In addition to President Kennedy, two other influential Americans were murdered during the nineteen sixties. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior was shot in Memphis, Tennessee, in nineteen sixty-eight. Several weeks later, Robert Kennedy -- John Kennedy's brother -- was shot in Los Angeles, California. He was campaigning to win his party's nomination for president.

The two murders resulted in riots in cities across the country. The unrest and violence affected many young Americans. The effect seemed especially bad because of the time in which they had grown up.

By the middle nineteen fifties, most of their parents had jobs that paid well. They expressed satisfaction with their lives. They taught their children what were called middle class values. These included a belief in God, hard work and service to their country.

Later, many young Americans began to question these beliefs. They felt that their parents' values were not enough to help them deal with the social and racial difficulties of the nineteen sixties. They rebelled by letting their hair grow long and by wearing unusual clothing. Their dissatisfaction was strongly expressed in music.

Rock and roll music had become very popular in America in the nineteen fifties. Some people, however, did not approve of it. They thought it was too sexual. These people disliked the rock and roll of the nineteen sixties even more. They found the words especially unpleasant.