E-Communication Case

Elvis Presley and the rise of rock and roll in the 1950's

Nearly everyone knows that Elvis Presley was a famous singer, but many people don't fully understand what he contributed to popular music. Presley combined different types of music to form a style called "rockability", which became one of the key sounds in rock 'n' roll (Elvis Presley, 1996).

The combination of musical genres and sounds into a new style of music was Elvis's true gift and his contribution to popular culture. That this integration of musical styles took place just prior to the civil rights movement and prefiguring social integration which made this moment in pop culture history seem momentous.

Although Elvis wasn't the first to sing rock 'n' roll, so he can't be considered to be the one who invented it. His version of this new form of music became extremely popular in the mid-1950s. He spread rock 'n' roll music across the country, making it popular to a wide audience, especially teenagers. In that regard, he was a true innovator.

Presley had a strong influence on the youth culture in the 1950s. Teenagers began to distance themselves from their parent's generation started to think of them as being old-fashioned. Due to the economic prosperity during that time, people enjoyed having disposable incomes that allowed them to spend more on themselves with less worry about family survival.

Presley's impact on the American youth consumer market was noted on the front page of The Wall Street Journal in 1956 stating that "Elvis Presley today is a business" (Elvis Collector Info, 2012). Prior to his strides in genre of rock 'n' roll, people never considered targeting youth as potential and possibly lifelong customers. Elvis Presley's phenomenal success in the 1950s convinced many of the financial opportunities that exist in the youth market.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s

During the 1950s and 1960s, African American embarked on a campaign to protest the racist policies imposed on them by the lawmakers and law enforcers of the United States. It was because of the "separate but equal' doctrine established during this time that allowed the segregation of "white" and "colored", which spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement.

African-Americans were not afforded the best education during this period and in 1954 the Brown vs. the Board of Education declared that separate schools for students, of either race, was unconstitutional; this decision mandated public schools to take immediate steps to desegregate schools. On the September 4th, 1957, in Little Rock, Arkansas, the governor prevented nine African-American students from enrolling in the Little Rock High School. Three weeks later, by order of President Dwight Eisenhower,