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AUTHOR Bunch, Lonnie; Smith, Michelle Knovic TITLE Protest & Patriotism. A History of Dissent and Reform. INSTITUTION National Museum of American History, Washington, DC.; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. PUB DATE [92] NOTE 41p. AVAILABLE FROM Smithsonian Institution, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, A & I 1163, Washington, DC 20277-2915. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Teaching Guides (For Teacher) (052)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Activism; Change Agents; Change Strategies; Civil Rights; *Controversial Issues (Course Content); Demonstrations (Civil); *Dissent; *Patriotism; Secondary Education; *Social Action; *Social Change; *Social History; Social Influences; Social Problems; Teaching Guides IDENTIFIERS Environmental Movement; Populism

ABSTRACT Written to emphasize the historical importance and continuing relevance of protest and reform in the United States, this teacher's guide offers new perspectives and approaches to the study and discussion of the populist, civil rights, ar.d environmental movements in history and to protest in general. A timeline poster presents an overview of U.S. political protest from the early 19th century to the present. Following teaching suggestions and an intrnduction, each case study of the three movements contains a timeline of key events, a primary source of an individual's experience, an essay on the movement, a bibliography of works in the area, and questions for students to consider. The case studies focus on the stories of the three protest movements and emphasize the following: (1) the origin of or catalyst for change; (2) the people who created or joined the movement; (3) the tactics developed or used to effect change; (4) the responses of government and other institutions to the movement for change; (5) the short and long term achievements of the movement; and (6) the importance of protest and dissent to the U.S. political system. (CK)

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Lonnie Bunch Michelle Xnovic Smith Division of Political History Office of Elementary and Secondary Education National Museum of American History

Ann B:ty Director Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Cynthia Williams Division of Political History National Museum of American History Kim Butler Consultant to Division of Political History Eleanor Greene Falls Church High School Falls Church, Virginia Douglas Bell Photographic research Herbert Webber Huxley College of Environmental Studies

brother Developed and produced by the Office of Elementary and This publication has been made possible by a generous Secondary Education, Smithsonian Institution, in grant from Brother International Corporation, wnrldwide collaboration with the Division of Political History, National sponsor of the 1992 Olympic Games. Museum of Amencan History. 4 TEACHER'S GUIDE

Protest & Patriotism has been written to emphasize the historical importance and continuing relevance of protest and reform in American life. It offers teachers and students new perspectives and approaches to the study and discussion of three specific protest movements in history and to protest in general. The guide is made up of this teacher's guide, an introduction, a timeline poster, and three case studies. Each Lase study has a Tirneline, a Personal Account (usually a primary source), an Essay on the subject, Bibliography, and Questions to Consider. The introduction offers an overview of the subject of political protest and identifies the main themes and ideas presented in the case studies. These themes are emphasized in the Teaching Suggestions. The case studies tell the stories of three protest movements emphasizing the followin

the origin of or catalyst for change: defining problems, issues, and precipitating events

the people who created and joined the movements: leaders, followers, organizations; the emergence of moderate and radical positions; and class, regional, and racial alliances

tactics developed or used to effect change

the responses of government and other institutions to the movement for change; resistance and acceptance

achievements of the movement, both short- and long-term

the importance of protest and dissent to the American political system

The timeline poster presents an overview of American political protest from the early nineteenth century to the present. The timeline in each case study presents a more detailed description of key events of each movement.

* * * Teaching Suggestions 1. Make copies of the three case studies. Organize 4. Who did the protesters see as the people students into groups and assign each group an or institution they had to petition or persuade es , .o read for homework. Ask students to come to change? to Ass prepared to discuss the following 5. Who or what institution opposed change? questions: Why? 1. What was the problem or issue that started 6. What tactics did the protesters use? the discontent ti:at led to protest? What heiped the movement? What hindered the movement? 2. When and where did the protest start? 7. Were the protesters a cohesive group or 3. Who were the protest leaders? What was split into factions? their social status? Were they urban or rural? poor, middle-class, or affluent? What parts of 8. What did the protesters achieve? the country did they live in? What were they unable to accomplish?

2 5 TEACHER'S GUIDE

Populism Civil Rights Environmentalism

Origin or catalyst .

Protesters

Tactics

Achievements

2. In class, assemble the groups to prepare 5. Using the timeline poster as a reference, have answers to the questions. Have a class students find several newspaper accounts of the discussion of the responses. Using the blackboard, same historical event. Using only these accounts, write responses in the categories listed above, or try to tell the story of what happened. Start with add more. the same approach used in (2) above (and explained more fully in the Introduction): what Ask, if these movements are typical of American precipitated the protest, who was involved, what protest movements, what seems to be necessary tactics did they use, what was the outcome? for success? What causes failure? What happens Compare and contrast the same event told by to failed issues? Do they emerge in other forms? different newspapers and try to account for the differences. What kind of information is reliably 3. Examine the timeline poster with the class. reported in the newspapers? What kind of Ask for observations and comments on what the information is unreliable or is left out of students see. Analyze the photographs to discern newspaper accounts? how protest and opposition are depicted. Are there categories, themes, or recurring issues in 6. Use newspapers to explore current issues of American political protest? protest and dissent. Compare and contrast the issues and tactics with those of other protest 4. Have students read the personal accounts that movements. Try to predict outcomes if these open each section (-Letter from a Farm Wife," movements follow the patterns of protest already "Memoirs of the Movement," "Environmental discussed. Dar .iers Come Home"). What does a personal account tell about history that secondary materials 7. Have students comment or write on the like essays do not? What are the limitations of importance of protest in American political life personal accounts of history? What other sources or in their own lives. Or, have them compare their of information does a historian use? point of view on protest or a specific issue with Many people in your school and community that of their parents or another adult. * may have participated i1i the civil rights and environmental movements. Have students interview people for information about these movements, first rehearsing with you or in pairs or small groups. Have students tape record or write essays based on their interviews to share in class. Based on their own experience, what do the students think are the strengths and limitations of information obtained in interviews?

3 * * * INTRODUCTION

rom the eighteenth-century perfectibility of this republic. F Sons of Liberty to the America has always been twentieth-century Black Panther viewed as a land of Party, from Elizabeth Cady opportunity and possibility, a Stanton to Gloria Steinem, from place where you are limited the Populists to the American not by class, race, or place of agriculture movement, and from birth but only by your own the protestations about the War exertions. While this assertion with Mexico to the youth- has always been open to inspired struggles against the debate, it is clear that many Vietnam War, political and see the American experience social protestthe struggle to as freer, more open, and effect profound or fundamental "better" than that of any other institutional changehas been a nation on earth. Thus one may constant in American life. While tinker with but not remake the many traditionally view protest American system. Finally, and dissent as threats to the revolutionary sentiment has American political system been curtailed by this nation's (remember phrases such as, * * * history of reform, however "Americalove it or leave it"), limited. This reform impulse many of the changes that were Every Reform was once has led to the abolition of wrought by these movements a private thought. slavery, the extension of the have altered America for the Ralph Waldo Emerson vote to women, regulation of better. In many ways, protest food and health concerns, the should be revered rather than Agitate, Agitate, Agitate. enactment of child labor laws, feared. Struggling to improve legal protection of the environ- Frederick Douglass America by protesting and re- ment, and the end of the war forming its flaws is often an in Vietnam, just to mention a Good men must not act of conscience and love. In few. This tradition of change, this light, protest should be seen obey the laws too well. which was achieved through as the highest form of patriotism. Ralph Waldo Emerson protest and struggle, has Even the framers of the served to limit more funda- Constitution recognized the mental restructuring of importance of protest as an American beliefs and insti- essential element of patriotism tutions. Protest has stimulated and effective government. In the Declaration of change that ultimately has helped to preserve the Independence, Thomas Jefferson warned that nation by creating the perception that our when government no longer meets the needs government is responsive to the needs of its of the people, "it is the right of the people to citizens. alter or abolish it, and to institute new govern- This booklet focuses on three historical case ment." Protest, in an American context, often studies, the Populistswl- )5truggled for agri- stimulates limited change or reform. Rarely cultural equity and political influence in the late does revolutionary fervor grow significantly to nineteenth century; the civil rights movementa restructure radically or destroy the American changing array of individuals and organizations system. that battled for racial equality and human dignity This limited nature of reform is due to several in the post-World War II era; and the environ- factors. First, is the inherent flexibility that is mental movementa coalition initially inspired built into the American political system. There by the youth movement of the 1960s that has are mechanisms, from the advent of universal broad-based support in its contemporary clashes suffrage to the process of amending the to protect the resources of this planet. These case Constitution, that allow citizens to feel that the studies seek to illuminate the historical impor- system can often be responsive to their needs tance and continuing relevance of protest and and concerns. Governments that react to reform in American life as well as illustrate the concerted public pressure are often alte J but variety of reform impulses and experiences. rarely abolished. Another factor is the pervasive These three rather different examples of belief that most citizens have in both the special protest and reform were chosen because each nature of American life and in the ultimate provides a different perspective on areas such as

5 7 INTRODUCTION

Composition the origin or catalyst of reform, the composition of dorm movements are usually composed of the movement, the tactics used to effect change, R like-thinking individuals or organizations that and the parameters of success or failure of reform agree on certain limited goals or who recognize and protest in nineteenth- and twentieth-century the need to develop coalitions with groups of America. similar interest. Traditionally, successful reform movements are peopled and led by members of Origins or Catalysts of Reform the middle class, as is the case, for example, in the egardless of whether, as Emerson suggests, environmental movement. Middle-class comp- R"every reform was once a private thought" or osition usually ensures that the reform is limited developed out of a collaborative effort, the origins and moderate because this class of citizens has or catalysts for such a concerted effort for change much to benefit from and to protect within the vary greatly. Some reform efforts. like the Pcpulist current system. Also, middle-class reformers movement, are shaped by long-standing economic usually have both access to capital that funds the factors that are then aggravated through an occa- activities of the organization and connections sion such as the depression of 1893. Other re- within the system that help their cause. Because forms are molded by extreme poverty or blatant middle-class reformers are usually perceived as injustice and are motivated into action by a mar- moderate by those outside of the reform, it is riage of climactic incident with r ffective leader- easier for this group to develop allies and sup- ship such as occurred during the Montgomery bus porters. Usually, lower-class-initiated movements boycott of 1955, where a black woman, Rosa have been less successful in American Parks, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat reform. An exception was the for a white passenger on a segregated bus. Parks's civil rights movement. The decision spurred the African American commu- lower-class and racial nity to action and encouraged Martin Luther King, composition of this Jr., to take a leading role in the civil rights move- reform initially ment. Still other reform efforts, like the environ- generated mental movement, were initiated by events or little issues that reflect concerns that are more universal in nature and transcend the influences of a single group. Despite different origins, all manner of reform usually shares a perception that 't the wrong or the injustice reflects a flaw in the system and not just the shortcomings of an individual or group, and that the forces that created this problem can be confronted aill.MMIMMAMili amok rm.

