A Brighter Tomorrow: My Journey with Julie

Talks about what growing up in the 1970s would have been like. Topics include:

• Many people were like the basketball coach at Julie’s school: they viewed athletics as an activity for boys and men only
  • Girls were expected to sit on the sidelines and cheer
  • Some schools wouldn’t even have a gym class for girls
• But people’s attitudes about sports were beginning to change
  • When a male tennis pro, Bobby Riggs, bragged that he could beat any woman on the tennis court, a female pro named Billie Jean King, accepted his challenge
  • Billie Jean King knew that if she lost, it would confirm what a lot of other people thought, so she prepared hard for the match and creamed Bobby Riggs in three straight sets—this became known as the “Battle of the Sexes”
• A woman in Congress, Edith Green, wanted to make sure girls would have the same opportunities boys had at school, and that included in athletics
  • Congress passed a law known as the Education Amendments of 1972, which included forbidding sex discrimination at schools that receive money from the federal government
  • This became known as Title Nine
• The environment was also starting to gain new awareness in the 1970s
  • Americans started to understand that nature needed protection from human activity
  • In 1972, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act
  • California sea otters were nearing extinction in 1977 when they were listed as a threatened under the Endangered Species Act
  • But through the efforts of conservationists and wildlife biologists, the California sea otter is making a comeback
• The 1960s and ’70s are famous for social activism
  • When people looked around and saw problems in the world, they got themselves and others involved
  • They marched into the streets and lobbied Congress to pass more laws
  • They wanted to make America a better, safer, fairer place for all people and all living things