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Of adolescents, ages 14-17, only 6% were in school

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In the early 1900s, children simply did as their parents told, and there was not much of a gap in between childhood and adulthood. Many teens were forced to grow up quickly, as can be seen in many of the decades in this century.

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At 9, children would be sent away to become servants and learn trades until the age of 14

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The civil rights movement in the 1960s marked a significant period of change in the United States. Activists worked to end discrimination and Jim Crow laws. The movement's tactics included protests, boycotts, sit-ins, and lobbying, and its achievements included the passage of landmark legislation.

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The politics of age have driven our nation's democratic engine for more than a century. Young people, dissatisfied by the world laid before them by previous generations and eager to mold it to their own visions have, time and again, taken up the torch and blazed their own trail through history.

Children, teenagers, and young adults organized their own social justice campaigns before, during, and after the civil rights campaigns led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As early as the 1870s, Black students mobilized to protest inequity. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, youth activism served as the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement. NAACP Youth Councils held picket lines to protest injustices from segregated department stores and lunch counters to mob violence and lynching. The Birmingham Children's Crusade of 1963 saw participants as young as four being beaten by police, arrested, and held in jail for days at a time. Sit-ins, both planned and spontaneous, carried out by Atlanta University Center students worked to flood county jails, overwhelm the system, and eventually desegregate Atlanta's lunch counters.

Members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the NAACP's youth branches demonstrated a willingness to take risks and displayed a level of urgency that their older counterparts did not always achieve. Across the Southeast, young people embodying the philosophy of nonviolence carried out peaceful and effective protests that led to lasting legislative change.

In his 2014 book, A Child Shall Lead Them: Martin Luther King Jr., Young People, and the Movement, Rufus Burrow Jr. wrote:

"Martin Luther King never lost faith in young people and their ability and determination to help move this society in the direction of the beloved community."

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Emphasizing themselves as outright "citizens" rather than "youth," young civil rights organizers led campaigns throughout the South aimed at registering underserved potential voters.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a recipient of financial support from the Voter Education Project (VEP). Founded at Fisk University in 1901, SNCC found a dedicated base of both Black and white college students willing to put their bodies on the line for social justice.

In his memoir, Walking with the Wind, former SNCC chair and future Congressman John Lewis (who was 20 at the time of SNCC's founding) recalled voter registration being a "top priority" for SNCC in the early 1960s. Throughout the South, SNCC rallied approximately 200,000 volunteers during the summer and fall of 1961, "all aimed at bringing America's invisible Black vote out of the darkness of fear and repression."

Organizer Charles Sherrod (age 21) and SNCC staffer Cordell Reagon (18) traveled to Terrell County, Georgia, one of the most racially oppressive regions of the state, to establish a base of operations. Alone in the former slave-trading center of Albany, Sherrod and Reagon put their lives at risk to register voters.

"Lives were on the line. There was no question about that."

John Lewis

Twenty-six-year-old Bob Moses traveled into McComb, Mississippi, as part of SNCC's first voter registration drive. Mississippi was notoriously hostile towards people of color. At the time of SNCC's dispatch, only 5% of the state's eligible Black voters were registered. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and racial terrorism prevented potential voters from fulfilling their rights as citizens to vote.

Putting his life at risk, Moses went from door-to-door distributing voter registration forms. A young man himself, Moses was often accompanied by even younger activists-honors students from the local high school. These students, along with Moses, prepared Mississippians for questions they might encounter on literacy tests, explained voter requirements, and accompanied African Americans through hostile county courthouses so that they might add themselves to the voter rolls.

"White Mississippians had never seen it," wrote Lewis. "And they didn't like it. Beatings, arrests, and deaths would begin that fall, and things would get much worse before they got better."

Securing the Right to Vote

The groundswell of youth activism helped to propel the Civil Rights Movement from the fringes of political discourse into the spotlight of American culture. Newly enfranchised Black voters in the South-many of them under the age of 30-continued to make their voices heard. Ten years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the number of registered eligible Black voters in the South soared from 2% to 60%. In that same period, the number of Black elected officials in the region shot upwards from less than two dozen to more than a thousand.

Rufus Burrow Jr. wrote, "it was children and young people who boldly led the way in many civil rights campaigns, who energized the movement at strategic movements. They asserted themselves, making it clear once and for all that they were fully aware of the racial discrimination and its adverse effects on them."

The Next Chapter

In the 21st century, youth activists continue to construct a better, more equitable future for themselves.

In Atlanta, young people reinvent the city with fervor. During the 2020 presidential election, more young people turned out to vote in Georgia than they did anywhere else in the United States. Between the November election and the January 5, 2021, runoff for the country's two undecided senate seats, approximately twenty-three thousand Georgians turned eighteen. At least four in 10 voters who registered after the November 3 election in Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, and DeKalb counties were under 30 years old.

To get out the vote in this election, zillennials utilized a tool not available to youth organizers of the '60s: the internet. During a pandemic when door-to-door canvasing could prove hazardous to public health, youth volunteers made their voices heard on Zoom calls, text chains, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Willing to adapt to changing times and meet their peers where they were, young Georgians found ways to connect with the newest generation of eligible voters.

National news may distract but cannot detract from the history made by young voters in the 2021 Georgia senate runoff election.

By organizing, mobilizing, and strategizing, they played an integral role in electing Reverend Raphael Warnock, Georgia's first Black senator, and Jon Ossoff, Georgia's first Jewish senator. Bridging the gap between themselves and the next chapter of history, these young voters helped make it possible to send a millennial to Congress: when sworn in, Jon Ossoff (33) will be the youngest Democratic senator elected to office since Joe Biden joined the senate at age 30 in 1973.

The outcomes of the 2020 and 2021 elections are not a fluke-they are the culmination of more than 150 years of bold, unwavering youth activism in the face of adversity.

Hartford, Bruce. "Sit-Ins and Voter Registration in 1960." Race, Poverty & the Environment, vol. 19, no. 1, 2012, pp. 15-15. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41762526. Accessed 7 Jan. 2021.

Patton, Randall L. "Southern Regional Council." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 20 February 2013. Web. 07 January 2021. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/southern-regional-council

Chartier, Courtney E. "Voter Education Project." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 30 August 2013. Web. 06 January 2021. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/voter-education-project

Faulkenberry, Evan. Education as Activism: The Voter Education Project in the Civil Rights Movement | Process: A Blog For American History from Organization of American Historians http://www.processhistory.org/voter-education-project/

"Voter Education Project (VEP)." The Cambridge Guide to African American History, by Raymond Gavins, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016, pp. 287-287. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316216453.298

Scott, Holly V. "Student Citizen, Part I: The Civil Rights Movement." In Younger Than That Now: The Politics of Age in the 1960s, 18-32. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press. 2016. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1hd19ff.5. Accessed 8 Jan. 2021.

