You Say You Want a Revolution? Society, Culture, and Politics in the 1960S AMS 370, Unique Number 30860

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

You Say You Want a Revolution? Society, Culture, and Politics in the 1960S AMS 370, Unique Number 30860 You Say You Want a Revolution? Society, Culture, and Politics in the 1960s AMS 370, Unique number 30860 Professor: Julia Mickenberg Office: 420 Burdine Email: [email protected] Office phone: 232-2650 Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 3:20-4:50 Course Description In this class we will explore the major social movements and the political, cultural and intellectual developments of the 1960s, as well as their origins in the 1950s and earlier. These include: post-war liberalism; the Great Society and the War on Poverty; the New Left; the Free Speech Movement; the peace movement; the civil rights movement; nationalist and liberation movements among African Americans, Chicanos, Asian Americans, American Indians, gays and lesbians, and women; the counterculture; the conservative movement; and the environmental movement. Throughout, we shall seek to learn not only what happened, but also why it happened. Moreover, as members of a university community, we will be attentive to the question of how political and social activity in the 1960s, activity inspired largely by young people in and around universities, has affected our lives today and our relationship to politics and civic life. In the 1960s spirit of “participatory democracy” this class will be run as something of a cooperative enterprise. Rather than working on the model of expert teacher and student receptacles-of-knowledge, as students you will be actively contributing to the course content through your own research and presentations to the class. In other words, your active participation is essential to the success of the course. If you were hoping for a more passive learning experience, you should look elsewhere. Course Texts: Required: Andrew Jameson and Ron Eyerman, Seeds of the Sixties Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s Fourth edition Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin’ It To the Streets: A Sixties Reader. Third edition Roberta Price, Huerfano: A Memoir of Life in the Counterculture Additional packet of readings Films (some shown outside class, some shown only in clips) Berkeley in the Sixties Black Panthers San Francisco State on Strike Chicago 1968 Easy Rider The Woman’s Film Recommended Books: Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity; Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society Recommended films: Making Sense of the Sixties (PBS series), Eyes on the Prize (PBS series on civil rights) Requirements and Assignments: 1. Regular attendance—more than two absences in the class are likely to affect your grade; if you miss six or more classes you will fail the course. 2. Active, informed participation: be prepared to read and discuss approximately 120 pages per week. 3. Reading journal, in which you will record responses to assigned readings (topics noted throughout syllabus). I will collect individual entries sporadically, and mark them on a check, check minus, check plus scale based on the level of engagement with the readings that they show. Each entry should be dated, and should be between half a page and one page, single or double-spaced (typed). At the end of the semester you will read over your own, individual entries, and turn them in as a portfolio, along with a two-page reflection on common themes, issues, or other things you discovered by reading over your entries. The portfolio will receive a letter grade, but, again, the grade will be based primarily on the level of thoughtful engagement (that is, the writing can be much more informal and unstructured than in formal writing assignments). *Portfolio due Thursday, December 5th . 4. Team presentation: Fifteen to twenty-minute power-point presentation on a 1960s event, movement, issue, figure, or trend, focusing on media portrayals. Following initial background research, preparation generally involves scanning magazine and newspaper articles from the period, although you may also be able to find television and/or radio clips and some newspaper articles on line. You should not limit yourself to sources available on the internet: part of the point is for you to find sources that are a little harder to get to (use the library!). Each member of your team (2-3 people) should try to find at least three sources. The presentation should thus include at least six examples of media from across the political spectrum. You should try to include mainstream and alternative media sources, representing a range of political viewpoints. To do this you will look at newspapers, at magazines (which you can find through the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, available on-line through the library's website), and the underground newspaper microfilm collection (see http://catalog.lib.utexas.edu/search?