Social Movements research...

I'm working on ideas and scenes for a new writing project. I'm thinking about a series of short stories set in the sixties and seventies - a look at the counterculture that emerged for a brief fifteen years. I love researching this time period - many social movements arose during this era. How did these various social movements affect the longer struggle for social change? What survives today from these youth centered movements? Can social movements really produce permanent change in social culture? Just some of the things I contemplate...