Bynum, Thomas. NAACP Youth and the Fight for Black Freedom, 1936-1965. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013.

Burrow Jr., Rufus. A Child Shall Lead Them: Martin Luther King Jr., Young People, and the Movement. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.

Atlanta Magazine | Flashback: How student sit-ins in downtown Atlanta sparked change in the 1960s

CNN Politics | Young people are getting out the vote in Georgia - from thousands of miles away

NBC News | Gen Z is using TikTok to encourage youth voter turnout in Georgia's runoffs

NBC News | Thousands of voters registered for the Georgia Senate races. Who benefits?

New York Times | Phone Calls, Texts and Tinder - Georgia Campaigns Court Young Voters

NPR | Activists Begin Registering Young Voters In Preparation For Georgia's Runoff Election

Georgia Voter Registration Statistics | Georgia Secretary of State

We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi | Library of Congress

Youth in the Civil Rights Movement | Library of Congress

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"Why Not Us?" Youth Activism in the South | Atlanta History Center

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For more than 150 years, unwavering young activists have taken up the torch and blazed their own trail through history.

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Rural children often worked on their family's farms, helping with the endless tasks that were completed using human and animal power. Many children in cities and towns also worked: in mines, in factories, selling newspapers and food, and shining shoes.

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Age of consent was considered 11 from 1791 to 1863, then increased to 13

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Hippie Movement was originally started by primarily youth as they began to express their opinions on war, environment, sexuality, self-expression, etc.

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Comic books popularity rose during the cold war and imposed cold war ideology onto the youth who were reading them.

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World War II started September 1st, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

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During this time, a weekly newspaper known as the Boy’s Own Paper was published to provide adolescent boys with a good moral upbringing, as well as information regarding obtaining education, maintaining proper hygiene, becoming a gentleman, etc.

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"Flower Children," as described in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, is a term used to describe the hippie culture of adolescents and young adults throughout the 1960s. They are described by their rejection of material wealth and "Puritan Ethic."

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The Flower Children | Hippie Culture & Counterculture Movement

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The following “special report” appeared in the Britannica Book of the Year published in 1968. Sometimes you see them standing beside the highway, their long hair blowing in the wind, army surplus jackets hanging sloppily from their shoulders, rumpled sleeping bags at their feet, hitchhiking to New

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With the Selective Service and Training Act, men starting at the age of 18 could be drafted to go to war.

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1970s: Vietnam War and Anti-War Protests 

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1970s: Vietnam War and Anti-War Protests 

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The Vietnam War sparked widespread anti-war protests throughout the 1970s as many Americans, specifically youths, grew unsettled with the war’s moral and political justifications. These protests, driven by concerns over human rights and military engagement, became a powerful force in shaping public opinion and policy during this tumultuous period.

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Kent State shootings: The 1970 student protests that shook the US

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Fifty-four years ago, four students were shot by the National Guard during an anti-Vietnam War protest at Kent State university in Ohio – a tragedy that still resonates today.

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Teens were most likely to work instead of attending school.

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More adolescents started to attend high school as jobs started to become scarce which led to the overpopulation of schools that were already underfunded. 

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The first public school in the U.S. was founded in Boston on April 23, 1635

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An estimated 1.5 million children were murdered during the Holocaust, particularly under the Nazi regime.

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The start of Covid-19 is categorized as a virus that first emerged in China in December 2019. Later being characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. The virus caused people to become severely ill and more than 1 million people died from it.

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in 1891 the Age of Consent act raised the age of consent from 10 to 12; in the United States the age was 14 in most states

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1891 -- Legal age of consent is raised to 12 years old in Canada

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1891 -- Legal age of consent is raised to 12 years old in Canada

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Disney has since gone on to influence so many children with their movies and cartoons.

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Flapper girls became a popular subculture of young women highlighting the free spirit many adolescents felt during the 1920's and deviating from social and sexual norms for women at the time by wearing shorter clothes and drinking in public.

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Younger kids would play games of marbles and shuttlecock, later engaging in tennis, football, and wrestling matches as they got older. Horseracing was also popular.

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The invention of cell phones allowed people to communicate more easily

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From Germany's train operators testing wireless communication in the 1920s, the DynaTAC 8000X prototype, flip, and digital phones to the present-day devices, the first cell phone went through a lot of transformations.

The first cell phone made communication more accessible than it had ever been before with the mobile phone being the latest in a long line of innovations, and the one that fits the world in the palm of our hand.

Before we delve into the world of mobile phones, let's have a look at the precursors to cell phone technology.

Earliest Forms of the First Cell Phone

Since the advent of the industrial revolution, interest in mobile communication had increased tenfold. Once radio communications and landline telephones became popular, people started to work on portable communication devices.

READ MORE: The Complete History of Phones from the Last 500 Years

Wireless Telephones in Trains

In 1920s Germany, train operators began testing the wireless communication. In 1924, a company called Zugtelephonie AG started supplying wireless telephone equipment for trains. The wireless model took off. It rapidly gained popularity and train operators in Europe started to use it.

Automobile Telephones

In the Second World War, military vehicles started using mobile radio systems. Before you knew it, companies around the world were offering mobile telephone systems for public vehicles. These systems had their fair share of issues, and the engineers at AT&T's Bell Labs were committed to improving the technology.

By the 1970s, things were looking up. Mobile telephone networks vastly improved with the introduction of technologies like automatic cell switching and signaling systems.

The potential of the automobile telephone prompted the idea of a handheld mobile phone.

Who Invented the First Cell Phone?

Engineers at Bell Labs were hard at work, but they could not find a way to make the first mobile phone.

Cue, Motorola!

The newer generations might not be familiar with Motorola, the giant of the cell phone industry. But in the latter half of the 20th century, they were a big deal. Their success story began in 1973 when they produced the first handheld mobile phone.

The First Cell Phone

Motorola's chief of portable communication products, John F. Mitchell, encouraged his team to make the first cell phone and was crucial in the development of the technology.

On April 3, 1973, Motorola engineer, Martin Cooper, rang his rival, Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs, from the first cell phone. The world had just witnessed its first mobile phone call. Later that day, Martin Cooper and his colleagues went to a news conference and revolutionized communication technology.

Motorola's cell phone was called DynaTAC 8000X. The dimensions of the prototype used for the first call were 9.1 x 5.1 x 1.8 in (23 x 13 x 4.5 cm). It weighed around 2 kg (4.4 lb) and had to be charged for 10 hours for 30 minutes of talk time.

When Did Cell Phones Come Out?

Even though Motorola showcased the world's first cell phone in 1973, it was still a prototype. It would take years of work for the Motorola Dynatac 8000x to become available to the general public.

The First Publicly Available Cell Phone

After 10 years and $100 million in development costs, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x was released to the market in 1983. The first commercial cell phone provided 30 minutes of talk time, could store 30 phone numbers, and cost $3,995.