/Xalternative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D/Xalt ernative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D&SUBKEY=alternative%20press/1%2C1381 %2C1381%2CB/frameset&FF=Xalternative+press&searchscope=25&SORT=D&33%2C 33%2C). To find alternative news sources you can also look directly at sources such as The Berkeley Barb, The Rag (published in Austin); Ramparts, New Left Notes, Everywoman (1970-), Off Our Backs, Ms. and The Black Panther (1967-80). For right- wing sources you can draw upon the University of Iowa's right wing collection, using the guide (Microfilm 9208) to find relevant materials. The National Review is also a good source for conservative views. The Briscoe Center for American History has complete runs of the Daily Texan and the Rag, as well as many other sources that may be helpful. Contact Brenda Gunn ([email protected], 512-495-4385) or Margaret Schlankey ([email protected] 512-495-4537) for further information/assistance. As a team, you might divide the research tasks into several areas, eg. mainstream, alternative, and local coverage; and/or radical, conservative, and mainstream, recognizing that the alternative sources will be harder (but probably more fun) to find. Your presentation should analyze and draw conclusions about the media portrayal of a particular event or phenomenon. For events and phenomena not sufficiently covered in class readings, this may require giving some background, but your focus should be on media portrayal, rather than on chronicling a series of events. •Always be prepared to present on the Tuesday of your week, although some presentations—at instructor's discretion—will be pushed back to Thursdays. If you are absent or not prepared to present on the day of your presentation you will not receive credit. Because of the course's tight structure, there will be no opportunity to make up a missed presentation except under exceptional circumstances. •Presentations should end with questions for discussion that link your material to assigned readings. Presenters are expected to help facilitate discussion for the week they are presenting. •1-2 page handout/outline (with enough copies for all class members), bibliography, and print-out of power-point slides are due with presentation. Each member should hand in their own bibliography detailing the sources for your research. There are suggested presentation topics on the syllabus, but these are only suggestions; as long as your idea fits with a given week's readings and discussions, it is probably okay. LAITS offers free, formal power-point classes at regularly scheduled times, as well as (free) individual consultations by appointment. 5. Formal paper #1: You will write a 4-6 page paper focusing on and possibly expanding on the research that you conducted for the presentation. The paper should analyze relevant media coverage in detail, relating it to course readings, especially those due the week of your presentation. You may draw upon sources that team members in your group have found, but your paper should have its own focus and be quite different from other members of your team (eg. one group member’s paper could focus on the radical press, while another person focuses on responses in Texas news outlets, while another focuses on national, conservative news outlets). Obviously material in this paper will overlap with material in your presentation, but the paper can go into greater depth. Moreover, the form of this paper should be quite different from the presentation. In other words, your presentation should not involve simply reading your paper out loud. Those giving presentations before the paper is due can incorporate feedback on the presentation into their paper; those doing the paper before the presentation will be able to incorporate feedback on the paper into their presentation. Due Monday, October 14th at 5:00 pm. 7. Final term paper (7-10 pages). This paper can use the topic of your first formal paper as a starting point for researching 1960s subject in greater depth and making sense of it in light of major course themes; or you can choose something entirely new. Think of this assignment as a combination term paper/final exam essay question: your paper should be focused on a particular topic, with readings and research to back up your arguments, but it should also be broader in scope as far as thinking about why your topic is significant for a more general understanding of the 1960s. For instance, if you did a presentation on utopian communities, you could use this as a starting point for discussing the utopian impulse in the 1960s, noting how it manifested in, for instance, the counterculture and the New Left as well as in communal experiments. For this paper, you should draw directly upon readings from throughout the course (material from at least three weeks should be discussed) and include at least three scholarly sources from outside the course, as well as at least three primary sources, one or more of which should be from outside the course (using material from your presentation/paper #1 is fine).
