A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost

by Frye Gaillard

“There are many different ways to remember the sixties,” Frye Gaillard writes, “and this is mine. There was in these years the sense of a steady unfolding of time, as if history were on a forced march, and the changes spread to every corner of our lives. As future generations debate the meaning of the decade, I hope to offer a sense of how it felt to have lived it. A Hard Rain is one writer’s reconstruction and remembrance of a transcendent era―one that, for better or worse, lives with us still.”

With A Hard Rain Gaillard gives us a deeply personal history, bringing his keen storyteller’s eye to this pivotal time in American life. He explores the competing story arcs of tragedy and hope through the political and social movements of the civil rights, black power, women’s liberation, the war in Vietnam, and the protests movements against it.

Gaillard also examines the cultural manifestations of change in the era―music, literature, art, religion, and science―and so we meet not only the Brothers Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, but also Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Harper Lee, Mister Rogers, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Billy Graham, Thomas Merton, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Barry Goldwater, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Berrigan Brothers. As Gaillard remembers these influential people, he weaves together a compelling story about an iconic American decade of change, conflict, and progress.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Sociology, American History, Audiobook, Politics, Historical

704 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 60s were the defining years of my life. In 1961, I turned 13 so all of my formative teenage years were lived during this tumultuous decade. When I think back on those years and some of the things that happened, I wonder if I am remembering it all correctly. Frye Gaillard's new book was a reminder for me of all that went on in those years. Some people will view A HARD RAIN as a history book, I view it as a way to remember those years.

A HARD RAIN is a large book - over 700 pages - divided up by years in the 60s and the significant events of each year. It combines politics, the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, the Vietnam protests, the civil rights movement, the women's movement and so much more. Plus it recognizes the strong role that music played in this decade - Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Motown just to name a few. Reading this book brought back so many memories to me - both happy and sad. This is a book that will stay on my bookshelves as reference to dig down deeper into some of my fading memories.

The author says it best: “There are many different ways to remember the sixties,” Gaillard writes, “and this is mine. There was in these years the sense of a steady unfolding of time, as if history were on a forced march, and the changes spread to every corner of our lives. As future generations debate the meaning of the decade, I hope to offer a sense of how it felt to have lived it. A Hard Rain is one writer’s reconstruction and remembrance of a transcendent era ― one that, for better or worse, lives with us still.”

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good for what it was meant to be: a synthesis of others' research speckled with the author's own recollections and reflections on events in the Sixties. Very comprehensive and thoughtful.

[Marlin Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A HARD RAIN is a great book, and I’m not using the word “great” in any careless way. The work is so very large in scope, and while the complexity of the history of the 1960s had to have been difficult to manage and shape into an artistic whole, Gaillard manages to not just accomplish it, but do it with such depth and perception that it allows the reader to make sense of those times. He really took on something mammoth and gives readers an important work with which to examine our shared history, and, really, our present too.

Gaillard writes so movingly of those times. I was born in ’61, and my first real memory of key events is Robert Kennedy’s assassination. My brother and I were watching TV when the report first came on, and we went and told our mother what had happened. I watched her burst into tears, which shocked me. It was the first time I realized that what happened on the news actually affected people who weren’t in the path of history in any direct way but lived in neighborhoods like ours. Gaillard's book took me back to that moment.

The way he weaves together civil rights, Vietnam, the women’s movement, etc., and also incorporates the role of music, art, movies, and literature and their place in the history of those times makes for such a fuller understanding of the culture of our country. Gaillard knew the book needed that element, and he does a wonderful job of providing it.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It deserves a large audience.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great read. It is comprehensive...not focusing only on the politics of the era, but on the emotional cost and weight of its unrelenting social trauma. It traces so many factors; music, literature, the economy, the Civil Rights movement, crime, sports, journalism...
the space race, Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's. It gave background, the inside stories, and the little known ones as well. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in one of the pivotal decades of the last century.

[Kenneth Barber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book chronicles the decade of the 1960’s year by year. The author includes all aspects of living in this period. Politics,civil rights, Vietnam, radical movements, music and literature.
The author grew up during this period and attended college in the 60’s,so his memories of events are also detailed.
The book was interesting and very readable.

[J Rivchin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was one of my goals for the summer to read this book. If you are interested in this time period and the intense cultural changes that occurred during this decade (i.e., civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, Woodstock, the space race, assassinations, etc.), you'll really enjoy this. There are short chapters that help keep you reading, and while I knew some of the major events of the 1960s, I still learned a lot. Interestingly enough, there are some eerie parallels between the 1960s and Trump-era America.

