2025. Officially one quarter of the way through the 21st Century. And half way through the Roaring 20s. Well, the SECOND Roaring 20s, anyway.
Mid-Decade years are always interesting, they're that hump we cross over knowing that soon we'll be picking up a great head of steam rolling on towards the end of these ten year cycles.
They are usually transitional years, but not in very obvious ways. It's the end years, or the early years, of the decades that get all the glory. 1939. 1977. 1999. 2001. But, I would argue, it the mid-decade years where all the good views come into focus. Thinking on that theme, this week we will be going through the mid-decade years of the 2nd half of the 20th Century, starting with the landmark year of 1955.
1955 was a transformative year, laying groundwork for major societal changes, technological breakthroughs, and cultural shifts that would shape the second half of the 20th century. On the world stage, we saw the Cold War dominate geopolitics with The Warsaw Pact forming a mutual defense alliance among the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries to counter NATO. The Soviet Union also launched Luna 2, the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, signaling a heating up of not only the Cold War, but ramping up the space race as well.
Here in the States, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1. This act of defiance led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a pivotal moment in the fight against racial segregation. The Civil Rights Movement would begin to rise to the forefront of the nations conscientiousness when Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was brutally murdered in Mississippi in August.
In pop culture, 1955 was owned by Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe's iconic white dress from The Seven Year Itch.
It wasn't the exact startling line for Rock and Roll, but it's on it's first lap around the track. It wasn't the peak of the Cold War, but it was putting all the pieces in place. It wasn't the height of the Civil Rights movement, but it was laying the groundwork for everything that would be coming to light in the next few years.
Sure, I could post Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, but it's still a Monday, and I'm feeling more like I owe my soul to the company store than I am about rocking around that clock.
And, as always, I'd love to be brought a dream. Wouldn't that be swell?
Here's to 1955.
