showed graphic images of crying children, burning villages and wounded soldiers.

7. What was the title of Dr. Martin King's speech, delivered in Washington D.C.

Answer: I Have a Dream

Before Dr. King delivered the speech, he began, "I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity."

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

8. Many famous Americans were killed during the 1960s: John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Lee Harvey Oswald and Malcolm X. Which of these four was also murdered during this period?

Answer: Sam Cooke

There were many deaths of famous people during the dramatic 1960s -- John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Linda Darnell, Malcolm X, and many others. There seem also to have been many highly publicized suicides, as well as victims of violence. Sam Cooke was a singer-songwriter (aka as The King Of Soul), who was shot dead in December 1964.

9. In the 1960s in the U.S.A., with the development of the space age, the Peace Corps and the Vietnam War, many people became concerned with global and international issues. This period became a time to develop ecology and a concern for the post-nuclear environment. Which is the writer whose focus squarely concerns the natural environment?

Answer: Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson is a highly original writer who began her work studying the effects of synthetic pesticides. Initially, she had written was is called her sea trilogy, including "The Sea Around Us." Her book, "Silent Spring", brought about a national ban on DDT.

This ban was followed by the development of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. In the later stages of her life, she had significant conflicts with film renditions of her writing, once calling them distorting, "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson#The_Edge_of_the_Sea_and_transition_to_conservation_work

10. John F. Kennedy had a vision that people were on the edge of something important. For that reason, he formed the Peace Corps in which students volunteered to go world wide to participate in and help other cultures. What is the name he proposed for his new plan, for his vision?

Answer: The New Frontier

Kennedy introduced this term in 1960 at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles when he became the Democratic nominee for the Presidency of the United States. He said specifically,

"We stand at the edge of a New Frontier-the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. It will deal with unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. "

Source: Author Windswept

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

In the 1960s, all kinds of new stars were born. People became famous for all sorts of new reasons. It was the rise of what we now call counter culture. This change was a creater and receiver of mass media, increasing digitalization, and globalization.

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