Forty years after they ended, the 1960s remain the most controversial decade of the 20th century. Either you believe that they destroyed America, or they cured it.

Put me down as a fervent believer in their success as a cure.

Before 1960, only undivorced white Protestant men had ever served in the White House. Almost 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans lived in segregated communities and attended segregated schools on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and none attended the all-white state universities of the South.

Gay people were completely invisible, except when they were fired from the federal government (or any company doing business with the federal government, where they were also banned from employment.)...