New Competitors

In the following years, brick phones started to gain traction. Different companies started making cell phones, including the likes of Nokia and Samsung.

In 1987, the first Nokia cell phone, Mobira Cityman 900 appeared on the market. At 800 grams (less than a pound), it was considered relatively lighter. The next year, Samsung launched its first cell phone, the SH-100. It was Samsung's first portable handheld telephone. Its precursor, the SH-1000, was a car phone.

The First Flip Phone

In 1989, Motorola released its MicroTAC 9800X. It was not the traditional flip cell phone, as the flip cover merely opened up the button section. The screen was always visible.

But, technically speaking, the first flip cell phone was the NEC TZ-804. It was created in 1991, but bad timing and a weak release inhibited it from becoming a roaring success.

Over the next few years, more advanced forms of flip phones would stay in the market and would even become the most in-demand mobile phones in many parts of the world.

The First Digital Mobile Phone

The Motorola International 3200 was another feather in the cap of the company. Made in 1992, the first digital phone was GSM compatible but was never certified.

Nokia Mobile Phones Arrive on the Market

That very year, in 1992, Nokia gave the market the world's first mass-produced GSM phone, the Nokia 1011.

The cell phone was crucial in creating a space for Nokia in the mobile market. The first phone of its kind, it kicked off an incredible streak of Nokia mobile phones that would take over the cell phone market for years to come.

The First SMS

1992 was an important year for cell phones. It was during this year that the first SMS message was sent. Neil Papworth was working for a telecom contractor in the UK. The contractor was asked to develop a messaging service for Vodafone.

Neil sent the first-ever text message to the company director of Vodafone during the company's Christmas party. It said,

Merry Christmas!

Vodafone Prepaid was launched in 1996 as a pay-as-you-go, non-contract phone service that helped normalize mobile phones in UK households.

The First Cell Phone with a Vibration Feature

The world of mobile phones turned on its axis in 1993 when the Motorola StarTAC, the first clam-shell phone, was introduced. It introduced the traditional flip design that remained in fashion for so long. It was also the first cell phone to include a vibration feature.

Widely considered the first flip cell phone, it was considered a marvel of innovation and Motorola was heralded for being ahead of the curve, once again.

The First Mobile Phone with a QWERTY Keyboard

Released in 1996, The Nokia Communicator 9000 was the first phone with a QWERTY keypad. It was a comprehensive device with features such as fax, web browsing, email, word processing, and spreadsheets.

It is not wrong to say that it was the first cell phone to feature such a comprehensive list of features. It was aimed at business personnel and as such, contained everything to attract its niche target audience.

The First Cell Phone with no Antenna

Progressing through the decade, mobile phones were getting better and better. Whereas the first phone was bulky, modern phones were trying to be anything but.

In 1997, the first phone without an external antenna came out. The Hagenuk GlobalHandy had no visible external antenna, giving it a unique look and appeal for its time.

The First Cell Phone with an ARM Processor

An ARM processor is built on a RISC-based architecture. RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer.

The Nokia 6110, launched in 1997, was the first cell phone to use an ARM processor.

Ever since ARM processors have dominated mobile phone technology. Their frugal energy consumption when compared to x86 processors makes them incredibly effective in modern mobile phone design.

The First Mobile Phone with a Color Screen

Released in 1998, the Siemens S10 was the first cell phone with a color screen.

BlackBerry Arrives on the Scene

In the decade of 2000s, BlackBerrys were all over the business world. It all started in 1999 with the BlackBerry 850, which featured the iconic QWERTY keyboard that BlackBerry became known for, even if it looked quite different from its later, more popular versions.

Ten years later, RIM was considered the fastest-growing company on the planet.

The First Tri-Band GSM Phone

Another major leap in the world of mobile phones, and who else could have orchestrated it but Motorola?

By this time, the mobile network infrastructure had developed considerably. The Motorola Timeport was the first phone that used three of the four GSM frequency bands, allowing it to be used anywhere in the world.

The First Cell Phone with an MP3 Player

Motorola and Nokia were constantly innovating and taking over the market, so in 1999, Samsung came out with its own little invention. The Samsung SPH-M100 Uproar combined an average cell phone with an MP3 player.

In an era where MP3 players were becoming more and more common, it was a nifty little innovation that had considerable appeal for several people. The cell phone had a dedicated play/pause button.

Nokia 3310

In the year 2000, a device stormed the cellular phone market. Nokia released its 3310 model, which quickly went on to sell millions of units - 126 million, to be exact. To this day, it remains one of the most popular phone models of all time.

The First Camera Phone

A phone with a camera may not seem like a pretty common thing nowadays, but it was a major shock to people when camera phones came out in the late 90s and early 00s.

It is widely believed that the Sharp J-SH04, released in Japan at the end of the year 2000, was the first camera phone. However, such documentation is misguided as the Kyocera VP-210 VisualPhone was the first cell phone to feature a camera. The phone could take up to 20 pictures with its 0.11 MP camera.

Samsung claims that it manufactured and released the first camera phone in the world: the SCH-V200, which came out in 2000.

The first widely available cell phone with a camera in Europe was the Nokia 6750 which arrived in 2002.

When Did the First Smartphone Come Out?

Since the time of the Motorola DynaTac 8000x, mobile phone technology had progressed exponentially. It was the hot item on the market. Every model had better performance, was sleeker, and had something new to offer.

The Nokia 8310, released in 2001, came with radio and calendar features. The Ericsson T39 was the first phone to have Bluetooth capability. In 2002, the Sanyo SCP-5300 displayed photos on the screen, sidestepping the long and tedious process of plugging the cell phone into a computer to see photos.

Motorola and Nokia were dominating the market. To the young and modern mobile phone users, these names may seem novel, but in the early 21st century, their mobile phones were the most sought-after commodities in the world.

The Motorola RAZR V3 phone became the best-selling clamshell phone in history between the years 2004 and 2006.

But the world that we are familiar with today was still a long way off. Cell phones were normal, but the era of smartphones was still ahead.

The Very First Smartphone

The first touchscreen phone dates back to 1994. IBM's Simon, a device that featured apps and a touchscreen, is considered the world's first smartphone. Some people claim that it was not a smartphone in modern terms and consider it a precursor to smartphones.

The timing was not right and it did not take off. But, in terms of the first relevant smartphone, one cannot help but refer to...

The First iPhone

In 2007, cell phone history witnessed one of its most iconic and cherished moments. Apple released the first iPhone, known as the iPhone 2G, and shocked everyone. Its development, which started in 2005, had been kept under wraps.

A cell phone no longer had any need for buttons and low-quality screens. They had to move to interactive hardware. The transition to a touch-based interface was not without its issues, but eventually, it became the standard design for cell phones around the globe.