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BEST DM MOM * * INTRODUCTION support outside of radicals, youths, and the like the environmental movement and the "right- African American community. Ultimately, to-life" movement. however, the dignity and restraint of the movement members and their effective use of The Limits of Successful Reform the media helped to make this reform more ffihere have been reforms in this nation that acceptable to most Americans. I were successful because of charismatic leadership. There have reforms that accom- Tactics of Reform Movements plished much due to a fortuitous set of circum- Tntil the advent of the civil rights movement, stances. However, most successful reform in most reformers of successful movements used America can be attributed to the limited nature of methods of protest that were well within the its programs. The cornerstone of this success was accepted bounds of the American political and concrete goalslike the environmental move- social system. Protest groups used moderate ment's plan that called for clean air legislation but tactics such as petitions, legal options, lobbying, that did not attempt to reform society or restruc- and other means of acceptable legislative pressure. ture the American political or economic system. When the Populists crafted organizations such as While utopian reforms such as the Oneida the Farmers Alliance or created a political party Community in nineteenth-century New York had they crossed the bounds of acceptable protest its adherents, its goals of a new social order were hence, their practical and concrete Euccesses were deemed too radical and were ultimately unsup- limited. The civil rights movement broadened the ported by most Americans. Successful reform, mechanisms and tactics of reform by relying on a whether in the economic, social, or political mixture of traditional means such as seeking legal sphere, is often measured and contained. While redress in the courts with the extralegal measures such reform ofttimes prevents more compre- of nonviolent direct action. This nonviolent direct hensive or radical innovation, it slowly helps the action, bathed both in black Christian traditions system adapt to the ever-changing American and the passive resistance philosophy of Gandhi, populace and respond to the often conflicting included the use of boycotts, marches, and direct demands of its citizens. confrontations that would "fill all the jails." All The American political system benefits from these actions were geared to tapping the reservoir the activities of reformers such as Frederick of inherent fairness and decency in the nation so Douglass whose cry of "agitate, agitate, agitate" that it would be moved "to fight the good fight." still echoes through the nation. This system, this In addition, these extralegal activities were crafted government, has aged well because it is not to help the movement make its case through the immune to change. Thomas Jefferson once wrote court of television and print media; this ensured that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." So the movement that millions of Americans would too is the willingness to work for and to tolerate confront the outrages in the South each evening change. America's greatest strength lies not in the over dinner. Ultimately these tactics of direct changes wrought by protest and reform but in its action were adopted by a wide array of citizens' willingness to protect and cherish the reformers with vastly different nght to protesta right that Americans have used political and social with regulanty throughout the nation's history. A agendas, nght, if nurtured and embraced, that will continue to serve us all in the future *

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BUT COPY AVRABLE : Union Labor Greenback Party of- Greenback Party Union Labor Party, Patrons of II Eleven states in the Grange membership CO replaces the Grange elects fourteen seen RS SUCCeSSOr to E, nominee for Husbandry, ..,4CO Middle West have C4' declines following g. (X): congressmen. Greenback movement, president gets on4 .....4 : popularly known as -III. farmers political Ch bankruptcies of as voice of fatmers. is founded. Agenda I percent of the Grange. ls parties (Granger business ventures, includes currency nationwide votl : founded as a : parties) They elect controversial inflation to remedy farmers secret lodge stale officials, enact pohtical activities. debt, government focusing on social laws regulating ownership of utilities, . and educational ' businesses graduated income tax, activities direct election of U S senators, women's suffrage, and equal pay for equal work.

Personal Accounts The Crop Lien Letter from a Farm Wife (transcription) Thefarmer, his eyes downcast, and his hat Mendota, Kans June 29 1894 sometimes literally in his hand, approached the merchant with a fist of his needs. The man behinel Dear Governor the counter consulted a ledger; and after a mumbled I take my Pen In hand to let you know that we are excliange, moved to his shelves to select the goods Starving to death. It is Pretty hard to do without that would satisfy at least a part of his customer's any thing to Eat hear in this God for sahen wants. Rarely did the farmer receive the range of countr y(.! [Me would of had Pleaty to Eat items or even the quantity of one item he had if the hail hadent cut our ryc down and ruined our requested. No money changed hands; the merchant corn and Potatoest] I had the Prettiest Garden merely made brief notations in his ledger Two that you Ever seen and the hail ruined It and I weeks or a month later; the farmer would return, have nothing to look cut] My Husband went a way the consultation would recur; the mumbled exchange to find worh and came home last night and told me and the careful selection of goods would ensue, and that we would have to Starve [.) He has bin in ten new additions would be noted in the ledger From countys and did not Get no world; It is Pretty hard early spring to late fall the ritual would be enacted for a woman to do with out any thing to Eat when until, at "settlin'-up" time, thefarmer and the She doesent no what minute She will be ,:onfined to merchant would meet at the local cotton gin, where beelf.] If I was In Iowa I would be all righttl I was the fruits of a year's toil would be ginned, bagged, born there and raised there I havent had nothing tied, weighed, and sold. At that moment, the to Eat to day and It is three o clockt) farmer would learn what his cotton had brought. The merchant, who had possessed title to the crop well I will close rite Soon even before the farmer had planted it, then From Mrs. Susan Orcutt consulted his ledger for a final time. The accumulated debt for the year; he informed the A letter to Kansas Governor Lewelling farmer, exceeded the income received from the Kansas State Historical Society cotton crop. The farmer had failed in his effort to "pay out"he still owed the merchant a remaining balance for the supplies 'furnished" on credit during the year The "furnishing merchant" would then announce his intention to cany thefarmer through the winter on a new account, the latter merely having to sign a note mortgaging to the merchant the next year's crop. The lien signed, the farmer; empty-handed, climbed in his wagon and drove home, knowing thatfor the second orfifth or fifteenth year he had not paid out.

(Goodwyn, 21-25) 11

10 Farmers Alliance ^^' Farmers raise P... Sponsored by State '''''' National People's I' Economic Democrats persuade Populist presidential OD Ohrze organizations. sc bum* crops, hut CS, Alhaixes People's CO Party is formed and depression occurs Populists to si.,.port §candidate Tom one ui North alld .... prices tor Clilti parties emerge in h.+ nominates laes44tri t...J Currency issues William Jennings Watson Melves less tsso itl sown, lor agricultural Kansas 'Nebraska Weaver for president dominate national Bryan for president i'lan 1 p .ent 01 whites and blacks I. products are half of the Dakotas. Platform demands debates Republican vote. similar to the whit they had been Minnesota. government activism, McKinley wins ;range, rises in in 1865 Colorado. Michigan. greater popular panic. election, signaling agncultural areas and Indiana. ipatton in government dominance of decision making, and urban, ir ustnal direct elecuon al interests president, vice pres ident, and senators Weaver wins 9 i percent of vote.

Norton County Kansas, residence. This dugout dwelling was not what people pictured when they imagmed the peaceful, rural world of the farm family.

Kansas State Htstoncal Society

Farmers as an Emerging Force ffihe agrarian movement that began after the power of organized activityfirst in educational Civil War and culminated in the Populist and social organizations, then in cooperatives, and Party did not become powerful enough to capture finally in a political party. the presidency or set national policy. The farmers' major problems stemmed from Nevertheless, it did gain enough strength to win their dependence on credit and a decline in crop many local elections, participate in the public revenues that resulted from overproduction. debate, become a major third party, and influence Farmers had free or cheap land, but they had to the presidential elections of 1892 and 1896. take loans to plant crops and buy necessities until While these farmers reaped limited direct benefits the harvest and sale of their crop. Prices declined ; from their protests, their actions influen,ed and in the twenty-five years after the war because stimulated political change that ultimately led, in more land was being farmed and because of part, to more active and responsive federal and technological advances in machinery and state governments. These were remarkable fertilizer. Supply exceeded demand. Bigger crops achievements for a movement comprised of each year ironically brought lower prices; the farmersand predominantly the poorest of lower prices farmers received for their crops made farmers. Reeling from the problems caused by the it impossible to pay off their loans. Some were country's rapid growth, increased farm locked into the crop-lien system, which made productivity, and unregulated monetary and their situation worsen, not improve, with every credit systems, farmers fought back with the crop. These severe problems were added to the 12 11 THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

farmers' traditional dependence on the weather ., and the hardships and isolation of farm life. Struggling farmers had few options. Some farmers sought limited relief by moving west, mostly to Texas, lured by the vision of open lands ; and fresh opportunity. But African American farmers who tried to escape debt lived under the coercive threat of white terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. For many, conditions were little better than slavery. The dream of fresh starts in new farmlands did not solve the farmers' problems. Farmers quickly discovered that without sufficient credit, they lacked the necessary capital to establish financial independence. The problems they had fled in the cotton belt cropped up again in the West. Slowly farmers, after years of failure and frustration, created organizations of mutual support. Farmers Organizations A mong the many types of mutual aid societies A..popular among farmers, one of the most widespread was the Patrons of Husbandry, known as the Grange. This organization sought to circumvent the high prices of the credit merchant by establishing cash-only cooperative stores (Goodwyn, 32). Many farmers could not take advantage of this option, however, because their fundamental problem was a lack of cash. The creation of the Grange signalled the farmer's understanding that a changing American economic and political scene demanded new and innovative responses.

