A lot of things happened in 1964. I graduated from high school. I started college. The Beatles had taken America by storm, and the British Invasion had come ashore, bringing our national music back to us with a new vision and a new interpretation. Long hair was starting to catch on. But most important, the Civil Rights Act was passed into law, and we know today that led to a new way of looking at not just race, but gender, sexuality, even the natural environment.

We began a great, but gradual change then,
probably starting around the time JFK was killed late the previous November. A lot of things started to change, a new way of looking at the world came to be, a new politics, a new economics, a new culture, a new understanding of our social and individual identity. There was a new spirituality, and a new awareness.

Those of you not old enough to have seen that time, or otherwise not yet old enough to be aware of the changes that started then may not realize what a momentous time it was. Even those of us who lived through it couldn’t fully grasp it all without the subsequent perspective of history. The world changed, although it wasn’t really clear at the time. But it is now, and it changed for the better.

You may hear others who do not share my opinion. There are those who say it was the beginning of the end, the moment when things started sliding downhill. That our best years were behind us. Don’t believe them. I was there, I saw it happen.
They are simply mistaken.

We have had problems, failures, setbacks, even catastrophes over the last half century. But things are better now. We live in a better world, and we live in a better country. And we are a better people. I really don’t care all that much whether or not you agree with me. But you should be aware that I, and many others, haven’t the slightest doubt that now is the better time, regardless of what you think.

And we have no intention of ever going back.