History Is Lunch: Robert McElvaine, “How 1964 Still Shapes Us”

On February 15, 2023, Robert McElvaine presented “How 1964 Still Shapes Us” as part of the History Is Lunch series.
The same month Bob Dylan released “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty. Spurred by the civil rights movement and a generation pushing for change, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act were passed in succession.
“If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964-or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965-was the time when the sixties truly arrived,” said McElvaine, whose new book is The Times They Were a-Changin': 1964, the Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn. “It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of ‘American,’ with a greater degree of equality and a government actively involved in social and economic improvement.”
Author W. Ralph Eubanks wrote “The Times They Were A-Changin’ is a rich and revealing work of narrative history that takes a close look at pivotal cultural, political, and social movements that continue to have an impact today. Robert McElvaine carefully weaves together historic events and popular culture to tell a story not only about the beginning of ‘the sixties' but also the way that 1964 disrupted the strict conformity of the 1950s. This is a book not so much about the way we lived then as it is one that explains a great deal about the way we live now.”
Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts and Letters and professor of history at Millsaps College. He is the author of eight books and the editor of three. McElvaine’s The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 has been called “the best one-volume overview of the Great Depression” and has sold more than 100,000 copies, and two of his books have been included in the Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. He is a contributing writer at Salon, and his articles and opinion pieces appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. McElvaine received the 2010 Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence and has served as historical consultant for several television programs, including the PBS series The Great Depression.
History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson and livestreamed on KZbin and Facebook.