The iPhone had quad-band GSM cellular connectivity, internet browsing, a multimedia player, and a telephone, all in one device.

The very next year, the company released iPhone 3G and introduced the App Store, which allowed developers to create applications for their phones.

The First Android Phone

The O.G. of Android phones, the T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream, arrived on the market in 2008.

It ran on a Linux-based Operating System that fascinated Google. Google and Open Handset Alliance further developed the OS to compete with other operating systems available in the market, especially iOS.

Android offered integration with Google services. As a response to Apple's App Store, Google announced Android Market in 2008.

In 2010, Google eBookstore debuted as the largest eBook collection in the world at the time. In 2011, Google introduced Google Music. In 2012, Google rebranded Android Market as Google Play Store.

Mobile phones had ushered into a new era. Over the last decade, Android became the go-to OS for cell phone developers. By 2013, it was the largest mobile phone operating system in the world.

The First 4G Connection

Cellular Networks had been consistently improving since the days of the initial portable handheld telephone. It had developed into a fairly practical system by the 21st century. In 2003, the 3G standard was being adopted around the world.

In 2009, another breakthrough occurred when a 4G connection was established and demonstrated in the UK. In 2010, Samsung launched the Samsung SCH-R900, the first 4G cell phone.

The Decline of Different Brands

In 2005, BlackBerry introduced the BlackBerry 7270, the first BlackBerry cell phone to include Wi-Fi. The appeal of wireless internet was so big at the time that consumers flocked to the product.

Similarly, in 2006, Nokia launched the Nokia N95, a smartphone that ran on Symbian that became quite popular at the time.

But, as Apple and Google marched into the market, several different brands, including Nokia, BlackBerry, and Motorola went into decline.

Nokia offered phones that had long battery lives and only needed to be charged once a week. When Apple unveiled a phone that needed daily charging, it seemed like a lost promise to the people at Nokia.

Eventually, Nokia failed to adapt to the market and fell out of the competition.

The Smartphone Revolution

A decade later, smartphones have completely changed our lives. It's impossible to imagine a world without handheld gadgets. While it seems quite ordinary today, one cannot help but be indebted to the weight of the past.

Giants like Google, Apple, and Samsung rule the world of mobile phones and tech. But, if it was not for the constant innovation and singular vision of companies like Motorola and Nokia, these giants would not have had an opportunity to capitalize on the gains of their predecessors.

The efforts of the technicians, the designs of the engineers, and the ceaseless imaginations of pioneers have contributed to bringing us this small device. As we look at it, let's be grateful for the endless passion and enduring hard work that helps keep the world connected.

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The First Cell Phone: A Complete Phone History from 1920 to Present | History Cooperative

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From Germany's train operators testing wireless communication in the 1920s, the DynaTAC 8000X prototype, flip, and digital phones to the present-day devices, the first cell phone went through a lot of transformations. The first cell phone made communication more accessible than it had ever been before with the mobile phone being the latest in a ...

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By the mid 1950s, the Soviet Union and the United States were competing to see who could get to space first. Sputnik was launched in 1957.

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The economic prosperity of the 1920s, known as the Roaring 20s, provided extra time for social and leisure events. Dancing had become a popular social event starting in the 1920's, with the most popular moves being "The Charleston", "The Foxtrot", and "The Shimmy". 

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Children having to attend public schools did not become a part of the culture until the 1800's, whereas before only the wealthy would be sent to school.

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At the age of 14, girls' style was "graduated" into womanhood, where she was now allowed to wear moderate heels, stockings, and makeup. This was seen as a right of passage.

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1939 First Televised Major League Baseball Game

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1939 First Televised Major League Baseball Game

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Baseball becomes televised and available for children to watch, which led to greater interest in the sport.

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By 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school; however, schooling was not equal. In the South (where most black families and children were) schools were much poorer, and attendance was not required. At this time, about half of American children lived in poverty.

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The landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the U.S., marking a significant victory for the feminist movement and sparking ongoing debates about reproductive rights.

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Follow Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast about the people and research that makes UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. Review us on Apple Podcasts.
See all Berkeley Voices episodes. When Roe v. Wade was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, which protected the right to an abortion, "it changed everything," says Kristin Luker, a professor emerita of law and of sociology at UC Berkeley. "It was so revolutionary - I argue it was on a par with the American Revolution or the French Revolution." Last Friday, the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe, giving states broad power to curtail or end abortion. As of today, abortion is now banned in at least seven states, and about half of states across the country are expected to ban or severely restrict the procedure in the coming days. In this Berkeley Voices episode, Luker talks about why doctors began writing anti-abortion laws in the 19th century, the experiences women had ending unwanted pregnancies in the decades before Roe v. Wade and how she doesn't see us returning to the normative sexuality and reproduction of the 1950s.
Read a transcript of Berkeley Voices episode 100: How Roe v. Wade radically changed American culture:

Kristin Luker: It was, to my understanding, that pretty much every sorority on the Cal campus had somebody who knew somebody who could get you in touch with an illegal abortionist.

[Music: "Discovery Harbor" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Anne Brice: Kristin Luker is a professor emerita of law and of sociology at UC Berkeley, where she taught for more than three decades. Luker is co-founder and faculty director emerita of Berkeley Law's Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. She has written five books, including Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision not to Contracept in 1975 and Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood in 1985.

In her research, Luker has interviewed hundreds of women about their experiences with abortion before and after 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that protected a woman's right to an abortion.

Here, she's talking about the options Berkeley students had if they wanted to end a pregnancy in the 1950s and '60s.

Kristin Luker: The rumor was that there was a kindly doctor on Telegraph Avenue who would - although he, himself, would not do abortions - would refer you to reasonably competent practitioners in Tijuana.

If you didn't do that, then you could try to abort yourself and some of the people I interviewed did. You could go to what a woman I interviewed called a "granny midwife." That is someone who has had a lot of experience with births and, I presume, abortion, but no professional training.

Anne Brice: Today, I'm joined by a colleague of mine, Edward Lempinen, a writer for Berkeley News at UC Berkeley. He recently spoke with Luker about what it was like for a woman to end an unwanted pregnancy before Roe v. Wade and how the right to an abortion dramatically changed American culture.

Luker also discussed the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe, and how she doesn't expect to see women going back to the normative sexuality and reproduction of the 1950s.

This is Berkeley Voices. I'm Anne Brice.

A quick note for our listeners: Throughout this episode, we use the term "women" for people with the capacity for pregnancy, but we do recognize and appreciate that transgender and non-binary people also need access to abortion and other reproductive care.

[Music fades out]

Welcome to Berkeley Voices, Ed.

Edward Lempinen: Thanks for having me, Anne. It's good to be here.

Anne Brice: Ed, first, can you give us a rundown of the decision that the Supreme Court handed down on Friday?