[Singles Going Steady Podcast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic history with a very welcome personal slant. Gaillard covers some very important topics from the Sixties, Vietnam, Race Relations, Poverty, The Space Program, Presidential Politics, etc. He is able to break these topics down into easily digestible chapters, but more importantly, the book brings into account his personal experiences of growing up in the Sixties. His stories about Martin Luther King Jr. and Teddy Kennedy are exceptional; they add a personal dimension not shown in many history books. There is also great discussion of the music of the times. I can't reccomend this book enough, it's a real triumph.

--Steve McGowan

[Mike Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history cum-memoir of the decade that shaped and defined my generation. The 60's began with hope and optimism, partially inspired by JFK, but was ultimately marked and marred by struggle and division. I remember almost all of the events Gaillard describes, but at that age I was more of an observer than a participant - nevertheless the decade would mold my views on civil rights, individual freedom and the necessity for toleration. I also came to understand that our history as a nation was much darker than my school history books acknowledged.
So many of the issues of this tumultuous decade are still with us; indeed, the divisions which now cripple our politics have their genesis in the 60's. The politics of rage and alienation began with George Wallace - in fact, Trump is his heir- and were later exploited by Nixon and Reagan , as Ron Perlstein has so brilliantly depicted in his books. Reinforces the truth of Faulkner's famous quote about the past - it's not dead. Hell, it's not even past.
I was reminded all over again of the colossal immorality and utter folly of Vietnam, but also of the difference inspired, aspirational leadership, as personified by JFK, MLK and RFK, can make. A sad contrast with today's state of affairs.
Excellent read - especially for those of us who were there.

[Tom Anstett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Kennedy once quoted the poet Aeschylus, "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." This quotation symbolizes the incredible impact the decade of the 1960's had upon the culture of this country: a decade with "We Shall Overcome," Silent Spring, Pete Seeger, the Cuban missile Crisis, assassinations, Medgar Evers, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth, the quest for the moon, Black Panthers, Johnny Cash and the Beatles, LBJ, Vietnam, city riots, Doctor Zhivago and To Kill a Mockingbird, Helen Keller, Richard Nixon, My lai, Charles Manson and Richard Speck, and Women's Liberation - just to name a few worthy influences.
Curious? A splendid collection of research, narrative, and personal involvement by the author makes this book an important read.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frye Gaillard is a colleague from my days at the University of South Alabama and I am so glad I was reminded recently to pick it up. Although a few years younger than Frye, these times are formative in my life on so many levels and it was a wonderful intermingling of the personal and the historical throughout. My dawning consciousness gallops from the early 60s (remember only a few things in 60 and 61 directly...) to the late 60s. Was able to work with one of the heroes of the Civil Rights movement later in my journey, so great to see him quoted here. Hubby has it now and it has spurred much discussion. So this book is for everybody whether you lived through it or you didn't but want to understand its pull on our nation and our aging Boomers.

[Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In A Hard Rain, Frye Gaillard provides a comprehensive and personal summary of important events in the 1960's. Not only political and social events, but also what was happening in the arts and entertainment. Personally it reminded me of forgotten events from my formative years and provided context that I never knew. I recommend this book for anyone interested in 20th century American history. It will be especially compelling for the Boomers who lived through the 60's and people now in their 40's, so they have a sense of the events that formed their parents. Thank you, Mr. Gaillard, for your memoir of this tumultuous decade.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that reminds what I enjoy reading history, though this mixes the history with the author's personal memories of the period, which added to the reading experience.

The scope of Gaillard's work is comprehensive, but the book is presented in digestible chapters, ranging from topic to topic to provide a chronological history of the 1960s. Doing so allows him to weave together so many things - civil rights, Vietnam War, the women's movement, the multiple political assasinations, along with many cultural events, such as the music, sports, the space race, literature, and so on. It really is a terrific read and deserving of a wider audience. Highly recommend.

[Gaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve ever read. I was in high school and college in the 60’s. I was vaguely familiar with much that happened but this book covered the stories behind the happenings. It was fascinating to read. The author is an excellent writer. I think all Americans would benefit greatly from reading this book and highly recommend it.

[TS Dashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic Book

I wish I could remember who recommended this book to me, because I would like to thank them. The author does a masterful job of chronicling the most pivotal decade in our country’s history. Do yourself a favor and read this. It’s a clear picture of why America is what it is today.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent account of everything that happened in the 60s. I lived through it but was in high school and college and not paying a lot of attention at the time. This book brought it back in a lively way for me.

[Umar Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll forever be fascinated by the 1960s. This book didn't cover a lot of new ground, but nicely put things into a chronological order in a readable manner and mixed in some of Gaillard's personal history in Alabama and at Vanderbilt.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting from beginning to end.
A decade of American culture neatly capsulated and expressed with concern and hope for a better future. Sadly we are 50 years ahead now and American cities are still segregated and life is harder.
I'm interested to see what else Gaillard has written.

[Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written account of the era. If you didn't live through it, I doubt it will hold your interest.

[Morleena · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad I read this now!

[Les Dangerfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very readable survey of politics and society in the United States in the 60s.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frye Gaillard is a journalist and author of a number of books. A Hard Rain is a very readable, well-written, history of an eventful decade in history. Gaillard's work is thoroughly researched and I learned a lot about the time period by reading this book. Mr. Gaillard was a college student and began his career as a journalist during the 1960s so this book is enlivened by his first hand impressions and anecdotes. I appreciated the way the information was organized in fairly short chapters.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.7 actual

[James Harnish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! A personal account of the decade that set the direction for our present.

[Candy Wood]

In anticipation of my 50th college reunion next summer, I was happy to tackle Frye Gaillard’s very long history-memoir of the 1960s. Writing as a journalist with short chapters, apt quotations from primary sources, and personal details, Gaillard kept my interest throughout. Occasionally, 21st-century terms like “went viral” or “doubled-down” reinforce the suggestion that the past fifty years have not brought as much change as we might have hoped. The description of George Wallace’s campaign crowds sounds disturbingly familiar, though at the time I must have dismissed Wallace as a regional, third-party candidate. The 1968 campaigns of both Wallace and Richard Nixon anticipate the current climate of division, and I wonder what recent college graduates will be writing fifty years from now. Still, chapters on music (there’s a Spotify playlist that I didn’t investigate) and film brought back good memories. For those who want to check on sources, almost 40 pages of chapter-by-chapter notes in very small print do document them. Recommended.

[Steve Voiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This massive work was like time travel for me. Because the history is treated sequentially it had a deja vu quality for those of us who lived during those years. The mix—civil rights, key music, political struggles, protest, education, assassinations, high profile crimes, and the rising of many minority groups into a fuller ownership of their own roles in our national identity—the associations from each thread in the history prompted personal memories related to other disconnected treads in the readers' individual memories. Many of us readers knew some threads better than others, but we were aware that each part of the fabric was there and contributing the the tapestry of the decade. Gaillard helped me fill in gaps in my own experience and enrich my grasp of my own history. I am indebted to him for the deep and broad view he gave me of the history of my own understanding of the times of my own life.

[David Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished The Fifties by David Halberstam. Whereas, the 1950s was a time when America grew up, the 60s was a time of revolution when Americans pushed back.

I wanted to give this book 4 stars because its account of history was fantastic. However, the times when the author wrote in first person, diverging from the third person narrative, seemed out of place and distracting. Somewhat like a history book where the author wants the reader to know that he was there.

Another part of this book I did not like was the inclusion of sections from other books, speeches, and news articles, that would sometimes take up three or four pages. It wasn’t enough that the author simply references a book about a particular subject. He inserts large sections in the chapter. I ended up skimming those sections or skipping them altogether. Had these seemingly endless and rather pointless insertions been omitted, I would have easily given this book 4 stars.

[Margot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful survey of the 1960’s, colored by the author’s own lived experience. Gaillard was at the epicenter of so many events by virtue of his Vanderbilt student experience and journalism career.

As a child of the 60’s myself, I learned a lot about the people and events that made the decade so impactful.

Pro tip: Get the Hard Rain playlist on Spotify and enjoy the soundtrack of all the music he mentions.

[Wyndy KnoxCarr]