Farmers Alliance * The first organization to offer a practical 1870s and 1880s, a time in which farmers and alternative for struggling farm families was the ranchers were often in conflict over frontier lands. Farniers Alliance in Texas. The Alliance began as In its early years, the Alliance was a social * * one of scores of farmers organizations of the organization that had secrets and rites like the Gathering fraternal orders popular at the time. buffalo chips on The Alliance would perhaps have the prairie near never made a lasting impact had it Lahin, Kansas, not been for the compelling creativity 1893. le and vision of S. 0. Daws, who 1\ansas State revitalized the faltering Alliance in litstortcal Society 1884-85 as its first "traveling lecturer." Daws helped convince fanners that their problems were rooted in the credit and marketing system of the cotton belt (McMath, 18). This was new to farmers accustomed to Southern newspapers' insistence that farmers "bought too much and sold to, little" (Goodwyn, 24, 26-27). 13 12 , THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

Engraving in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, AugUst 30, 1873, showing a meeting of the Grange, a fanners organization. MAPLE' Library of Congress GROVE

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Daws proposed a countermonopolistic strategy ranks. New members were recruited through as a solution. Farmers in the Alliance would trade the traveling lecturers, who focused as much on exclusively with one merchant. la exchange for educating farmers about the credit and banking the proceeds from their cotton crop, the merchant system, or offeing technological or scientific would provide the necessary farm tools and other information, as on "selling" the Alliance. supplies directly to the Alliance instead of through In fact, once farmers began to understand the a middleman. There was considerable opposition machinations of the financial system, they from retailers, and many merchants refused to required little convincing. The Alliance was deal with the Alliance except through emerging as an important economic actor in

intermediaries. the South. . The Alliance persisted nonetheless and The farmers irkthe Alliance began to see that gradually established local sub-Alliances as their obstacles faiin the control of economic farmers joined forces using their crops as a policy by people who were acting in the interest bargaining chip. In 1885 they voted to sell of big business.. They felt that the difficulty of collectively through mass cotton sales, a practice getting credit, the tight money supply, and the known as "bulking." Because of convenience to falling prices Were,being controlled by Northern buyers, especially from foreign countries, they bankers and Politicians. As their analysis were able to charge higher prices. broadened, farmers began to recognize common The tangible results of the Alliance program grievances being expressed by other types of attracted hundreds of farmers to the organization's workers.

1 3 14 AVAILAW...L THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

In his presidential Colored Farmers National bid in 1896, Alliance and Cooperative Union * A major sector of the farming William Jennings population only tangentially Bryan took his campaign to the touched by formal Alliance people. While his activism was that comprised of African American farmers. The opponent greeted Texas Alliance voted in 1882 to crowds from his restrict membership to whites, front porch, Bryan traveled because members viewed their affiliation as a social organization constantly, "where we meet with our wives making over six hundred speeches and daughters" (McMath, 15). and reaching an During the Populist campaigns of estimated five the 1890s, African American million people. A participation was endorsed, but in the Farmers Alliance of the 1880s, powerful speaker, Bryan might have little effort was made to include won in the age blacks. White Alliancernen of radio and brought their families to mass television. rallies and meetings in ribbon- bedecked buggies, amid waving Library of Congress 4.ck banners and flags. African -*14" American farmers could not possibly present such an open challenge to the power structure kk of the white supremacist South, particularly when the people they challenged controlled the judicial, penal, and police systems. In 1886, the Alliance's new chief organizer was Moreover, lynch law superseded all legal political a thirty-six-year-old farmer named William Lamb. processes. A meeting of black farmers in 1886 He had been introduced to the organization by nevertheless laid the foundation for the Colored S. 0. Daws but soon became its innovative leader. Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union. Lamb led the organization to support the Cautiously operating under the aegis of white Missouri-Pacific Line railroad strike led by the spokesmen, the Colored Alliance eventually grew Knights of Labor. Their rationale was that the to an estimated quarter million members railroad workers, like the farmers, were being (Goodwyn, 118-23). Excluded from many exploited by big money interests. The Alliance's organizations because of race, African Americans material support enabled the Knights to prolong often formed parallel institutions such as the the strike, but magnate Jay Gould hired Colored Alliance. This practice not only provided strikebreakers. Within months, the strike was immediate benefits for group members, but also broken, the union crushed, and the leaders jailed. contributed to the stability and autonomy of the Although a few agrarian reformers became irue African American community during the years of radicals, envisioning farmers and workers united legalized segregation. to bring down big business, the two groups ultimately pursued their separate goals. The strike Expansion into Economic Influence experience, however, led the Alliance to a new With the success of the bulking system and emphasis toward electoral politics. The groups' the growth of the organization, Alliance convention of August 1886 reflected an leaders devised more ambitious plans. Dr. increasingly radical and politically sophisticated Charles W. Macune provided the intellectual set of demands, including endorsement of a leadership. Arguing that local or even state flexible money supply (Greenbacks) to counteract collective enterprise was not sufficient, Macune the effects of constricted gold-based supply. outlined a secret organization of all cotton 15 14 THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

Butchering hogs, in rural Virginia. ca. 1899. I; taciaLt Library ol Congress -J

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growers for the express purpose cf breaking the farmers. The Alliance had wanted the government power of monopolycreating, in essence, a to store farmers' crops to await higher prices farmers' monopoly (Hicks, 134). An Exchange before selling, and to pay them up to 80 percent based in Dallas was to serve as the central of the market value in advance. In exchange, marketing and sales agent and also as a discount participating farmers would pay interest and fees purchaser of farm implements for Alliance for grading, storage, and insurance. All they members. Acting collectively, farmers would be needed but did not obtain was the support of able to demand fair prices for their crops and to their representatives in Congress to sponsor and obtain dis-vunts as bulk purchasers. The plan enact the necessary legislation, which they called would ha circumvented both creditors and the "subtreasury plan." retailers. Ideally, the Exchange would have been started Taking the Political Route with capital collected from members, but most olitical parties were still influenced by the farmers still lacked cash and required credit to pregional lines of the Civil War. The finance their annual crop. The Alliance arranged Republicans were the party of the North, joint notes for each local sub-Alliance, co-signed influenced heavily by the Northeastern banking by property owners. When these notes were community. Most white Southerners belonged to brought to the banks as collateral for loans, they the Democratic Party; after the war, the party were refused. Macune and other Alliance became the symbol of white supremacy, states' spokesmen charged collusion and interference rights, and the "lost" culture of the South. from competing economic interests. Without Northern Alliancemen who could not see their initial cash capital, the Texas Exchange could not own needs met by either the Democratic or the purchase the supplies needed to raise the cotton Republican party were willing to consider third- crop. Despite its efforts to survive, the Alliance party activity. But Southern Alliancemen wanted closed the Texas Exchange after twenty months to stay members of the Democratic Party, partly (Hicks, 134-37). because abandoning it meant undermining white The experiences of the Farmers Alliance led supremacy. Although the Democrats courted the many members to believe that their real problm farmers' support, ultimately, in 1890-91 Alliance lay in the fact that laws and customary practices affiliates around the country decided to form a favored banks and big businesses over ordinary true "people's party," the Populist Party. small farmers. They became convinced of this in The emergence of a major third party showed 1889 when their political n_presentauves refused both Republicans and Democrats that they could to support a proposal for government assistance to not ignore the Populists. Many Populist 1516 THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

members became candidates campaigned The political worried that their real in local elections, yet commentator who concerns were beyond the agricultural drew this cartoon disappearing amid the belt farmers found it recognized that rhetoric, as the difficult to win the William Jennings Democrats whittled support of the ethnically Bryan's away at the full Populist diverse urban workers, presidential bid platform. The necessary if they were to was based on Democrats chose the uneasy build a national electrifying speaker coalition. Democratic compromises. William Jennings Bryan and Republican party library of Congress to.run against McKinley members in agricultural 4e in the presidential districts found they elections of 1896 and needed farmers' votes to pressured the Populists stay in office. Inevitably, to endorse Bryan as the Democrats and their own candidate Populists sought each as well. other out. After an intense and The Democrats offered the advantage of emotional campaign national organization and the promise of season, the Democratic-Populist ticket lost the incorporating Populist demands on their party presidency, despite a good showing in Southern platform. The Populists were skeptical of true local elections. By fusing with the Democrats, the Democratic support but felt pressured to agree on Populists soon lost their autonomy. By 1898 the an allegiance in the hopes of endorsement of their Populists had virtually disappeared as a political programs once the Democrats came to power. As force. election time neared, Democrats insisted that But the election had been hotly contested: farmers' concerns would not have broad enough nearly fourteen million voters created the largest appeal for a national campaign. turnout in American history. Republican An important force in shaping the Populists' McKinley had had the financial support of big connection with the Democratic Party was a major businessand millions more in campaign funds economic depression in 1893. In trying to than Bryan. McKinley's victory came largely from understand why the country had entered a his success in the industrialized Northeast and the depression, people turned to two ideas that had support of businessmen, workers, and prosperous been circulating since 1873: that protective tariffs farmers. His victory symbolically demonstrated and the money supply were the causes of the emergence of an urban, industrial society and economic woes. the decline of a rural, agricultural one (Cherny). Part of the credit problem attacked by the Alliance was the fact that the government kept the Lessons of the Populist Experience only official money, gold, in shorcsupply. They The poor farmers could not gain the support of advocated circulating more money, either a large enough segment of the American "greenback" bills or silver. This would cause population to prevail. Yet they had, in just three .soine inflation, but higher prices for Crops2.vould tumultuous decades,, challenged the shape and enable faiMers to get out of debt: "Ifie`Derriberiis struCture Of ihe Anierican eronomy. Their encouraged the Populists to jointly support "free political transformation began with the simple silver" as a campaign strategy, seeing this as a desire to live a life to which they believed they broad enough issue for national support... were entitled. Hundreds of farm families in the Financed heavily by Western silver`mine South and West clung to the common American owners, the "free silver" movement swept the wisdom that hard honest work, "the sweat of one's country as an answer to the country's deepening brow," would at the very least save them from the financial troubles. Positioned against the grip of debt, peonage, and foreclosures sweeping Republican "goldbugs," the silverites claimed they the farm belt. Yet, no matter how hard they stood for the interests of the people and not big worked, many faced financial ruin; in response, business. But as the silver issue began to they sought to make the government more dominate national debates. many Alliance attentive to their needs.

