The way Hunter Thompson and other analysts framed it is that during the '60s there was a flawed and fragmented but still somewhat effective mass movement towards transforming society (world-wide, not just in the US). But it got about as far as it could by '68 and a combination of repression, political assassinations, co-option, and infighting began to roll it back. The '70s in part reflected the baby boomer's discouragement when the movement missed its mark. Hard core activists kept at it but the majority who were along for the ride shifted away from wanting to change the world and focused more on making money and having a good time.
Mostly what I remember is getting together with my friends every Saturday afternoon (except in winter) to play tackle football (without equipment) then getting together that night to smoke weed and watch SNL, which in the '70s was a pretty radical departure for mass media culture and a big eye opener for us. As in every era, including this one, there was some amazing music and some very unfortunate music (see Molly Hatchet). I didn't discover punk and hip hop until about 1982 when I went away to college, but the Sex Pistols released "God Save the Queen" in 1977 and by the same time MCing/DJing/rapping was a huge urban movement that was about to break out of containment and be exposed to a wide audience.
2Pac you asked about racism and I think there was less certainty in the '70s that it could be defeated than there is now. It was before the fall of apartheid in South Africa or before people dared to believe a black man could be president of the US. When I saw your post I "remembered" the '70s as the advent of busing to desegregate the Chicago schools, except when I looked it up I found out that didn't happen until the '80s! Daley had to die before the feds had enough muscle to make the school district comply. What I do remember is being stunned when I turned on the 6:00 news ('81?) and saw white parents lined up behind barricades screaming vicious slurs at black kids who were bused-in to those schools. That was when I learned the South really had nothing on the North in the racism department. (Before anyone starts an argument I am not endorsing busing as a good solution for improving under-funded innercity schools). By the way one of my babysitters when I was a kid was the daughter of Milton Shadur, the federal judge who was instrumental in some of those desegregation decisions.
