Since becoming the US president-elect, Donald Trump has left some people worrying about their rights. He has vowed to roll back on abortion freedoms and deport millions of illegal immigrants with criminal records. He has also appointed Steve Bannon, who has been labelled a “white nationalist”, as White House chief strategist.

Many of the liberties being challenged were fought for and won in the 1960s. The women’s liberation movement, for example, battled for abortion to be made legal (it happened in the UK in 1967 and the US in 1973). In America, the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, campaigned for racial equality and against discrimination.

So how do those who stood up for these freedoms feel about Trump? We spoke to activists in the US and the UK about the 1960s and whether they believe what they battled for is now at risk. We also asked their advice on dealing with political uncertainty and standing up for what you believe in.

The interview includes Benjamin Chavis, an assistant to Martin Luther King, who fought for the civil rights movement. At 24, he was sentenced to 34 years in prison for arson, alongside nine other black men. The conviction was later overturned.

Benjamin Chavis, 68, from Washington DC: ‘I am opposed to cynicism. There’s too much of that about the election result’

I believe that there are more good-willed people in the US than there are those of ill-will Benjamin Chavis

In the 1960s I worked with Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and later I worked with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the 1960s we struggled for voting rights, civil rights and housing rights and we were successful, but our success also brought a reaction – that’s how Republican candidate Richard Nixon got elected in 1968, he ran on a law and order campaign.

So similarly, fast forward to today and President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was, in a sense, a fulfilment of Martin Luther King Jr’s dream, but after eight years it has brought a reaction. Every time you make progressive steps forward there is a reaction so I am not disillusioned by recent events. I understand the counterbalance of history, not just in the US but also in the UK. President-elect Donald Trump has both now an opportunity and a responsibility to lead America forward, rather than backwards. I believe that there are more good-willed people in the US than there are those of ill-will, it’s the same in Britain and Europe. But the problem is that people of good-will have to exercise their participation in civic engagement. We had a low voter turnout in US this year and when that happens it opens the door for a reaction rather than a more progressive move forward. As I said, I am concerned but not disillusioned because I believe the forces of history will always move towards justice, equality and freedom. Freedom, as we say in the movement, is a constant struggle. If you want freedom you have to always stand up for it and push for it, you cannot just relax.

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King with his wife, Coretta Scott King, and colleagues during a civil rights march. Photograph: William Lovelace/Getty Images

The 1960s were a period of social transformation but to make changes you also need to transform the consciousness of people and that’s what we have to work at now. I hate cynicism and there’s too much of that about the election result. We have to deal with what happened from a much more optimistic perspective. In the 1960s, when we sang, “We shall overcome”, we were not overcoming but we sang it because that was our hope and desire. We must continue to do that, to show we are overcoming injustice, and setbacks. There will always be setbacks and struggle. The question is whether we are willing to overcome.

Hildy Johnson, 65, from Virginia: ‘The next four years are a time to hunker down and organise’

I grew up in Arlington County, Virginia, about a mile from Washington DC. I went to state-funded schools, mainly populated by white students. There was a lot of racism at the time in Virginia and the south as a whole, but where I lived was more diverse and accepting, although it was felt that black people should stay in their communities.

My own views changed based on two things: the 1968 George Wallace candidacy (he was a national spokesman for resistance to racial change) and the assassination of Martin Luther King that same year. The strength of Wallace’s support and the riots in Washington DC and other cities brought the grievances of black people to the forefront, at least for me. Still, my cause was the anti-[Vietnam] war movement.

Segregationist politician George Wallace addresses a 1976 rally in California. In 1968, he attracted 13.5% of the vote and won five southern states. Photograph: George Rose/Getty Images

To my mind, over the years, all the movements (including women’s rights and civil rights) gradually effected changes in policies but didn’t effect a change in the mindset of many of the Americans who had supported those policies. In 1968 13.5% of Americans voted for Wallace and I assume that all of them were, to some degree, racist. I would not be at all surprised to find that 13.5% of Americans are still racist (and that they all voted for Trump). While women have gained rights, there is still a large group of men who are more comfortable with men in charge and issues such as access to abortions still create major sexist voting blocs (also for Trump).

I believe that most actual rights that I fought for in the 1960s are safe Hildy Johnson

I believe that most actual rights that I fought for in the 1960s are safe, but regulations will be sent back to the states who will use them to curtail abortions and push down black turnout. Immigrants who are here illegally will be deported by the millions until employers make a stink. A ban on Muslim immigrants wouldn’t pass even a Trump supreme court. Police presence in cities will climb and police shootings will continue but it’s not like police officers are currently being convicted for killing unarmed suspects. The next four years are a time to hunker down and organise. Protests will only serve to energise the “alt right” and give Trump someone to blame for his policy failures.

