8 The limits of change: The 1970s
By the 1970s an era of change had reached its limits. The Vietnam War had divided and exhausted the nation. The Civil Rights Movement and the women’s movement had achieved their early goals, and their remaining challenges were more complex and received less unified support. State and national politics began to reflect divisions that had grown in the 1960s. The Republican Party, appealing to conservatives, became a force in North Carolina for the first time since the nineteenth century. In this chapter we’ll explore the politics of the early 1970s and the lingering battles for, and against, change.