16 17 * * * THE POPULIST MOVEMENT

The Populist experience also highlights the * * * processes by which the American financial elite Questions to Consider defused a potentially explosive movement. 1. Did the Populists realistically respond to Realizing that the Populists represented significant the root causes of their problems or did they electoral strength, both Democrats and create and attack scapegoats? Republicans attempted to incorporate enough of the Populist ideology into their political platforms 2. How did the Populists respond to a changing to satisfy the Populists without alienating their America that was shaped by immigration, regular membership. Both parties suffered deep industrialization, and other factors beyond spl5ts over the silver issue, but the Democrats co- their control? opted the Populist cause in the presidential campaign of 1896. 3. To what extent were the farmers responsible In some respects, the Populists were successful for the economic crises of the late nineteenth in implementing their policy initiatives. They century? What other factors, if any, shaped gained a sense of identity and common cause by the economic possibilities of these farmers? organizing. They raised concerns about the growing influence of large corporations in 4. Despite the efforts of the Populist movement, American economic and political life and the farmers have suffered economically and injustices in the economic system. They also politically. Based on other reading, compare recognized the need to force the federal govern- the life of farmers in the late nineteenth ment to intercede more actively in improving the century to that of farmers in the late twentieth lives of its citizens. The concerns first raised by the century. Explain the American agricultural Populists were soon trumpeted in the Progressive movement of the late 1970s. reforms of the pre-World War I era. * 5. Read the first chapter of L. Frank Baum's * * * The Wizard of Oz. How does this presentation Bibliography counter traditional images of the farmer? Cherney, Robert W. Populism and the Election of 1896. Originally published by Grossman Publishers, a division of Viking Press, in association with Jackdaw Publications Ltd., 1974. Available from Golden Owl Publishing. Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Movement: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Hicks, John D. The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party. Reprint. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1981. Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. Lloyd, Henry Demarest. Wealth Against Commonwealth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. McMath, Robert C., Jr. Populist Vanguard: A History of the Southern Farmers' Alliance. New York: Norton, 1977 (original ed. published by University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill). Nugent, Walter T. K. Money and American Society, 1865-1880. New York: Free Press, 1968. Pollack, Norman, ed. The Populist Mind. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967. Ransom, Roger L., and Richard Sutch. "Debt Peonage in the Cotton South after the Civil War." Journal of Economic History 32:3 (September 1972), 641-69. Tindall, George Brown, ed. A Populist Reader. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966. Woodward, C. Vann. Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel. New York: MacMillan, 1938. 18 17 THE IVIL. RIGHT OVE ENT:

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" r 1:1"nt 'At oqovInlinf"/ evIleI'et"e 'btu berdnul He'er ih J.:pr,/ b, 111('' 011111 rS,111, 11 HMV he denurnded In the rippie\sol

r.. 1--.. 'Freedom Rides" James Mendith nlabama, bus to e- Nine black Four North Student Brown v. Board of /4 Founeenlear-old O enrolled at Ole Nonviolent .. to desegregate a white man and students deseg- et, ,1/44D Carolina A&T Lits'w Education of 4:74 Emmett Till of kit do.. students stage Ccordinating 1. interstate buses NJ Miss under federal Topeka (Kansas) ,..n Chicago is is arrested -1 regate Little Rock. : sit-in at . Committee and restaurants troop patrol Supreme Court tv,ulated and Montgomery bus Arkansas. Central Woolworth's . (SNCC) founded during summer/ decision ends . dered in boycott to deseg- High School ,"" segregated lunch . in Apnl by SCLC meet with legal racial Mississippi for regate public busts under military counter in in response to violence in the segregation in allegedly begins, leading to protection Greensboro. student movement, south public schools. whistling at a the creation of the quickly becomes white woman Southern Chnsuan North Carolina. setting off wave independent CISC receive, Leadership wide coverage in Conference of sit-ins across black media : (SCLC) led by Rev. the South Martin Luther Rosa Parks refuses King. Jr., and to give up ,,er 5Cat on a Montgomen Ralph David Abemaths

Personal Accounts Memoirs of the Movement I grew up in Martinsville, Virginia, and that's a the legislation and everything, those bills or small town of about 35,000 people in the whatever, how I did think about it, but didn't hnow Shenandoah Valley. Very beautiful area. My parents why, or didn't think that things should be different. are still living there. Graduated high school there in Yeah, it was just a way of life. fifty-eight. And discussing the segregated South, I So, going to Hampton [university) in 1958wc often talk with my friends and how it affected us at didn't do this myfreshman year, I think it started in the time. I know when I was in high school, even fifty-nine. So fifty-nine . . .and the student when I was in elementary school, I noticed that in government's getting us together and we're talking our booksit didn't bother mc, because I didn't about doing the sit-ins in Hampton and Newport know any better, you knowI noticed that our News, Virginia. . . . As I recall, a lot of the students books always read "Martinsville High School," and, were very frightened to do that, because at that time of course, our high school was Albert Harris High we started reading in the newspapers about how the School, it wasn't the same school. In fact, the white policemen were there, and the dogs, and the fire high school was Martinsville High School. hydrants, and all of that. I know that was my And then in high school, we had a band since I feeling. "Are we really going to do this?" .. . At that was about seventh grade, and we wore white shirts time I'd been there a year so we had gone and black pants. When we were in parades that downtown, and ifyou wanted a drink from this involved a cityyou know, Thanksgiving, any other particular drugstore . . .you had to gothey had type of parade that the city had, they involved the carry-out places for you to goand you had to school and after a while we felt very"Why don't stand at the edge of the counter near the door and we have uniforms like Martinsville High School?" order a soda. So that's where I used to do the sit-ins.

, They had fabulous uniforms, and their majorettes . You go in, and once they said, "We don't serve had uniforms, and it seems like every time we were you. Leave," you know, I was never the type of going tr ,n a city parade, being on display, you person to say anything back, I just got up and left, know, we had to conjure up something different for because I was afraid of, you know, being put in jail.

the majorettes to wear . . . I was raised with the idea that you don't go to jail, So there was this particular parade, and we had so I didn't know how that would affect me. a new band director that's what it was, a new band . . .We always went in groups. They told us not director And he was very young, I guess just out of to go alone . . .we went into Newport News,

college, and he didn't like the idea. . . ."We're not Virginiahad to ride a bus. They brought buses going to be in a parade if we can't have uniforms." onto campus that would take us into the town of

. So when we got our new uniforms, the band was Newport News, and a number of us, our parents so excited. It read, stamped in the back, had gotten us charge accounts at this particular -Martinsville High Schr,l." Wc were very happy store in Newport News . . . but they had a tea room that we had gotten new uniforms, but our colors upstairs that we couldn't go . . . to . .. I said, "1 were burgundy and white, and Martinsville High want to integrate this place," and we had gone School, their colors were burgundy and gold. But upstairs this particular day to the tea room, and still, we had a uniform! You know what I'm saying? they had said they wouldn't serve us. . . . So when I think about my days before the sizing of We were leaving. See, after so many timcs, if the

20 20 Maw. Luther Birrmngham Congress passes Mississippi Malcom X is or. siokelv Martin Luther Congress passes - e- sC King delivers I Mabama as thee Civil Rights Act -ummer Protect aLs-ssmated in Carmichael King. Jr . is ,csas- Equal I LAC .1 plearT1 on their choir sNL.0 cr.ates the freedom 1.ebruary in Ness pubficizes pnrase yinatea in Apnl in bmpios ment Lpeech al August robes Nummer I Mississippi massive York c.ne "Black Power Memphis Riots Oppen tunny Act 28 March on yoterrregistratton President John f. freedom selma mu during Meredith erupt in cities (EEO) Washington. drive. is marked Kennedy is Democratic Party Montgomery march in June. across the nation. more than he dozens of assassinated in under nonexclu- march in Alabama Senator Robert F 250.000 people rfiurders and Dallas in sionary policy to to support Kennedy, former gather at the ovember challenge illegal bombings passage of the mcoin Attorney General discrimination be \ "ling Rights Act Memonat and presidential the regular candidate, ts assas- Four black girls Democratic Pane sinated in Los are killed in Angeles bombing of their hutch in Congress passes Fair Housing Act

Origins of the Civil Rights Movement waitress or whomever said, "We don't serve you. uring the 1950s and 1960s, a loose coalition Would you leave?" or whatever she'd saymaybe D of blacks and whites, the middle and the they would say that two or three times to you and lower classes, laborers and professionals, then you'd see that you were not going to be served, individuals and organizations effected profound so you would leave. racial change in America. While this civil rights movement for equal rights for all citizens began in .. So as we were standing outside, that's when earnest in the twentieth century, its roots lay in they did the fire hydrant and the hose, and that was the struggles of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner the most devastating experience. That was the first Truth, W. E. B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, and millions time I had seen that, even though the you'd read in of other less famous African Americans, both slave newspapers, it had never happened to rne and and free. Landmark Supreme Court decisions in never happened to anybody that 1 knew. the 1950s gave African Americans new legal It made you very angry. It made you very angry standing, and the movement set out to change and questioning why, why, why is this happening? equality under law into equality in the daily lives Then you'd think about your poor parents or vou of millions of oppressed people. Although the had an uncle or a cousin or a brother who was in movement was organized by the black middle the service and serving the country, b.:! yet you class, it was the laborers, the mothers, the didn't have equal rights in the country tooso why students, schoolteachers, and domestics who would they have them fighting for the country if we worked together in protest to initiate change. Effected largely through peaceful resistance, the couldn't have equal rights that way? ... It was also movement would extend to all segments of very motivating. "I'm gonna do this," and "I'm society. The initial protest was about laws, but it gonna do that," and you're going to continue school, grew to include economics and, ultimately, you're going to get as much education as you're attitudes. going to get, nobody's going to hold me down, and During the years that immediately followed the we're going to go to the end with this. So that's when Civil War, Congress adopted the Thirteenth, I saw, that's when my head changed about it, and I Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the think it didfor a lot of other people, a lot of other Constitution. These amendments for the first time kids my age. in the history of the United States guaranteed blacks freedom, citizenship, and suffrage. These Excerpt from interview with _Jacky acts, which would fall into disuse during the late Bolden, August 15, 1985. nineteenth century, ultimately provided the legal Joan and Robert Morrison foundation for the changes sparked by the civil Collection, National Museum rights movement. For a brief period after the war of American History until the withdrawal of Union troops from the South in 1877, blacks exercised their right to vote, and many held federal and state offices. Yet, because most blacks were released from slavery without land compensation or adequate resources, they were economically dependent, especially in the South.

