Assignment Opposition to the war in Vietnam became the centerpiece of a wide-ranging political and cultural challenge to traditional American society. During this turbulent era, African Americans, women, Hispanics, and Native Americans organized to assert their rights. Richard Nixon inherited the war in Vietnam, and he brought it to an end. The cost of Nixon’s four years of war was thousands of American lives and many more thousands of Asian lives, plus continued social unrest at home and an enduring strain on the economy. The end of American involvement did not mean that the goal of an independent, noncommunist South Vietnam had been secured. Meanwhile, with the Vietnam War behind them, Americans began to look to other issues, particularly the environment, and to raise more questions about the quality of life on our planet. But by the mid-1970s many of those who had participated in the counterculture movement, Vietnam protests, and civil rights marches, began to move away from their activism. In this discussion we'll analyze the several cultural movements that arose in the 1960s and early 1970s to challenge traditional white, male-dominated American society and ask what happened to the "movement." Discussion Question What factors produced the multiple “liberation” movements among minority groups and women? How extensive and lasting were the changes? What, do you think, became of the idealism of the 1960s?