Berkeley is “too small to be a city-state, too big to be a lunatic asylum,” said Malcolm Margolin in his introduction November 8th at the David Brower Center. Founding a California Institute for Community, Art & Nature is a big project. It’s a big state, churning out big ideas, images and networks; making Big Bucks for franchise USA. But Malcolm never seems to back away from the Big Stuff. He dives in, embracing the magnitude, in fact. He’s drawn toward the Grand Movement before anybody else knows it’s a “movement,” telepathically homing in on it and then broadcasting the multiplicity, undercurrents and magic, supporting the thinkers, movers, shakers and writers around here the way Robert Bly did with International poets and poetry in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
So when he reviewed Frye Gaillard’s A Hard Rain – America In The 1960’s, he called it a “weaving together of so many strands … symphonic,” and decided to showcase Gaillard and a dozen of the Bay Area “locals” at the David Brower Center, sponsored as a Project of the Earth Island Institute. What makes Hard Rain a gift of the 60’s, particularly, is that it’s also a “mixture of personal and scholarly.” Gaillard witnessed both Joan Baez marching and singing “Kumbaya” when he was 15 as well as seeing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrested in Birmingham “just by pure happenstance,” locked gazes with him and saw there “not anger…not fear” but “a deep well of sadness in his eyes.”
That is the American story in a nutshell of the 60’s if you just add the Sir! No Sir! disillusionment with our national integrity in the Vietnam War and the upheaval on college campuses, the 1968 assassinations, Black fury, police brutality at the Democratic Convention in Chicago and eventually, questioning “what kind of nation we are.” He felt many of the personalities and movements of the time tried to deal with turning “hate and the desire for revenge,” to an effort to “replace violence with understanding, comprehension…compassion and love.”
A Mobile, Alabama-based journalist, Gaillard’s written more than 25 books, mostly non-fiction, including many covering Civil Rights, political, cultural and Indian histories and people; as well as music of his era and areas, the Civil War from a family standpoint and other memoirs. The subtitle of Hard Rain, however, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost, kind of explains what everyone was there to reflect on. We’re getting grey at our 50th anniversary of the ‘60s time, and want to make sure our memories of amazing times and hard-earned wisdom don’t fade with us, the events Gaillard called how “things kept happening that were disturbing” politically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally as well as “disturbing” the 1950s status quo.
The moderator asked six panelists at a time to each introduce themselves briefly, say what they thought were the “values and meanings of the 60’s,” and then “how to pass this on” to those living now who will go beyond us. About half the panelists stayed within those boundaries, but the others offered more reflections than proposals. Susan Griffin, Adam Hochschild and David Harris spoke of the “landscape of conscience” and “changing of terms,” how the House “Un-American” Activities Committee provoked people in San Francisco who not only protested, but were “standing up and speaking out.” The Free Speech and Civil Rights movements were in the news and inspired the Women’s Movement to examine our “habits” and “rewrite history” when they “shifted your whole consciousness,” giving us “women we had not heard of before.”
Hochschild was on the DC Mall when Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and felt the energy, persistence and pride of that crowd, as well as the huge crowd of students here who surrounded the police car in which Mario Savio had been arrested and gave speeches for 32 hours. Harris may have been Fresno High School’s “Boy of the Year,” but after seeing Civil Rights work in Mississippi he resisted the draft while at Stanford and served time in a maximum security prison.
What did they want to take forward? The sense of “enthusiasm and self-discovery” to move the tide away from a nation that was “gripped with fear.” Recognize that all these streams of resistance were all “part of the same struggle – Women’s, Civil and Voters’ Rights,” “We CAN ‘change the world’” with a “spirit of hope.”
And “Learn these things – 1. What we call evil is participatory – We are ALL responsible. 2. We are never powerless, we each control our own behavior. 3. We are never really isolated – we can watch others and figure out what to do. 4. What we get is from what we do in life, not from what we say. 5. People change if they are given the opportunity to do so. We succeed when we are open on all sides. People do “show up.” And 6. Whatever risks, punishment or price you are paying; you still need to act out of what you believe is right, good and true.”
In the second panel, as well as in what Peter Coyote and David Harris said in the first, Fredrika Newton of the Black Panthers, Arnold Perkins of Alameda Co Dept. of Public Health acknowledged “the degree of war being waged on us” (as Black people/ hippies / artists / the poor / “town v. gown” etc.) as well as the “anger, upset, hurt” and “frustrated” feelings that had to be “expressed and shared.” Perkins in particular called us to find “how to bring people together” out of that American “fierce independence” and political parties that “take people for granted,” in our “disease as a nation.”
Wes Nisker, Ana De Leon and others added that you need humor, a “little trickster, Yippee… and spiritual revolution… laughing and singing” to go with it. “We had fun!” de Leon called out, and several insisted we have to “play to the heart” to overcome the “constant traumatic syndrome” our media overload requires. Coyote chided that there were “mistakes I and my peers made” by insisting on being “counter” to the prevailing “culture” and advised that we “harness anger into skillful means.” Newton said they didn’t help their cause any by “going into church and cursing at people,” and Harris said we have to be “accessible to people you’re trying to reach,” that it’s counterproductive to be “calling police pigs…I went to high school with those guys…” We have to present ourselves to people “not ‘on our side’ or ‘against,’” but “all human beings.”
Now if that isn’t idealism, I don’t know what is, but these people, after 70 years down the road, are saying that’s what worked, and what could take us into a survivable future. We’re “rockin’ on” and “telling it like it is” into the Western sunset. One thing Malcolm did say to keep everybody on track was that “what happens in Berkeley spreads through the world.”

Gaillard, Frye, (2018) A Hard Rain – America In The 1960’s: Our Decade of Hope, Possibility and Innocence Lost, New South Books.