21 21 * * * THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

tested the Alabama segre- Civil rights African Americans gation laws by refusing to organizations struggled to obtain educa- give up her seat to a white joined forces with tion and employment. Many person on a Montgomery, church groups to became tenant farmers, Alabama, city bus. Parks raise money for indebted to owners for use SING OUT was arrested. The black thc Cause. of the land, seed, and tools. Southern whites, devastated .7 FREEDOM' community of Montgomery Nanonal Museum , fi Tribute to the Passue or rallied in support of Mrs. of Amencan History by the war, were openly rhe Civil Rights Act1964 hostile to African Americans. Parks behind a church- Access to public facilities ikPerformers Direct From The dominated leadership led 1 Folk Festival by the Reverend Dr. Martin like schools, theaters, and . restaurants was restricted, and CANE. Luther King, Jr. Blacks segregated, or denied. Most 19 fitIC boycotted the bus system. Southern blacks faced N'aig .4611'2Lifia For a year blacks walked or ^9Jimis witscac___ IFITY carpooled and suffered false constant bigotry, open WO ICINNIEDY SUNDA DAMN NOS arrests, fines, cancellation hostility, and blatant Fmmos John Irojhork Sows discrimination. Terrorist ..91(o,mewr 3.0.6 of Insurance on cars being groups such as the Ku Klux 'llnlr"Irccc'uu"RSPK:jralinr used instead of buses, Klan and the Knights of the Monday. JUTY 27. 1964 8 KM. firebombings, and KKK Manorial Church 600 E S N.W. marches. They refused to White Camelia represented Ls-varn end the boycott until the the worst extremes of fear J and hatred. law that enforced In the North, racism manifested itself in segregation was repealed. In 1956, the Supreme different, sometimes less obvious ways than in the Court ordered Montgomery's buses desegregated. South, but discrimination prevailed. Buses, The civil rights movernem had its first victory. restaurants, and jobs were not explicitly segregated by law, but by custom, beaches, dance Principal Organizations halls, and social service facilities were all iThganizations became the driving force in separated by race. Restricted residential patterns giving direction to the movement and led to predominantly black or white articulating the concerns of African Americans in neighborhoods, businesses, and schools. And the legal and political arenas. Of the many civil black workers, whose opportunities were limited rights organizations active during the 1950s and by race, were hired last, fired first, and passed 1960s, the most influential were the National over for promotions. Assuf7iation for the Advancement of Colored Since its inception in 1909, the National People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality Association for the Advancement of Colored (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership People (NAACP) began cautiously to try out Conference (SCLC), and the Student Nonviolent marches, court cases, and boycotts that challenged Coordina)ing Committee (SNCC). the prevailing racial customs and laws. After both world wars, black soldiers returned to the United National Association for the Advancement States and found that after fighting for democracy of Colored People (NAACP) in Europe, they also had to battle for ci..mocracy * The NAACP, the oldest of these organizat'ans, in America. Thus, by 1950, this history of struggle was founded in 1909 by a group of while ucial culminated in an era of great expectation, a time activists and one African American, W. E. B. that forever changed race relations in this country. DuBois. The group's early activities focused on a period of turmoil, violence, victories, and anti-lynching legislation and political protests. defeatsthe era of the civil rights movement in By the 1950s, it had a broad network of local America. chapters and was the best-known of the civil With the lawsuit Brown v Board of Education rights groups. NAACP was regarded by many of Topeka (May 17, 1954), the Supreme Court African Amencans as conservative; because of its unanimously ruled against the "separate but efforts to maintain amicable relations with equal" laws that kept America's schools and legislators and other influential Americans, the ultimately the nation segregated. Only a year organization was reluctant to support activities later, Rosa Parks, buoyed by the recent Court that went outside the accepted methods of protest decision and motivated by fatigue and anger,._ such as legal petitioning and legislative lobbying.

22 22 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Yet the NAACP often step- harness and direct their This poster ped to the forefront as the I : energy. In 1960 the Student eniphasizes representative of African Nonviolent Coordinating CORE's inter - American viewsonce the Committee iSNCC) was awl membership. efforts of civil nghts activists created by the SCLC to be a What other brought national attention youth wing, but it quickly messages about to the issues of lynching, became autonomous. It the movement segregation, and voting never became prommeni in does it convey? rights. negotiations with the National Museum national political establish- Amenc3n History Congress of Racial ment, but SNCC was per- Equality (CORE) haps the most ambitious * CORE, founded in 1942, and active grassroots mobi- was the first group to intro- lizing organization in the duce Gandhian principle:: of movement. Though led by nonviolence into African Southern black students, American tactics of resis- membership included many tance. An interracial Northern white sympa- organization from Chicago. thizers who participated in CORE had spread into the summer voter-registration Soutii by 1954. As the campaigns, activities that movement progressed. were essential to the success CORE became involved with grassroots organizing of the movement but were also quite dangerous for voter registration, particularly in Florida, for the members of SNCC. Louisiana, and South Carolinii. The organization The movement included people of different had highly visible, charismatic leaders like James class, racial, and geographic backgrounds. People Farmer and later Floyd McKissick, but it allowed also differed in terms of political perspectives and enough autonomy at the local level to develop appropriate strategy. One of the striking features leadership skills in all chapters. of the movement was that ordinary people who had never participated in formal political Southern Christian Leadership organizations were often moved to join these Conference (SCLC) organizations, with little prompting. A student * The SCLC was born during the Montgomery participant in the movement commented that "the bus boycott of 1955-56. It originally wps an civil rights movement was led by leaders who did umbrella organization consisting of the heads of their best to keep up with the people." Students, local churches and activists from such groups as mothers, sharecroppersordinary folks the NAACP. Martin Luther King, Jr., became the gathered at their community churches and schools first president, assisted by Ralph David Abernathy in mass meetings. They transformed hymns and and young recruits like Andrew Young and Jesse spirituals into "freedom songs" of struggle, such as Jackson. Unlike the older groups, SCLC member- "We Shall Overcome," which became the national ship was overwhelmingly black and drew heavily anthem of the movement. This stirring theme was on the traditions and culture of the churches from sung to close each meeting as members stood, which it originated. Largely due to Martin Luther arms crossed and hands clasped; it has since Kings growing national stature, SCLC quickly become the rallying call for protest movements of amassed a huge following and substantial funds. every kind. This support enabled SCLC to pursue the'political and legislative agenda on a national level, gaining Tactics access to influential politicians to lobby on behalf "'ive of the major tactics used during the era of of legislation such as the Voting Rights and Civil F1 nonviolent protest were boycous, sit-ins, Rights acts. Freedom Rides, marches, and voter registration. Although some of these tactics had been used by Student Nonviolent Coordinating other protestirq; groups, they were particularly Committee (SNCC) effective in the civil rights movement, in part * Many black and white students had joined the because media coverage brought them to national movement, and the older organizations rushed to attention.

23 23 * * THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

rooms; they were expected citie:; and rural hamlets, served several important The Studem io eat standing in the purposes. First, these processions allowed the Nonviolent "colored corner" or take diverse leaders of CORE, SNCC, SCLC, and the Coordinating their meals outside. Rather NAACP to come together and participate in a Committee than accept the humiliation concerted effort. In a way, these marches served as beheved in of segregated eating, the sit- a unifying factor during this period. Second, confrontation in was developed, attracted because these marches required planning and and activism. national media publicity, advance notice, they were exceptionally suited for Why Would and spread across the South stimulating television and media attention. One they choose this as a movement strategy, in cannot underestimate the impa:t of hundreds of image for a part because it was citizens marching peacefully for equal rights, and poster? essentially an active yet often confronted violently or attacked with dogs Naitomil Museum nonviolent posture. and water hoses, on the millions of Americans of American History who watched or read about these marches each

".; Freedom Rides day. Third, the marches were also an opportunity ' * As the initial enthusiasm for the average citizen to participate in this for sit-ins began to wane, struggle. For many blacks, the marches were both SNCC activists joined with sources of pride and the vehicle through which CORE in an experiment of a they could demonstrate their desire to see new tactic, the "Freedom profound political and social change occur. x Ride." On May 1, 1961, an The most successful of these marches was the March on Washington in 1963. This march, '304, integrated group embarked on a trip from Washington, sponsored by a broad coalition of civil rights, D.C., to New Orleans on religious, and labor organizations, was the two separate buses to implementation of an idea conceived by A. Philip desegregate buses and Randolph, the ieader of the black union, "The terminals along the way. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Maids and Porters," 4. In Alabama, one bus was in 1941, As thou qnds of black and white burned and the other was Americans surrounded the Lincoln Memorial on attacked by a mob. Many that hot August day, a number of speeches participants were seriously chronicled the need for racial change and offered injured and decided to a variety of solutions to the problems facing abandon the trip. Martin America. All that passion, pain, and hope was Luther King, Jr., president captured by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "I Have of the SCLC, called :or a a Dream" speech. This powerful appeal, firmly halt to the ride under rooted in black religious traditions, moved the pressure from Attorney crowdand the nationto work anew for the General Robert Kennedy. day when people would "be judgcd not by the Yet, ignoring the warnings, color of their skin but by the content of their students mobilized by character." King's speech, which was televised SNCC poured into around the world, helped to push a timid Alabama to continue the Congress toward more aggressively pursuing Ride through Mississippi. legislation to ensure that civil rights would be Throughout the guaranteed to all. Boycotts summer of 1961, the Freedom Rides continued * The Montgomery, Alabama, boycott following cities from Selma, Alabama, to Albany, Georgia, to with the participation of Southern students and Voter Registration the arrest of Rosa Parks was nonviolent but little Rock, Arkansas, boycotts of businesses that Northern white supporters. These efforts * During the organization's early days, SNCC effective. The boycott lasted a year and came close refused to hire black workers or that mistreated kiltimately succeeded in forcing the desegregation focused on the desegregation issue, but some to being crushed by the city of Montgomery's their black clientele helped to change the economic landscape of the South. of interstate transportation facilities. members stressed the importance of registering obtaining a county court order to end black black voters. Many Southern districts had large carpools. Earlier that same day, however, the Marehis black populations Who lacked political influence, Supreme Court voided Montgomery law to Sit-ins *Another major tactic of the movement was the since they were prevented from voting by terrorist segregate buses. The boycott drew national media * In 1961, four students from North Carolina . use of marches as a means to protest segregation tactics and false representation of the law by local attention not only to Montgomery and to Dr. A&T University refused to leave the lunch counter and discrimination. These marches, which officials. The voter-registration effort was origi- King, but to the beginnings of the movement as in the Greensboro Woolworth's until they were occurred from Selma to Montgomery, in nally considered mo:e conservative than "direct well. Boycotts represented a major tool of the served. In many Southern eateries, blacks were Memphis, in Chicago, and in a myriad of large action" protests (the Democratic Party and the movement in the South for the next ten years. In unable to sit at lunch counters or eat in dining rre:a.3 Pc!pi",U 24 24 g 1Wj v

