How Rock And Roll Changed America

In a post-war society griped with increasing racial tension in the midst of economic and demographic boom, America was slowly finding its way to a threshold of major sociocultural revolution. The 1950s African American middle class shared similarities with those that preceded them where they sought for sociopolitical reforms from the government. Inside the stable American family, alienation of teenagers and young adults become more than just a typical inner self conflict of adolescent phase; it lead to a polarizing countercultural revolution. Out of these struggles for change, a new form of music materializes bringing an unprecedented influence on american society. The emergence and popularity of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s changed the social dynamics between the young and old generation, and it inadvertently became a uniting force for racial harmony during the Civil Rights Movement. Not one person was recognized as the inventor of rock ’n’ roll. The striking characteristic of the music was its origin; it resulted from the product of black and white effort that gained mainstream popularity …show more content…
In his book All Shook up : How Rock 'n' Roll Changed America, Glenn Altschuler reiterates one of the censorship problems that rock ’n’ roll music has faced in the 1950s white America. White supremacists in the South rejected what rock ’n’ roll symbolized, integration of the black and white races. They believed that this black culture driven music will eventually intermix with whites, and it would encourage delinquency, crime, and stain american society with barbaric immorality. The White Councils of Alabama even regarded rock music as part of a NAACP plan to “crossbreed” white and black races, and the music must be censored across the