Manek Dubash, 62, from Lewes, East Sussex: ‘Back in the 1960s and 1970s there was less inequality and people were happier’

I was 16 in 1970 and, as a young socialist, I was involved in the youth wing of the Labour party. I was mainly involved in the trade union movement: I helped to get the policy of gay rights equality on to the trade union policy book in 1977. I also campaigned to improve women’s rights and fight for equal pay. There was a huge amount of optimism back then. We felt like we were moving the agenda forward and changing the world, but of course all that was trashed when Margaret Thatcher came to power. She dismantled workers’ rights and, since then, successive governments have taken it apart further.

If my younger self could see the world now, he would ask:, was all that effort worth it? Manek Dubash

Most of my life has been spent under regimes that are officially Tory or nominally Tory. But when we started getting political we hoped this wouldn’t be the case, we wanted progress. There has been progress in some areas, it’s not all doom and gloom: there’s less war and we’ve tackled major diseases. However, the way we treat one another in public life and the relationship between state and citizen has got markedly worse. Union rights have gone backwards and there’s been huge growth in inequality Back in the 1960s and 1970s there was less inequality and people were happier as a result. There was a feeling we were all going in the same direction and part of a big enterprise. If my younger self could see the world now, he would ask, was all that effort worth it? I would like to see the young fight now like we did; they are, after all, the ones affected by all the decisions made today. People need to get out there and protest, it’s not just about voting.

Sara Fitzgerald, 61, from Yorkshire: ‘Everything we fought for seems to be being dismantled’

In the late 1960s I was passionately interested in leftwing ideas and politics, even though I was very young. I went on the big anti-Vietnam war demos and I was a somewhat naive member of the Young Communist League. In the 1970s I was into feminism and Rock Against Racism. I’ve always been firmly on the left, that hasn’t changed at all.

I’m utterly horrified, terrified and appalled by the world’s lurch to the right. The latent racism and xenophobia that’s emerged and been whipped into a frenzy by the rightwing media is disgusting, highly dangerous and destabilising. Any hopes and beliefs I had that we were making slow and painful progress towards a better working model of human community and progress are in tatters. I don’t fully understand why it’s happening and I feel powerless to change it. Working on that, fear is stultifying and must be overcome. If the left doesn’t start fighting back it could get unspeakably ugly.

Stephan Marsh, 67 from London: ‘I wish you younger people had made your voices heard more’

When there was the big anti-Vietnam war demo in 1968 I went to the rally in Trafalgar Square but I didn’t join the march on the US embassy. Later I heard that it ended in serious violence and people being arrested, and I was glad I hadn’t gone because I was then, and still am, a pacifist.

Anti-Vietnam war demonstrators run past Downing Street, 27 October 1968. Photograph: David Newell Smith/taken from Newsroom

The biggest issues we were fighting for were women’s rights, an anti-war movement and civil rights. Black Americans had been fighting for their civil rights ever since the days of Abraham Lincoln and the civil war and still those rights were being denied them. In Britain immigration from the Caribbean and later from India and Pakistan and Africa had been met with fear and prejudice among the indigenous white working class whose homes and jobs they were seen as taking. Britain now needed to ensure the civil rights of black British people. This did become something of a generational conflict, as the older generation who had struggled through the 1930s depression and then had to fight for their country in the second world war had a sense of entitlement to the homes, jobs and security they had fought for and resented having to share them, or sometimes even lose them to foreign newcomers.



I don’t think the rights my generation fought for are being dismantled, at least not so far. They have actually become orthodoxies. However, I think Brexiteers and Trumpery are the manifestations of a rebellion by the new alienated and dispossessed. I wish you younger people had made your voices heard more. After all, you are the ones who have inherited the mess my generation have evidently made, so who are we to start advising you?

Sue McGovern, 62, from Massachusetts: ‘I believe humanity will prevail’

When I was in high school in a comfortable Boston suburb, I was a member of the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth group to the Socialist Workers party. Mostly my work focused on women’s rights and ending the Vietnam war. I did “paste ups” at night (affixing leaflets to telephone poles, the precursor to today’s internet). One of my first paid jobs was at the Boston Women’s Abortion Action Alliance. I remember the power of mass movements – the thunder of protest voices marching down New York City avenues, the feel of the nubby grass underfoot as you ran from one part of the demonstration in DC to another. I remember folk music being baked into our lives. Saying, “Right on!” a lot. Blue jeans were political, so was hair.

Sue McGovern and her daughter.

Because we are in an urgent situation with the planet, I am very worried about saving our environment – that needs to come first. Especially because I have a daughter, I worry about women’s rights to control our own bodies. Because of the “alt right’s” views towards people who are not white, I also worry about fascism and history repeating itself. I worry about the economy. The overwhelming majority of us no longer know the basics: how to use the soil to create food, how to care for others when they are sick. And I worry that the old order’s need to survive will lead us into war. But I have a powerful belief that when you have lost everything that is when the beginning comes. And we will have a new beginning, we will learn from one another. Humanity will prevail.