4 * ** THE CjVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

federal government favored and facilitated black brave?" (Burns, 32) voter registration). SNCC scattered organizers President Johnson interrupted the live across the South, many of them college students, broadcast of her testimony with an impromptu in painstaking campaigns to educate African press conference, but this action could not stem Americans in small rural communities and support for the Freedom Democrats. In the end, prepare them for the voting challenge. CORE the national party offered a compromise of two followed a similar program focused in Florida, seats to be handpicked by the all-whhe regular Louisiana, and South Carolina, Mississippi Democratic Party. The Freedom The Council of Federated Organizations Democrats overwhelmingly rejected the (C0F0), an umbrella group of civil rights compromise. They returned with increased organizations in Mississippi, invited hundreds of understanding of the challenges they faced but white students to assist in the registration drive. determined to continue the struggle. CORD believed that any violence against them would grab the attention of the national media, Violence and the Civil Rights Movement which had largely ignored the black murders. :en though the movement was based on While the volunteers were still in training, three EL nonviolence, it met w aggressive, young activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, confrontational, and often violent resistance. In and Michael Schwerner, were brutally murdered. 1955, Emmett Till was murdered; in 1963, After an arrest on a traffic charge, the sheriff had Medgar Evers, Mississippi NAACP leader, was turned then-i over to the local Ku Klux Klan. The assassinated. Four little girls were killed in a body of eighteen-year-old James Chaney, the bombing of their Birmingham church on a Sunday 'lack student, was found horribly mutilated. Yet morning in 1963. In 1965, Malcolm X, outspoken the students pressed on to educate and register leader of the Nation of Islam, was gunned down. poor black Mississippians throughout the Many more were killed in the wake of protest Freedom Summer, despite the continued violence marches and skirmishes with local authorities. and murders. Almost sixty people were killed between 1961 and When COFO ran a mock election to demon- 1964 in white terrorist attacks. sti ate the voting power of African Americans if The South was not the only place where racial they were all registered, more than 80,000 people, violence erupted. Cities, often centers of urban four times the number officially allowed to neglect and oppressive poverty, housed many register, cast ballots for "Freedom" candidates. black residents. Despite its huge impact and great The experience led SNCC to initiate a campaign to gains, the civil rights movement did not truly seat a,. alternative group of delegates to the address the structural economic concerns affecting Mississippi Democratic Party, to be known as the African Amencans living in cities. Blacks in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). urban centers were allowed to vote, yet often that The MFDP delegates were to be chosen on vote did little to address poverty and urban blight. truly democratic principles of universal What was not equal was their access to decent enfranchisement. Strictly following established housing and employment opportunities. Too regulations, they qualified four candidates for the many people were shut out of entry-level upcoming primary, including the charismatic positions in professions, trades, and unions. For Fannie Lou Hamer (whose comment, "rm sick too many urban blacks, the promises of Northern and tired of being sick and tired," captured the migration proved empty and tainted by the same frustration and pain of many black Southerners). racism that so permeated the South. Tensions Despite their loss at the polls, the Freedom began to simmer, then overflow. The violence, Democratic Party pressed ahead to the Atlantic death, and destruction that accompanied the City convention with 1,000 supporters to demand rioting in Watts, Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, and that they be recognized as the legitimate state Washington, D.C., left fear, anger, and destruction delegation. Black Mississippians testified to the that are still evident today. threats and violence they encountered while attempting to register. Fannie Lou Hamer gripped the convention with her tale of having been beaten in jail. She conciuded, "All of this is on account we want to register, to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now. I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the 26 26 THE CIVIL RIGHTS-MOVEMENT

President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., commemorate the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

National Museum of Amencan History

.t

Tangible Achievements he tangible gains of the civil rights movement black issue; if discrimination were tolerated for T were illustrated by the legislation that was some groups, it could easily be extended to passed in the 1960s: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, others. Women, handicapped people, and other the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair minority groups used the lessons and gains of the Housing Act in 1968. The leaders of the civil civil rights movement to extend the laws of equity rights movement could take credit for pushing to all sectors of American society. these issues to the forefront of America's conscience. Lyndon Johnson is credited with Black Groups Outside the Mainstream wielding his significant influence with Congress to he mainstream civil rights movement never help speed the passage of the legislation. While Tincluded all African Americans. The Nation of some argue that Johnson's motivations were his Islam, for example, founded by Elijah Muhammad visions of a Great Society, others claim that his in Chicago, provided not just a protest movement civil rights record was fueled by his need for but rather an alternative culture. The Nation's domestic victories to offset U.S. involvement in religious restrictions on diet and intoxicants, along the escalating Vietnam conflict. with the Muslim codes of behavior, profoundly The creation of affirmative action programs in changed the lives of many African Americans such the public and private sectors became a stepping as Malcolm Little of Boston. Embracing Islam stone in societal efforts to obtain racial equity. while in prison, he changed his name to Malcolm These new opportunities enabled many African X; the letter X replaced the last names of many Americans to continue their education through African American Muslims who rejected the college and to obtain better jobs. Many blacks, imposition of European "slave names." The X also especially those in the middle class, began to reap symbolized an acknowledgment that part of black the economic benefits that came with increased culture was lost through the period of slavery, and black presence in business and government. the "X" represented that missing element of The activities of civil rights organizations African culture. Elijah Muhammad's teachings created a new sensitivity to discrimination in became popular, particularly in the urban North. American society. They stirred a sense of outrage The Nation of Islam's open rejection of many at long-standing practices of violence and American values, and Malcolm X's open disenfranchisement of African Americans. They statements on the evil nature of whites, the "blue taught America that discrimination was not only a eyed devils," shocked and frightened the nation. 27 27 * * * THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

The media began to portray the Black Muslims as The civil rights movement affected other militant radicals. This conaast with the more pal- movements, particularly as concern over the atable public image of Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War began to grip the nation. For the SCLC helped King, because officials much pre- counterculture, the most ardent critics of U.S. ferred negotiating with him than with Malcolm X. society, the civil rights movement illustrated the In addition to the Muslims, other individuals hypocritical and exploitative nature of capitalist or groups challenged the nonviolent middle-class democracy. But many dissatisfied citizens and notions of the civil rights movement. Stokely groups looked to experienced civil rights activists Carmichael's pronouncement of "Black Power!" as models of social protest. Cries of black power during the Meredith march, for example, came to and black solidarity soon influenced the La Raza symbolize the more radical wing of the or Chicano movement, helped inspire feminist movement. The development of the ideology of notions that "Sisterhood Is Powerful," sparked the Black Power highlighted the broad gamut of "Red Power" policies of the American Indian African American thought on self-identity and movement, and helped the leaders of the youth ethnic consciousness. It forced the more moderate movement to realize the power of organization positions represented by the SCLC and the and dedication in a mass protest. Civil rights NAACP and others to be more demanding and to tactics such as marches and sit-ins became part of extend the parameters of traditional civil rights the cultural vernacular. Movement songs like concerns. Organizations like the Black Panthers, "We Shall Overcome," which so characterized the Cultural Nationalists, and followers of US were charged mass meetings, were adapted to all types important because they helped to force issues of of protest causes. urban poverty, lack of employment opportunities, Ultimately the civil rights movement was a and economic self-determination into the minds success. It changed forever the tenor and tone of of black and white Americans. These organiza- race relations in America. No longer could the tions did not use nonviolent strategies. Instead, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment guarantees they sought to advance the idea among African of citizenship and suffrage be ignored. No longer Americans that self-defense and self-determination would the legal manifestation of racismlaws were in their best interest in a hostile white world. that restrict accommodations on travel or housing The Black Nationalist wing of the movement based solely on racebe defended in courts of did not fare well with the U.S. government. The law or accepted as a reasonable norm. No longer FBI organized a network of agents, provocateurs, would the murder or rape of blacks go and informants to dismantle the Nationalists. The unpunished in Southern courts of law. Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) As a result of the civil rights movement, an infiltrated and helped dismantle organizations by educated black middle class expanded and began creating discord among members and discrediting to penetrate the halls of business, academia, and the organizations in the public's eye. The highly government. Today black mayors, judges, and publicized trials of activists like Angela Davis and congresswomen sit where none had sat before. Huey P. Newton characterized them to the public Many schools and universities are now integrated, as violent threats to national security. Govern- and elements of American culture that once ment pressure and violence combined with the smacked of racism are now eliminated or successes and respectability of the moderates discredited. Truly a revolution occurred in post- severely weakened black nationalist groups by World War II America. the early 1970s. Yet the civil rights movement has not led to the day when an individual is "not judged by the The Final Analysis color of his skin but by the content of his he civil rights movement used its own character." While the middle class has benefited T immediate social concerns as a springboard from changes such as affirmative action, many for an analysis of the larger setting. Although they blacks are confined in urban ghettoes or in rural may have differed on the paths of their analyses. poverty that have bcen little changed by many social sectors were articulating similar legislation like the Voting Rights Act. Many of the criticisms of the existing sociopolitical structure. economic and structural causes of poverty and Some scholars of the era believe that the threat unemployment have not been addressed or have represented in this broad challenge led to the been sacrificed in light of other political priorities government's covert and overt efforts to put a in post-civil rights movement America. stop to protest. as shown with the existence Clearly the civil rights movement was a of COINTELPRO. revolutionbut an unfinished one. Clearly 28 28 * * * THE CIVIL RIGHTS-MOVEMENT

America has "overcome" much, but much remains * * * to accomplish. We are, however, much closer to Questions to Consider the day when all Americans can truly sing, "free at 1. What factors enabled the successes of the last, free at last thank God almighty, we are free civil rights movement? What factors limited at last." * its.effect on American life?

* * * 2. What role did the media play in the civil Bibliography rights movement? If possible, view the PBS Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the Age of documentary series Eyes on the Prize to see King. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. archival footage. What are some contemporary Burns, Stewart. Social Movements of the 1960s: Searching uses of media by reform movements? for Democracy. Boston: Twayne, 1990. Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles V. Hamilton. Black 3. If the civil rights movement was successful in Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. changing race relations in America, why does there still seem to be a gap in attitudes between Carson, Clayborne, David J. Garrow, Vincent Harding, and Darlene Clark Hine, eds. Eyes on thr Prize: blacks and whites? Monitor newspapers to America's Civil Rights Years. New York: Penguin, identify and learn about race-related issues. 1987. Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's 4. Find out about the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New What were the issues, the organizations Left. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. involved, tactics used, and outcomes? Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow, 1986. Harding, Vincent. There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Meir, August, and Elliot Rudwick. CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942-1968. New York: Oxiord University Press, 1973. Stoper, Emily. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: The Growth of Radicalism in a Civil Rights Organization. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1989.

23.

29 E ENVIRONME\ TAL MOVEMENT

* * *

Why, after niiIIuiis of years oj harmonious eo-existence, have the relationships between living thinks and their earthly Sur roundings.begun to «dlapse? Where dia the'fabuk of the .ecosphete begin to um ael? flow far will the process go?

. *How can we stop it and restore the lilithen linhs?

A : Rachel Carson Congress passes Congress passes Earth Day, a Congress passes Congress passes Congress passes publishes Silent thc first Clean Air Wilderness Act major out pounng ...IC: Clean Water ACE. Endangered the National N Spring. raising Act. More of student inter- INJ the Act built on LAJ Species Act. C7A Forest awareness of comprehensive est on college the clean water Manwement Act : pesticide threats. clean air acts campuses. attracts acts of 1960 and Oil cnsis causes and the Federal follow in 1967, media attention, 1965. . shortages and Land Policy 1970, and 1990 spurs environ. high prices Managermmt Act mental panties.

