The 1950s were not the halcyon time depicted on TV shows

Mike Morgan argued in his Dec. 20 letter that America should return to 1950s values (“Reflecting on America in the ’50s”).

As I read it, I wondered how the family of Emmett Till might regard these “values.” Till was the 14-year-old African-American boy beaten to death in 1955 in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. His murderers never faced justice.

I wondered how farmworkers from the 1950s might view these “values.” Compelled to harvest crops with the short-handled hoe (slightly more than a foot in length), they could barely stand up after a day’s work, were sprayed with pesticides and had no clean drinking water.

I wondered how rape victims might view these values. No shelters or sympathetic female police detectives to help them through nightmarish ordeals — and they faced a judicial system that put them on trial, rather than their attackers.

As for abused children, no teachers or other authority figures could intervene. Such issues were deemed family matters.

From a distance of 60 years, the 1950s might seem an uncomplicated time, when TV depicted family life accompanied by laugh tracks. For some, this halcyon image may have reflected real life. For many others, it was no laughing matter.

This story was originally published December 25, 2016 at 6:03 PM with the headline "The 1950s were not the halcyon time depicted on TV shows."