Edward Lempinen: Yeah. The Supreme Court, dominated by six conservatives, overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutionally protected right to an abortion after nearly half a century.

Their vote was focused specifically on a Mississippi law that prohibited abortion after 15 weeks, but the justices went much further, giving the states broad power to curtail or end abortion.

At least nine states moved quickly to impose bans on abortion and about half the states in the country - conservative states in the South and Midwest and West - are expected to ban or severely restrict abortion access in the coming days. Some states don't even have exceptions for rape or incest.

And the women and families who will suffer the most are the most vulnerable in our country: poor people, young people, people with disabilities, undocumented people, people of color.

Anne Brice: In your conversation with Luker, she talked about how far people would go to end unwanted pregnancies in the decades before abortion was legalized.

Edward Lempinen: Yeah, she has heard a lot of really harrowing stories about the danger and shame and terror that women experienced.

[Music: "Careless Morning" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Kristin Luker: A friend of mine flew down to San Diego and went over the border and was met by somebody in a car with dark windows and was told to lie down on the floor of a car and was driven to a place - this is in the middle of the night, by the way - and was given the abortion, no anesthesia. It seemed like there was probably sterile technique, although she wasn't paying that much attention.

And after it was over, they dumped her on the street corner in Tijuana. So, that's what life was like before Roe v. Wade. It was the bad old days.

[Legal] contraception and abortion changed American life. It was so revolutionary, I argue it was on a par with the American Revolution or the French Revolution.

Edward Lempinen: Do you have any recollection of what happened to the woman who was dumped on the street corner in Tijuana after that?

Kristin Luker: Well, she came back, she finished college, she got married, she had a normal life. And I've never asked her this - I have been in touch with her, by the way. I've never asked her this, but many of the people that I interviewed never told anyone about their illegal abortion.

Anne Brice: For a woman at the time, giving birth to a baby when she was unmarried was considered shameful and morally corrupt. These women were discriminated against in all sorts of ways.

Kristin Luker: I ended up interviewing people who went away "to visit an aunt in the Midwest," which was a code for being sent away from home and having your baby with no one noticing. And even as late as the mid-1960s, women were told that they should go back, they should resume their life. They should never tell anyone about having had a child or an abortion, as the case may be. And I know many women who didn't talk about it until after Roe v. Wade.

[Music fades out]

Anne Brice: Luker has another friend who was unmarried and gave birth. She was attending a religious school and decided to give her baby up for adoption.

Kristin Luker: And while all the other mothers on the maternity ward were allowed to look at their babies, she was not. She was not allowed to hold her baby. She begged to just have a look at her baby. They made her walk to the nursery after a C-section, when all the other women, most of whom had not had C-sections, were taken in a wheelchair. So, I can't convey to you the stigma and the terror and the shame that faced women who had pregnancies they did not want.

Edward Lempinen: When you talk to women who went through that kind of difficult situation, and you talk to them years after the fact, did you have a sense that it changed them, or that the stigma or the sense of loss lingered with them?

Kristin Luker: It changed them, but not in the way you would expect. Now, I know a select group, because in my interviews, I interviewed people who were activists. That is, the people who were actively seeking to change abortion laws or actively seeking to oppose the changing of abortion laws.

And the women who had illegal abortions or had children out of wedlock, had what my generation would call a "click" experience. The minute they heard there was a movement to liberalize abortion laws, they said, "Count me in." And they came out of the closet, and they started telling people. It was almost a religious experience.

[Music: "Lakeside Path" by Blue Dot Sessions]

Anne Brice: In 1964, three activists in the Bay Area founded the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws, or ARAL. The three women were such a powerful force that they earned the nickname the Army of Three. At the time, says Luker, the medical and legal professions were talking about abortion reform. But the Army of Three was talking about a full repeal.

Kristin Luker: They were amazing, amazing women. And I was lucky enough to be able to interview some of them. They were passionate. They were dedicated. They got themselves arrested.

And these three women set up an illegal referral system to abortionists in Tijuana. And they would go down, and they told me they did a white-glove inspection. And if the place did not pass a white-glove inspection, that person did not get any referrals.

They also made all women write a letter to their legislator before they would give them the referral, and they urged women to come back and post what you and I these days would call a Yelp review: How was it? How were you treated? And that was the beginning of a new world about abortion.

So, it was a very early awareness of your rights as a woman and your right to control your own body. Those were extremely radical ideas. And that was the beginning of a new world about abortion.

Anne Brice: The Army of Three's Association to Repeal Abortion Laws would eventually become NARAL Pro-Choice America, a nonprofit today whose 2.5 million members fight for reproductive freedom for everybody.

[Music fades out]

Edward Lempinen: In listening to your descriptions now, and in reading your book, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood, I'm struck by the fact that, at least me, personally, I think of abortion as a relatively modern phenomenon. I think of it in the '60s. I think of it post-Roe v. Wade. But, in the book, as you describe it, it has been a debate and a conflict in American culture since the 19th century, at least. And I wonder how the debate has changed?

Kristin Luker: Actually, it's surprising because it has not changed that much. To me, that's the surprising part.

We have data back to the colonial periods of people trying to end unwanted pregnancies with herbs and horseback riding and throwing themselves down stairs. But one of the things I point out in that book is that until the 1920s, there were no accurate pregnancy tests, so there was no reliable way to figure out if you were pregnant.

Anne Brice: Luker says abortion in the 19th century was actually quite common. There were ads in newspapers for "female pills" that brought on menstrual periods. Abortifacients, or substances that would cause miscarriages, were openly advertised in storefronts.

Although there were few female physicians, some women called themselves "female doctors" and provided abortions. And midwives specialized in women's health, contraception and abortion.

Kristin Luker: It was considered something that women did. It was part of the women's world. In San Francisco and Los Angeles, there were clinics for ladies who said they would take care of "menstrual obstruction from any cause." Now, for a healthy, sexually active woman, the main cause of menstrual obstructions was probably pregnancy.

Anne Brice: It was a common perception that if a woman hadn't felt the fetus move, or "quicken," then abortion wasn't particularly controversial, says Luker. After all, in a time before sonograms, quickening, which usually happens in the second trimester, was the only way to know for sure that a woman was pregnant. An abortion was generally considered immoral or, in some cases, illegal after quickening.

[Music: "Checkered Blue" by Blue Dot Sessions]

In the mid-19th century, though, things were changing.

Luker says there was a very special group of doctors - highly educated, white, upper-middle class doctors called "regulars" - who, after realizing that married women were having abortions, became enraged and began to agitate and pass abortion laws beginning in the late 1850s.

Kristin Luker: And I make the argument that these doctors are engaged in what a sociologist would call a professionalization project, meaning they couldn't actually cure people. They didn't really have much to offer people.