Congress passes National Environmental Policy Act

Personal Accounts Environmental Dangers Come Home Tnterviews with "Don", railroad conductor, and that anybody would usually think about it, unless ihis wife, "Mary," early 1980s. (Nelinn and Brown) you work in an asbestos factory or with radiation. We had never thought about dioxin. DON: When the train goes into a terminal, the A month and a half after she died, an article brakeman has to go out and throw the switch. The appeared in the local newspaper about the effects of terminals are spraved with dioxin. It's all over the dioxin and its use in weed killers on the railroad. rails, the roadbeds, and the switch handles. So when We read the article and then that night we went you pick up the bar to throw the switch, or get out back and read the crew books. Don has all this to release the brakes, you're exposed. It's thick, oily, documentation because he had to write down where like a white cake all over the ground. he worked every day. The dates coincide perfectly. I knew that it was a weed killer, but not what Horrifyingly perfectly. The paper wrote it up in big chemical it was. I found out tt was dioxin and that block letters: THE RAILROAD AND DIOXIN. there was something wrong with itfrom some There it was, soft-cell sarcoma, the whole thing: it articles in the newspaper. I found out that dioxin was written right there. Word for word, her could be linked to certain types of cancer. Being my diagnosis. That's when Don called the company. daughter had cancer, I got interested. The railroad insists that they haven't used that DON: When my daughtcr got cancer, she had to go type of chemical for four years. But for the eleven for treatment every day for nine weeks in a row. years I've worked on the railroads, they've been From here bach to the hospital is approximately using some type of weed sprayer. They have to, to 100 miles. And with the gas, parking, and tolls, it keep the weeds off the roadbeds and the yards. comes to almost $75 a week. That's a lot out of our It's scary to think that I could have brought the paycheck. We applied to I forget how many stuff home on my pants or shoes or clothes, and agencies. The American Cancer Society gives you a

maybe I threw them in a pile in the corner, and my grant of $50 a year. . .. You not only suffer the loss daughter crawled over them. Or maybe I picked her of the person that dies, but you suffer in the years up and it was on my coat. Something like that could ahead because you have to pay off the bills that have possibly caused her cancer. I don't know if it's were incurred at the time. a guile.feeling on my part, it's just a mixed-emotion- type feeling. It's hard to explain. MARY: When our daughter was dying, all we I hope that wasn't the reason. You read so much thought about was what was going on. The last about it. It's a very hard feeling to describe. thing that we were thinking of was litigation. When vou talk about burying your child, compensation is MARY: The feeling I have is that Don had dioxin in the last thing you really have time to think about. his system when our baby was conceived. You breathe that stuff, and it goes in through your pores. DON: I'd like to see some type of change in the law. There's a genetic tie-in. I don't really want to pin If a child under 18 causes any damage to somebody her cancer on any one thing, yet there has to be one else's house up to $1,000, the parents are thing that caused it. I can't believe that there are responsible for his actions, and they have to pay. If that many different things. She didn't inherit it from the government would only have some law like that somebody else, though they used that excuse when with these chemical companies, then if something she died. When she was sick, there was never any bachfires or a disease occurs five or ten years down discussion about where it came from. It's not a thing the road, they would be legally liable. I think that a

32 31 loe Lanal. New Three Mile Island, Damaged nuclear N Y barge MedIcal waste Exxon Valdez Earth Day A,,n, disaster Pennsylvania . !oaded with 3 log becomes largest CC reactor at CC and sewage wash 7,c s, tst enfieth anniver- 7rrea declared nuclear reactor i_hemonvl. tons ot trash illu- ashore on oil tanker spill in C.: sail, national toxic pollutants comes within one L Sart. releases minates solid recreational S history, celebration detected in hour of significant levels waste problem beaches along leaking approx- residential arca meltdown of radiation The barge travels Eastern seaboard tely one expected to 6.000 miles to quarter million Environmental scatter around the five states and barrels ol crude Protecuon globe Rumors three foreign oil Agency t E PAL a ensue that countries in !ederal regulatory contaminated search of a dump agency is dairy products site before return- established have entered U S mg unsuccessiully market to New York

* Pioneers of conservation: Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford F'inchot, and John Muir stand tn the center of this grouping under a giant 4,1 Redwood. Pinchot is the tallest figure: the heavily bearded Muir stands in front of lum to the nght of Roosevelt.

National Agricultural Libraty, Forest Service Photo Collection

16.

The Roots of Environmentalism lot of manufacturers would thinh twice before mericans' emotional investment in nature is dumping these new chemicals or drugs on the Aas old as the republic itselfthe "new Eden" market, if they were legally bound and responsible of unspoiled natural wealth fired the imaginations

for anything that couldhappen down the road. .. . of explorers and settlers, writers and artists, and Maybe we have to take things into our own then developers and industrialists for more than a hands. If there were only a way that the people hundred years. Later, in the mid-twentieth directly affected could decide what is used on the century, when human dominance of the job. Ultimately we're the ones who are going to be landscape was nearly complete, the modern exposed, not the supervisor or the superintendent environmental movement arose to challenge the who's sitting up on the third floor in his office ways in which land, water, air, and wildlife were somewhere. It's the union members, the train being usedand to demand change for the personnel, or the nonoperating personnel, the track protection of both natural and human resources. workers, the signalmen. They should be the ones As the century draws to a close, the ultimately who decide their own fate. environmental movement appears to have achieved only partial success. The story of the modem environmental movement illustrates both the power and the limitations of political protest at this time in American history.

3,32 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Conservation * Conservation of the natural environment first (1905), the National Parks and Conservation became a national social issue in the late Association (1919), and the Izaak Walton League nineteenth century. At that time, the meaning of (1922) were founded to promote these interests. conservation was different than it is today. Early These groups were small but dedicated. conservationism reflected the expansionist spifit There was some organized political activity on of the day: government guided industry in its use behalf of the environment as early as 1901 when of resources but encouraged their exploitation. the Sierra Club, under the leadership of its The administration of President Theodore charismatic founder John Muir, unsucussfully Roosevelt wanted a strong federal system for opposed the building of a dam in Yosemite planned, efficient control of natural resource National Park. Failure discouraged further such development. efforts until the 1950s.

Preservation Modern Players in the Movement * Alongside the conservationists were those who Federal Government advocated the preservation of natural resources in * Some of the first ecological problems to gain their original state for the greater enjoyment of widespread attention were considered "public humankind. This coincided with new national health" problems at the time. As early as the turn attitudes on recreation, as well as the concern that of the century, people were worried that pollution urban industrial workers be provided with an of the drinking water supply by human and indus- escape in a relaxing environment from the trial sewage being dumped untreated into rivers tensions of modern life. and streams would cause disease. Handling this There were two ideologies about why nature problem led to the passage of 1i first federal should be preserved. The [Theodore] Roosevelt environmental legislation in 1948, called the administration's policies stressed recreation such Water Pollution Control Act, which involved both as hunting and fishing. They created the first local and federal action. Generally, the federal National Parks and the Fisheries and Wildlife government saw pollution control as a state and Bureau. The other ideology, known as local issue for many years. Not until December 2, naturalism, emphasized the appreciation of nature 1970 was a federal environmental regulatory in its pristine state as a place for reflection and agency, the Environmental Protection Agency spiritual discovery. Organizations such as the (EPA), established to enforce the many new envi- Sierra Club (1892), the National Audubon Society ronmental laws then being passed by Congress.

Arr and water Nt: pollution wer e the first issues of the modern environmental movement.

Library of Congress * * * THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Scientific Community * An important player in the development of new willingness to challenge all established public consciousness about environmental authorityincluding government and big problems was the scientific community. The business. While these were seen as promoting the government had employed scientists of many public good during the.Second World War, for political persuasions in the development of the example, they were now blamed for starting and atomic weapons that decimated Hiroshima and continuing the Vietnam War. Nagasaki in 1945. After World War II, some of The counterculture, largely made up of young, these scientists began to raise public concern white, and middle-class members, profoundly about the control of atomic technology by the affected public consciousness partly because of its military. Although many of their concerns were sheer numbers but also because of its economic silenced in the political and nationalistic tide of power. Of course, the massive social changes McCarthy anti-Communism in the 1950s, these begun in the 1960s are not attributable solely to scientists helped create awareness that technology the middle-class youth movement. The civil rights had great destructive power. movement began in the rural South, not on Less political but equally important scientific college campuses, for example, although many work in the 1940s and 1950s began to focus on students actively supported it. But young people ecosystems. The idea of interrelationships, that were in the forefront of a new environmentalism one action, like damming a river, has myriad that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. in these consequences for the plants and animals in the years environmental organizations' membership surrounding areas, was not the way most people rolls mushroomed: they gained popular support had previously seen nature. from new perceptions and attitudes about the Scientists also did the real work of discovering environment, government, and business. and proving that chemicals, processes, and activities previously taken for granted had The Media damaging effects. Scientific reports linking disease * Finally, the media had enormous influence on (usually cancers) to chemicals used in agriculture, growing environmentalism. It was one thilig to food processing, gardening, manufactunng, and read that baby seals were being hunted, or birds many other activities that touch the lives of most being poisoned by insecticides. -- rivers being on citizens were published and publicized with fire from industrial waste, another to see them on alarming regularity. People greeted these reports the evening news. By the 1970s, both the news with mixtures of scorn, fear, and anger. Science organizations and environmental organizations thus laid the groundwork for new perceptions of were reporting dangers, abuses, and catastrophes nature and technology. This foundation was affecting the land and its inhabitants, animal and essential to generating social awareness, then human. action, on behalf of the environment. Environmental Organizations Counterculture Groups oused by what they saw on the news or * Another important influence on the Rsometimes experienced in their own lives, development of the environmental movement many Americans wanted to take action to protect came from the counterculture movements of the the environment. Like countless other aggrieved late 1950s and the 1960s. Young people in citizens before them, they organized. The 1960s particular blamed the "Establishment," saw the growth of powerful organizations that specifically, government and big business, for would begin to draw large memberships and gain creating obstacles to global harmony. The the power to deteimine or change government counterculture challenged almost everything and business activity in areas affecting the abOnt kri6{Can society: the war in Vietnarn, how enviionnient.Sonii (Sf the organizations, like the .schools ikere run and what was being taught in Sierra Club, had existed since the turn of the theiri; the tenets of religious belief,wharnarriage century; others, like theNational Resources . 'shcitild be, alcohol's being legniVAili dings Defense Couneil, which was formed to file thought to be "mind-expanding" and harmless lawsuits against EPA and,other agencies, met new were illegal, women's roles, the music and'other needs of Modern, litigation-oriented American art forms of the older generation, and more. society. The fundamental change in American society Memberships and financial support doubled, brought about in part by the counterculture was a quadrupled. At present a powerful environmental

