page_title: Protests of 1968
section_title: Protests
hierarchical_section_title: Protests of 1968 / Protests
caption_attribution_description: English: Five workers outside their factory in the south of France, with a sign reading "Factory Occupied by the Workers" (translation) and a list of their demands affixed to a fence or gate, June 1968 Other information Photo by George Garrigues.
context_page_description: The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against the military and the bureaucracy.
  In the United States, these protests marked a turning point for the civil rights movement, which produced revolutionary movements like the Black Panther Party. In reaction to the Tet Offensive, protests also sparked a broad movement in opposition to the Vietnam War all over the United States as well as in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome. Mass movements grew not only in the United States but also elsewhere. In most Western European countries, the protest movement was dominated by students. The most spectacular manifestation of these were the May 1968 protests in France, in which students linked up with wildcat strikes of up to ten million workers, and for a few days the movement seemed capable of overthrowing the government.
context_section_description: The protests that raged throughout 1968 included a large number of workers, students, and poor people facing increasingly violent state repression all around the world. Liberation from state repression itself was the most common current in all protests listed below. These refracted into a variety of social causes that reverberated with each other: in the United States alone, for example, protests for civil rights, against nuclear weapons and in [[opposition to the Vietnam War], and for women's liberation all came together during this year. Television, so influential in forming the political identity of this generation, became the tool of choice for the revolutionaries. They fought their battles not just on streets and college campuses, but also on the television screen with media coverage.
  As the waves of protests of the 1960s intensified to a new high in 1968, repressive governments through widespread police crack downs, shootings, executions and even massacres marked social conflicts in Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and China. In West Berlin, Rome, London, Paris, Italy, many American cities, and Argentina, labor unions and students played major roles and also suffered political repression.
caption: Strikers in Southern France with a sign reading "Factory Occupied by the Workers." Behind them is a list of demands
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