But what they could do was stake a moral claim. And the moral claim they made was it's a baby from conception onwards, which is, as you know, the language that's being used now.

Anne Brice: Between 1860 and 1890, doctors wrote abortion laws through their state medical associations. By the late 1800s, all states had laws to restrict abortion, with exceptions in some states if a doctor said the abortion was needed to save the life or the health of the patient, or for therapeutic reasons.

Kristin Luker: Which means that an abortion is completely legal if a doctor thinks it's necessary, but it's completely illegal if a woman thinks it's necessary. So, I point out this is a profound contradiction, which is, either it's a baby from conception onwards or it's not. But you can't have it both ways, which is what American doctors did.

Anne Brice: As abortion became criminalized, the stigma surrounding it grew.

[Music fades out]

Edward Lempinen: Thinking of life before Roe v. Wade and after Roe v. Wade, how did the availability of legal abortion change women's lives? And, more broadly, how did it change American culture?

Kristin Luker: I think it changed everything. The book I'm finishing argues that contraception and abortion changed American life on a par - it was so revolutionary, I argue it was on a par with the American Revolution or the French Revolution.

And the reason I say that is because it changed how people thought about it. It changed how people talked about it. It changed how people experienced it. And, most importantly - and this is, by and large, being left out of the current debate - it permitted women, that is, women like me, to invest human capital in themselves, confident that they would not have to interrupt their education or their professional career by having a child.

And I tell this story: When I was in graduate school at Yale, there was a very plum fellowship that I was eligible for and I was told I couldn't have it because I was a woman and I might get married and have children. The man who was given the plum fellowship funnily enough got married and had children long before I did. But nobody thought that was a problem for men.

The political philosopher, Susan Moller Okin, says that in political philosophy, women have always been mothers or potential mothers. They have never been citizens. I believe that with Roe v. Wade and with contraception, they became citizens for the first time ever. That's what at stake right now.

Edward Lempinen: Wow. In the introduction to your book in 1985 you wrote, "The abortion debate is likely to remain bitter and divisive for years to come." And looking at that now, it was amazingly prescient. But I wonder, why do you think this debate has remained, across these years, so prominent and so intense?

Kristin Luker: I believe abortion brings up questions of what sexuality is supposed to be for. Can it only be used for procreation, or can it be used for something else? It brings up issues of marriage that, as you probably know, people, the demographers, call it "the retreat from marriage." And it brings up questions of gender.

And I think the most subtle thing, and this has become much clearer on the horizon, is it brings up the issue of social worthiness. So, people who who oppose abortion imagine that women are casually going out and ending their pregnancies because they have better things to do.

We have data from UC San Francisco - The Turnaway Project - that [find], you know why women get abortions? They get abortions because they cannot afford to have another child, and they get abortions because of their commitments to other people - to the children they have, to elderly people, to their families. So, far from a selfish decision, it's exactly the opposite. And I think for most women, it's a very carefully thought-through and least-worst solution.

[Music: "Kallaloe" by Blue Dot Sessions]

I profoundly trust women to know what's best for themselves and for their families.

I'm a person who's been converted to the notion of reproductive justice rather than reproductive rights. Reproductive justice insists that reproduction includes the right to have a child, the right to raise a child in dignity and some measure of comfort, and the right to build a family in whatever way you see fit. I've always been a reproductive justice person. I just didn't know it.

Anne Brice: Luker says the recent Supreme Court ruling has shown us that the abortion debate and conflict isn't going away any time soon.

Kristin Luker: Two things that I find interesting. One is, I think this is, in part, a symbolic battle. This is a way of validating the traditional heterosexual married couple as the only form of legitimate sexuality. And it's not surprising that some of these same people are going after LGBTQ rights because, in fact, those rights have come into being by much the same logic as abortion came into being.

On the symbolic plane, the second thing is, and I think they've been remarkably successful at this, I think the pro-life people want to stigmatize abortion. They want women to go back to the generation I grew up in, where women were terrified and ashamed and silent. And I think that's, in large part, what this debate is about.

People not that much younger than I am grew up with abortion being legal, and they cannot imagine a world in which it's illegal. How that's going to play out is anybody's guess. Do I think women are going to go back to the kind of normative sexuality and reproduction we saw in 1950? I don't think so. And, well, I guess it'll be interesting to see.

Anne Brice: Kristin Luker is a professor emerita of law and of sociology at UC Berkeley, where she taught for more than 30 years. She is co-founder and faculty director emerita of Berkeley Law's Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. You can learn more about the center at law.berkeley.edu.

This is Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast from UC Berkeley's Office of Communications and Public Affairs. I'm Anne Brice.

You can follow Berkeley Voices on Spotify or wherever you listen. If you like what we do, please follow us and leave us a rating and a review. You can find all of our podcast episodes with transcripts and photos on Berkeley News at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.
Listen to other Berkeley Voices episodes:

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Berkeley Voices: How Roe v. Wade radically changed American culture

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Follow Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast about the people and research that makes UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. Review us on Apple Podcasts. See all Berkeley Voices episodes. When Roe v. Wade was handed down by the U.S.

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Teens and people of all ages indulged in saints' day festivals including morality plays, bear-baiting, and contests of skill, feasting, and processions.

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Following WWII, there was a surge in births, bringing about a generation that would face all sorts of economic, social, and political transformations.

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Boys wore pants with Norfolk or lounge jackets. Girls typically wore dresses with leg-o-mutton sleeves, cinched waists, and flowing skirts. The skirts on girls' dresses were shorter than their mothers' dresses and gradually lengthened as they grew older. Girls were introduced to training corsets as teenagers.

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The age requirement to vote changes from 21 to 18.

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National Constitution Center - The 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

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The 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

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SECTION. 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

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In November of 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges, escorted by her mother and four federal marshalls, became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum." 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges.

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Trailblazer Ruby Bridges was only six when she advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. Learn more about her on womenshistory.org.

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voluptuous clothing with many layers was considered the norm for women. What we’d consider now as costumes would be their everyday clothing. Men would wear heavy cloaks or capes 

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The 1910s provided an era of change, as the world witnessed its first major world war in 1914. Nations around the world were also switching from agrarian economies to ones based on factories and industries. Along with these changes, the importance of education was recognized during this era. North American society felt that there was a need for young people to be taught the basics, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.

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The Jazz Age lasted throughout the 1920s and 30s, highlighting a modern, 'urban' culture as opposed to the traditionalist, 'rural' culture that came before it. Jazz music was highlighted by a fast beat and improvisational style.

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Banks failed, leaving many families without jobs and savings

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After the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, followed a worldwide inflation beginning in mid-2021 and lasting until mid-2022. Inflation included a rise in prices with food, goods, services, and energy.

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MTV (Music Television) was launched on August 1, 1981. The content consisted primarily of music videos and television shows aimed at teenagers and young adults.