35 34 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Protesters at rally wildlife and wilderness N t 1 1 (.44.`;,.., -,::::"..`J' ...-/...,... denouncing a preservation to toxics , , , --,,, - New York State ' 1,1 '. '-- and waste manage- plan to resettle 'V ment. Another evacuated Love ei problem is that Canal. Homes N 1 regional economic were built on top interests compete cf an illegal with environmental hazardous waste initiatives. site that caused Compromising some serious health environmental problems for objectives to preserve former residents. jobs or whole Copyright Ava Long/ industries often seems Greenpeace 1990 necessary, but these difficult negotiations are often handled by legislators, lawyers, and experts, not establishment represents millions of people. The citizen activists. Grassroots protest often occurs major organizations include the Sierra Club, only when a local crisis or environmental Wilderness Society, Audubon Society, Natural challenge erupts. When residents of the Love Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls, New York, Federation, Isaak Walton League, Defenders of for example, discovered that they were sick and Wildlife, Environmental Defense Fund, National dying because a chemical company had dumped Parks and Conservation Association, and the toxic wastes under their homes and playgrounds, Environmental Policy Institute. they actively organized to demand redress from Unlike other social movements, the state and local government. environmental movement does not have one chansmatic leader. Retaining their importance to Individual Actions the movement are scientists and experts like Barry '1,C; ven the major environmental organizations Commoner and Paul Erlich, who often are have recognized that collective action alone distinguished spokesmen for organizations. cannot solve the array of environmental problems Television and movie stars have also given their and issues affecting the nation. Collective activities time, financial support, and media access to the like marches could not hope to include more than movement. a small percentage of a community's population. Environmental organizations have effected Perhaps the most powerful tool yet devised by social change on a large scale: the Wilderness Act the environmentalists is "green consumerism." of 1964, which prohibited some types of Largely a result of two decades of education and development from some of the nation's most consciousness-raising, consumers are now important natural resources, the Clean Air and selecting purchases based on the environmental Water acts, and many other laws and regulations record of the producer. Environmental exist because of both their lobbying arms and organizations conduct product research and their mobilization of massive public support. They publish their findings, but the consumerthe have also been powerful public educators. But individualtakes action by choosing to buy or while some percentage of membership is not buy. This trend has been instrumental in activistwilling to ring doorbells, conduct letter- creating a new focus of marketing, and is writing campaigns. or attend protests or rallies, beginning to affect actual business operations. many card-carrying environmentalists have done An important tactic in promoting individual little more than donate $25 to an organization. environmentalism has been enacting legislation to One aspect of the movement that makes large- force or facilitate compliance. In some instances, scale activism difficult to create and sustain is the such as endangered species or wildlife diversity, complexity, and sheer number of preservation laws, environmentalists had to environmental issues, which range from confront powerful business interests and some population growth and overdevelopment to opposition from segments of the public as well.

36 35 THE ENVIRONMENTA1 MOVEMENT

Legislation of this kind, which protects nature Tactics not to save money or promote some other * The environmental movement is so massive economic imperative, shows national com- that it has probably used, at one time or another, mitment to goals other than economic devel- every protesting tactic known from earlier opment. Such legislation affects not only corpo- political protests: passive resistance, marches, rations and businesses, as, for example, when boycotts, voluntary arrests, and so on. Major logging is prohibited to save endangered species, emphases in the movement, however, have been but also individuals who come to understand that litigation and lobbying. Especially during the law-abiding citizens have environmental Reagan administration, with its policy of less responsibilities. government regulation of private industry, Organizations and legislation have affected lobbying took on such importance to the and shaped individual actions but they environmental movement that its organizations nonetheless have allowed people to be active have become institutions of the Washington environmentalists without ever joining an political scene. Lobbying organizations employed organintion or attending a rally. While this professional staffs and relied on membership general lack of activism slows the progress of contributions to meet operating expenses and change it makes the environmental movement a generate publicity on specific issues. true process of cultural change in the United The fiiing of lawsuits had great importance in States. By the 1990s, the Protest at the furs, large cars, and front gate of a conspicuous consumption hazardous waste once associated with dump in California. living well are instead Protesters blocked often objects of public entry with symbolic scorn. caskets repre- Environmentalism senting the death Summary of the environment and citizens. Issues Copynght Zachary * The issues publicized Singer/Greenpeacc in the 1960s fell into the 1989 three broad categories that characterize modern environmentalism: pollution and toxic waste, resource depletion (including the endan- germent of various animal species), and population growth. Widespread consensus on the impor- tance of these issues gave the movement its mass appeal. The diversity of possible solutions made this movement unlike any other in the wide variety of articulations it included, delineated by their target and strategies. The major targets were individuals, %.1:Ftt4,'t business, and govern- . ment; the strategies were ir.44,k) as varied as the imagi- -.; nations of the activists.

336 BEST COPY AVAILABLE THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

* * Earth Day 1990 mainstream and conser vative, in Washington, bound by their very nature to D.C. compromise. The radical groups Nauonal Museum of believe in direct action, not American History political compromise: they drive spikes into trees or sit in them to keep them from being cut down; they may damage property, camp out in hunting areas to make the hunting impossible, and use other sometimes violent actions to achieve their eneb. Another criticism of the environmental movement is thPt it has l;:c1 to surprisingly close relationships between environmentalist organizations and businesses. Contributiors to environmental groups help the public image of businesses while supporting organizational activities. Many environmentalists refuse direct contributions li.om polluters, but other groups rely on grants and donations for their survival. A typical business/environmentalist collaboration is the promotion of environmental credit cards a providing for a percentage of all achieving goals of the movement. Organizations purchases to environmental organizations. filed lawsuits against corporations for breaking Ironically, credit cards promote the very laws and suits against the government for not consumerism that contributes to waste and enforcing laws. Lawyers obtained injunctions to pollution. stop things from being torn down or from being In most protest movements, 'uding the

built. environmental movement, one i . ction of the radicals is to make the mainstream's demands Judging the Movement seem moderate and therefore acceptable. Another * In some ways the environmental movement has function of radical environmentalists seems to be been more successful than any previous form of to create dramatic scenes and confrontations that protest. Therc are laws, regulations, watchdog attract media coverage and therefore draw public agencies, volunteer organizations, courses of attention to issues. On the other hand, the study from the elementary to collek level continual shiftingof attention from one issue to whose purpose is the understandi% of, another can dilt*public response or make ppreciation for, and protection/tattle environ- environmental Tblems seem too numerous to ent. Public attitudes have char(' 'und polls conquer. In g ..radical environmental groups ,4 "cprinable to grow. ., . Tfreipst t ,,..ortii"e'radical groups, A a vociferous elemeitf iettrnental however1iame1arge, , enduring, and ement exists that claims none of lu activity continues to_grorn Te United States and other en enough to stop countries00-0644bunded in Vancouver in um* ting destructbnIA olp planet. ta s like 1969 bynall groufiritieluding Sierra Chb Earth st!, the Sea She erds, and Ani membels and activists oiliher causes, aimed to Liberation see none of the changes as sufficient protest the testing of nuclear weapons by the and the major environmental organizationns United States in the Aleutian Islands. Members

38 37 * * * THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT sailed their rented boat, which they renamed * * * Greenpeace, to the test site to try to stop the Questions to Consider detonation. 1. Define the differences between the conser- Greenpeace gained worldwide media attention, vation movement and the environmental perhaps.none as exciting as films and photographs movement, exploring the ultimate goals of of antiwhaling activists in litt12 rubber dinghies each movement. amid Soviet whaling ships and the huge whales themselves. By mail solicitation and door-to-door 2. Why do individuals and institutions oppose fundraising, Greenpeace has tieCorile te largest some environmental aims? Find out about environmental organization in the world, with two past or current environmental controversies million U.S. members, half the world's total. in your state or region and discuss the Greenpeace does not consider itself mainstream arguments of both (or all) sides of the issues. although it now has a lobbying arm, many offices, Or, focus on a recently passed environmental and a paid staff. It remains committed to direct law or regulation: identify the bill's action and continues to supoort local efforts to proponents and opponents; whether address local problems. But radicals like Earth compromises were made by committees; First! see all organizations as co-opted. and the influence of lobbyists and citizen Greenpeace included. organizations. Another problem is that while individual, local, and collective action brought to bear on powerful 3. Earth Day was held in 1970 and 1990. institutions like the government pnd major Research contemporary press accounts corporations would seem to be sufficient to solve of each event. Is Earth Day a protest or a most problems, environmental issues are global, celebration? What was the origin or catalyst not ,:onfined only to the United States. The for each event? Who were the organizations international structure of Greenpeace addresses and individuals involved? Which issues this problem, but a means to successfully resol,,ing dominated? Which event had more media international issues is not yet clear and remains a coverage? How many people participated in challenge for the movement. * each event? What were the outcomes of each event? * * * Bibliography 4. What role do the media play in th:,. envi- Barretta, Scott, and John Hermann. "Environmentalism ronmental movement? Compare the envi- 1960-1990: A Study of Change in a Social ronmental movement's media tactics with Movement." Unpublished paper, April 1990. those used by the civil rights movement. Davies, J. Clarencz Ill, and Barbara S. Davies. The Politics of Pollution, 2d ed. Indianapolis: Pegasus, 1975. Detwiler, Robert, Jon Sutherland, and Michael Werthman, eds. En-ironmental Decay in Its Historical Context. Glenv;ew, Illinois: Scott, Foresn:An & Co., 1973. Downs, Anthony. "Up and Down with Ecology: The 'Issue-Attention Cycle'," Pablic Interest 28 (Summer 1972), 38-50. Hays, Samuel. Beauty, Health and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Lester, James P., ed. Environmental Politics and Policy: Theories and Evidence. Durham: Duke Univeisity Press, 1989. Nelkin, Dorothy, and Michael S. Brown. Workers at Risk: Voit.s from the Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Presa. 1984. Reich, Charles A. The Greening of America: How the Youth Revolution Is Trying to Mahe America Livable. New York: Random House, 1970. Scarce, Rik. Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement. Chicago: Noble Press, 1990. 38

39 Office of Elementary and Secondary Education A&I 1163, MRC 402 Washington, D.C. 20560 Tel. (202) 357-3049 TDD (202) 357-1696 39 111

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