Their message was relevant. Their methods were questionable.

Whether the counterculture movement of the late 1960s was important to American history or not, one thing remains evident.Back then, young people held a social conscience. They spoke their minds in a collective effort to try to make what they thought would be a better world. They were controversial, too, in their protesting of America sending young men and women off to Vietnam.Instead of advocating the possession of firearms, they handed out flowers for love and flashed signs of peace.Historians also will say that much of their significance was diminished by a rampant use of drugs.These so-called hippies rejected their parents' lifestyles, where working for the "man" enslaved you into 30-year mortgages and a lifetime of car payments, utility bills and property taxes. These sons and daughters feared dying too young from stress-related heart disease like so many of their fathers did. The Young Rascals echoed the sentiment of the love generation with their song lyrics: "People got to be free."I was a child of the '60s, kind of a hybrid between a regular kid and a member of the counterculture. Several events in my youth had tarnished the good feeling that America enjoyed in the early part of that decade. I lived through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy; his brother, Robert; and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. Racial strife closed my high school for three days and riots in a nearby city kept us locked in our homes at night for weeks. Threats of nuclear war were common headlines in our newspapers.In the '60s, the music shifted its theme from innocent teenage crushes to changing the world. Lyrics like, "Smile on your brother. Everybody try to love one another," and, "All we are saying is give peace a chance" blasted through our car radios.College campuses were sites for protests against capitalism, war and a government that was not "for the people" or "by the people."Courses I took at Rutgers University brought taught awareness to the powerful influence of the media and the political propaganda in literary fiction.The conservative establishment scorned the long hairs, calling them freaks and burnouts who held no respect for the values symbolized by the American flag. The kids countered by singing to Buffalo Springfield's "Young people speaking their minds … getting so much resistance from behind."John Lennon had said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and so many millions of their young followers might have proved him right as many young adults moved away from organized religion.Bob Dylan sang, "The times, they are a changin'."When I see the frustration and the futility in this country today, I feel like I'm going back to the late '60s in a time machine. The fear of violence in our streets, the lack of trust in our government, and the division of cultures and races remind me of the chaos of my youth, a time when the Temptations called the world a "Ball of confusion."We are primed for another refrain of "The times they are a changin'."There aren't many of the old hippies left to summon another revolution, and universities are no longer platforms for a shift in political ideology.And yet the torch for change burns hotter than ever.Peter Gray, in an article in Psychology Today, writes that too many of today's young adults are self-centered and have a lack compassion for others. In the 1980s, parents and teachers were telling their children how beautiful and wonderful their children were so they could feel good about themselves well before they accomplished anything.To me, that seems counterproductive to pursuing the American dream, which, by definition is, "the ideal that every U.S. citizen has an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity though hard work, determination and initiative."I would add that personal success also comes with an unselfish desire to help others.Perhaps now is a good time to revive and to galvanize the challenge that President Kennedy put forth to all Americans during his inauguration in 1960."Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.