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MTV, cable television network that began as a 24-hour platform for music videos.

MTV debuted just after midnight on August 1, 1981, with the broadcast of "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. Following the format of Top 40 radio, video disc jockeys (or "veejays") introduced videos and bantered about music news between clips. After an initial splash, the network struggled in its early years. The music video reservoir was then somewhat shallow, resulting in frequent repetition of clips, and cable television remained a luxury that had not quite found its market. MTV expanded its programming to include rhythm and blues artists, and the network took off. Singles such as " Billie Jean" and " Beat It" from Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982) not only showcased the strengths of the music video format but proved that exposure on MTV could propel artists to superstardom.

The network brought success to such newcomers as Madonna and new wave icons Duran Duran, who used increasingly sophisticated techniques to make the visual elements of the video as important as the music. MTV also gave renewed life to veteran performers such as ZZ Top, Tina Turner, and Peter Gabriel, each of whom scored the biggest hits of their careers thanks to heavy rotation of their videos. By the mid-1980s, MTV had produced a noticeable effect on motion pictures, commercials, and television. It also changed the music industry; looking good (or at least interesting) on MTV became as important as sounding good when it came to selling recordings.

In 1985 entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc. purchased MTV Networks, the parent corporation of MTV, from Warner Communications Inc., and the shift in content was both dramatic and immediate. Instead of free-form playlists of music that covered a veejay's entire shift, videos were packaged into discrete blocks based on genre. This gave rise to specialty shows such as 120 Minutes ( alternative rock), Headbangers Ball ( heavy metal), and Yo! MTV Raps ( hip-hop). Before long, game shows, reality shows, animated cartoons, and soap operas began to appear in the MTV lineup, and the network shifted its focus from music to youth-oriented pop culture.

By the mid-1990s, the majority of MTV's daily schedule was devoted to programming that was not related to music. Its sister station VH1 had been broadcasting adult-oriented rock videos since 1985, and it soon filled the vacuum, with original content such as Pop Up Video and the documentary series Behind the Music. MTV Networks launched MTV2 in 1996, with the intention of recapturing the spirit embodied by their "I want my MTV" advertising campaign in the 1980s. MTV2 started with the same free-form structure that characterized early MTV, but it soon shifted to genre-specific programs. By 2005 MTV2 had followed the same course as its parent network, with the bulk of its schedule consisting of reality shows, celebrity coverage, and comedies.

While music had a reduced presence on MTV, videos remained important to the network and its image. Beginning in 1984, MTV honoured achievement in the format with its annual Video Music Awards. Total Request Live ( TRL), an hour-long interview and music video show, debuted in 1998 and anchored the weekday lineup. By the early 21st century, however, MTV increasingly sought to position itself as a destination for music on the Internet. Its Web site offered streaming video and audio content, and in 2007 it launched Rhapsody America, a joint venture with RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless, as a subscription-based alternative to Apple Inc.'s wildly popular iTunes service; in 2010 it was spun off as the independent company Rhapsody International. Partly because of the popularity of viewing music videos on the Internet, TRL was canceled in 2008, though it returned in 2017.

In addition to its American properties, MTV maintained several continentwide channels and numerous country-specific channels across the world.

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MTV | History, Music Videos, Shows, & Facts

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MTV, television network that began in 1981 as a 24-hour platform for music videos and by the mid-1980s had a noticeable effect on movies and television, as well as the music industry. It launched the Video Music Awards in 1984, and in the 21st century it tried to position itself as a music destination on the Internet.

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In June 2022, the decision to overturn the ruling of Roe v. Wade (1973) was made. This meant that abortion was no longer a federal constitutional right and the decision to make abortion accessible was handed to the states. As of right now, 14 states have total abortion bans, and 27 states have abortion bans dependent on gestational duration.

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Each circle on this graph represents a school that experienced gun violence, and each dot within the circle represents 20 children.

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School shootings have increased significantly in the past few decades, with about 413 school shootings happening since Columbine in 1999. There have been 144 school shootings in 2024 alone.

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1965: Higher Education Act of 1965 and later financial aid programs

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1965: Higher Education Act of 1965 and later financial aid programs

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The Higher Education Act of 1965 established the first US federal aid program for higher-education students, providing financial assistance to students from lower-income backgrounds. Further programs were implemented and expanded in the following decades.

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1972: Implementation of Title IX and the Education Amendments of 1972

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1972: Implementation of Title IX and the Education Amendments of 1972

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Title IX was enacted in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in all government-funded schools and educational programs.

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U.S. Department of Education
Office for Civil Rights
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20202-1328
Revised August 2021

Title IX
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces, among other statutes, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title IX states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
Scope of Title IX
Title IX applies to schools, local and state educational agencies, and other institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the Department. These recipients include approximately 17,600 local school districts, over 5,000 postsecondary institutions, and charter schools, for-profit schools, libraries, and museums. Also included are vocational rehabilitation agencies and education agencies of 50 states, the District of Columbia, and territories of the United States.

A recipient institution that receives Department funds must operate its education program or activity in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Some key issue areas in which recipients have Title IX obligations are: recruitment, admissions, and counseling; financial assistance; athletics; sex-based harassment, which encompasses sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence; treatment of pregnant and parenting students; treatment of LGBTQI+ students; discipline; single-sex education; and employment. Also, no recipient or other person may intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Title IX or its implementing regulations, or because the individual has made a report or complaint, testified, assisted, or participated or refused to participate in a proceeding under Title IX. For a recipient to retaliate in any way is considered a violation of Title IX. The Department's Title IX regulations (Volume 34, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 106) provide additional information about the forms of discrimination prohibited by Title IX.

OCR's Enforcement of Title IX

OCR vigorously enforces Title IX to ensure that institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the Department comply with the law. OCR evaluates, investigates, and resolves complaints alleging sex discrimination. OCR also conducts proactive investigations, through directed investigations or compliance reviews, to examine potential systemic violations based on sources of information other than complaints.

In addition to its enforcement activities, OCR provides information and guidance to schools, universities and other educational institutions and agencies to assist them in voluntarily complying with the law.

To learn more about filing a complaint with OCR, please visit
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/complaintintro.html. For assistance related to Title IX or other civil rights laws, please contact OCR at OCR@ed.gov or 800-421-3481, TDD 800-877-8339.

On request, this publication is available in alternate formats, such as Braille or large print. For more information, please contact the Department's Alternate Format Center at 202-260-0818 or via e-mail at alternateformatcenter@ed.gov. If you have difficulty understanding English, you may request language assistance services for Department information that is available to the public. These language assistance services are available free of charge. If you need more information about interpretation or translation services, please call 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800- 872-5327) (TTY: 1-800-877-8339), email us at Ed.Language.Assistance@ed.gov, or write to U.S. Department of Education, Information Resource Center, 400 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20202.

