A New Kind of Democracy? Political and Cultural Developments in the 1960s 429and men within the organization were furious, refusing to debate the issue
and drowning out those who wanted to speak with derisive jeering and cat-
calls.
Sisterhood is Powerful
By 1968, the left in general was in trouble. Martin Luther King and Robert
Kennedy were dead and the conservative Richard Nixon was entering the
White House. Women’s Lib, however, was growing. Once huge numbers of
women left other struggles to go out on their own, American’s gender land-
scape changed forever. Engaging in both personal and political actions, female
activists, mostly white and middle-class, not only confronted Americans about
their gendered attitudes but engaged in effective political reform. They put
pressure on politicians to create laws to give females access to jobs that were
FIGuRE 8-12 Famous singer Eartha Kitt makes an anti-war statement
during a White House luncheon in 1968. When Lady Bird Johnson asked
Kitt for her thoughts on the Vietnam War, Kitt responded, “You send the
best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids
rebel and take pot.”