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Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities which receive Federal financial assistance.

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April 20, 1999: The Columbine High School Shooting

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April 20, 1999: The Columbine High School Shooting

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On April 20, 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton/Columbine, Colorado, shot and killed 13 people and wounded 20 more. At the time, it was the worst school shooting in US history. Many forms of adolescent culture and media were blamed in the aftermath of this event, e.g., the influence of violent video games and music on youth and the conception of a "Trenchcoat Mafia." Also following the shootings was the implementation of "zero-tolerance" policies and lockdown drills as similar tragedies continue to occur.

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Table of Contents

1. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

2. Columbine Shooting Victims

3. She Said 'Yes'

4. Columbine Shooting Investigation

5. Columbine Massacre Aftermath

The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.

The Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. Subsequent school shootings, including at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, continue to raise questions about school safety and gun control in the United States.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in trench coats, began shooting fellow students outside Columbine High School, located in a suburb south of Denver. The pair then moved inside the school, where they gunned down many of their victims in the library.

By approximately 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other people. Shortly after 12 p.m., the two teens turned their guns on themselves.

Investigators later learned Harris and Klebold had arrived in separate cars at Columbine around 11:10 on the morning of the massacre. The two then walked into the school cafeteria, where they placed two duffel bags each containing a 20-pound propane bomb set to explode at 11:17 a.m.

The teens then went back outside to their cars to wait for the bombs to go off. When the bombs failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree.

Columbine Shooting Victims

Victims of the Columbine shooting include Cassie Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William "Dave" Sanders, 47; Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Townsend, 18, and Kyle Velasquez, 16.

She Said 'Yes'

In the days immediately following the shootings, it was speculated that Harris and Klebold purposely chose athletes, minorities and Christians as their victims.

It initially was reported that one student, Cassie Bernall, was asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in God. When Bernall allegedly said, "Yes," she was shot to death. Her parents later wrote a book titled She Said Yes, honoring their daughter.

However, it later was determined the question was not posed to Bernall but to another student who already had been wounded by a gunshot. When that victim replied, "Yes," the shooter walked away.

Columbine Shooting Investigation

Subsequent investigations determined Harris and Klebold chose their victims randomly, and the two teens originally had intended to bomb their school, potentially killing hundreds of people.

There was speculation that Harris and Klebold committed the killings because they were members of a group of social outcasts called the Trenchcoat Mafia that was fascinated by Goth culture. It also was speculated that Harris and Klebold had carried out the shootings as retaliation for being bullied.

Additionally, violent video games and music were blamed for influencing the killers. However, none of these theories was ever proven.

Through journals left behind by Harris and Klebold, investigators eventually discovered the teens had been planning for a year to bomb the school in an attack similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Investigative journalist Dave Cullen, author of the 2009 book Columbine, described Harris as "the callously brutal mastermind," while Klebold was a "quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire."

Did you know? The deadliest school shooting in U.S. history took place on April 16, 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people before killing himself at Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Columbine Massacre Aftermath

In the aftermath of the shootings, many schools across America enacted "zero-tolerance" rules regarding disruptive behavior and threats of violence from students. Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left a scar on the Littleton community.

Mark Manes, the man who sold a gun to Harris and bought him 100 rounds of ammunition the day before the murders, was sentenced to six years in prison. Another man, Philip Duran, who introduced Harris and Klebold to Manes, also was sentenced to prison time.

Some victims and families of people killed or injured filed suit against the school and the police; most of these suits were later dismissed in court.

The list of school shootings in the United States grows longer every year, and includes the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, the Robb Elementary shooting in 2022, the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018 and the Umpqua Community College shooting in 2015, among others.

Gun control and disagreements over the interpretation of the Second Amendment continue to be a controversial issue in the United States, where 45,000 people die from gun-related injuries each year.

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Columbine High School Shooting: Victims & Killers

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The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.

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"Latchkey Kid" is a term that became commonplace to describe youth throughout the 1980s and 1990s who were left alone after school, gaining independence as their parents worked into the evenings.

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The Latchkey Generation: How Bad Was It? - JSTOR Daily

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The latchkey generation--also known as Generation X--was raised by working parents who left them alone after school. We consider the implications.

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"Satanic Panic" refers to a mass hysteria and moral panic sparked by baseless conspiracies of cults committing mass child sexual abuse. This resulted in the demonization of youth media and activities as followers searched for symbols of satanic influence in pop culture.

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Fashion from the 1500s to the 1800s changed as women wore more simple gowns, influenced by Greek/Roman clothing. Women used light-colored, draping-styled fabrics and men wore tighter clothes to emphasize masculine features. 

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On September 11th, 2001, Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial planes. These planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the Pennsylvanian countryside. Almost 3,000 people died in total, making it the most deadly terrorist attack in history. This attack heavily influenced the security and protection of the United States.

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May 18, 2004 MA becomes the first state to legalize gay marriage, and six years other states follow.

In 2009, President Barack Obama declared June LGBT Pride Month.

Shows like Euphoria, Sex Education Orange is the New Black show representation of the community, which reaches a young adult audience

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Different social medias used or still currently used are MySpace, Facebook, Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, Tik Tok

Present: 5.17 billion people worldwide use social media, which is 63.7% of the global population as of July 2024. These platforms are a tool in which everyone can connect with each other, but at the same time be easily influenced by the media

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Throughout the 21st century, music consumption shifted from physical media to digital streaming. The late 2010s saw streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and others. By the 2020s, streaming became the primary mode of consumption, with platforms like YouTube and TikTok reshaping music discovery and distribution, emphasizing singles and viral content over traditional albums.

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Fashion from 2001 to 2024 moved from the bold, flashy looks of the early 2000s, driven by pop culture figures (Paris Hilton, Britney Spears) to the rise of athleisure and minimalist trends of the 2010s, where fast fashion and a 90s revival emerged. In the 2020s, comfort, sustainability, and inclusivity became popular, with the pandemic making loungewear trendy, as well as digital fashion and gender-fluid styles gaining attention.

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In 1989, the first Gay-Straight Alliance was formed at a public school in Concord, Massachusetts, paving the way for creating safe spaces for sexually diverse students.

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Creating a gay-straight student alliance (GSA) in your School | Alberta Teachers’ Association

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Teacher information about gay-straight alliances

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In January 2007, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone (produced by Apple) and the first look into personal computing. Its features (camera, mobile games, FaceTime, etc.) and touch control functioning revolutionized and impacted the future of communication for people and the youth.

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First child labor law passed in Massachusetts (required children under 15 who worked in factories to attend school at least 3 months of the year)

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The Equal Access Act of 1984 was passed, prohibiting federally funded public schools from discriminating against clubs on the basis of religion so long as these meetings are voluntary and non-government sponsored.