Recommended publications
  • BACH-THESIS.Pdf
    THE PRISON WAS THE AMERICAN DREAM: YOUTH REVOLT AND THE ORIGINS OF THE COUNTERCULTURE A Thesis by DAMON RANDOLPH BACH Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2008 Major Subject: History THE PRISON WAS THE AMERICAN DREAM: YOUTH REVOLT AND THE ORIGINS OF THE COUNTERCULTURE A Thesis by DAMON RANDOLPH BACH Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved by: Chair of Committee, Terry H. Anderson Committee Members, Ashley Currier John H. Lenihan Head of Department, Walter L. Buenger August 2008 Major Subject: History iii ABSTRACT The Prison Was the American Dream: Youth Revolt and the Origins of the Counterculture. (August 2008) Damon Randolph Bach, B.A., The University of Wisconsin at Madison Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Terry H. Anderson This thesis discusses the reasons for the emergence of the American counterculture in the mid-1960s, and makes a significant contribution to the existing literature on the subject with an innovative methodology. Historians have neglected to study the counterculture’s grievances, the issues, and events that birthed it, employing a systematic year-by-year analysis. And few have used the sources most appropriate for drawing conclusions: the underground press, a medium hippies used to communicate with other like-minded individuals. This thesis does both. The most imperative factors that led to the emergence of the counterculture can be firmly placed in the first years of the 1960s.
    [Show full text]
  • Student Communes, Political Counterculture, and the Columbia University Protest of 1968
    THE POLITICS OF SPACE: STUDENT COMMUNES, POLITICAL COUNTERCULTURE, AND THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROTEST OF 1968 Blake Slonecker A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Peter Filene Reader: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Reader: Jerma Jackson © 2006 Blake Slonecker ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT BLAKE SLONECKER: The Politics of Space: Student Communes, Political Counterculture, and the Columbia University Protest of 1968 (Under the direction of Peter Filene) This thesis examines the Columbia University protest of April 1968 through the lens of space. It concludes that the student communes established in occupied campus buildings were free spaces that facilitated the protestors’ reconciliation of political and social difference, and introduced Columbia students to the practical possibilities of democratic participation and student autonomy. This thesis begins by analyzing the roots of the disparate organizations and issues involved in the protest, including SDS, SAS, and the Columbia School of Architecture. Next it argues that the practice of participatory democracy and maintenance of student autonomy within the political counterculture of the communes awakened new political sensibilities among Columbia students. Finally, this thesis illustrates the simultaneous growth and factionalization of the protest community following the police raid on the communes and argues that these developments support the overall claim that the free space of the communes was of fundamental importance to the protest. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Peter Filene planted the seed of an idea that eventually turned into this thesis during the sort of meeting that has come to define his role as my advisor—I came to him with vast and vague ideas that he helped sharpen into a manageable project.
    [Show full text]
  • The Radical Feminist Manifesto As Generic Appropriation: Gender, Genre, and Second Wave Resistance
    Southern Journal of Communication ISSN: 1041-794X (Print) 1930-3203 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsjc20 The radical feminist manifesto as generic appropriation: Gender, genre, and second wave resistance Kimber Charles Pearce To cite this article: Kimber Charles Pearce (1999) The radical feminist manifesto as generic appropriation: Gender, genre, and second wave resistance, Southern Journal of Communication, 64:4, 307-315, DOI: 10.1080/10417949909373145 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10417949909373145 Published online: 01 Apr 2009. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 578 View related articles Citing articles: 4 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsjc20 The Radical Feminist Manifesto as Generic Appropriation: Gender, Genre, And Second Wave Resistance Kimber Charles Pearce n June of 1968, self-styled feminist revolutionary Valerie Solanis discovered herself at the heart of a media spectacle after she shot pop artist Andy Warhol, whom she I accused of plagiarizing her ideas. While incarcerated for the attack, she penned the "S.C.U.M. Manifesto"—"The Society for Cutting Up Men." By doing so, Solanis appropriated the traditionally masculine manifesto genre, which had evolved from sov- ereign proclamations of the 1600s into a form of radical protest of the 1960s. Feminist appropriation of the manifesto genre can be traced as far back as the 1848 Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention, at which suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin, and Mary Ann McClintock parodied the Declara- tion of Independence with their "Declaration of Sentiments" (Campbell, 1989).
    [Show full text]
  • The Student Voice, SNCC Newsletter, 1962-1963
    - THE STUDE Vol. 3, No. NT 1 Issued by the Student VOI Nonviolent Coordinating CE Committee,197 1/2 Auburn Ave., Atlanta 3, Ga.April, 1962 TALLADEGA PROTESTS I Student Group Moves After Negotiations Fail TALLADEGA, ALA. - Be­ By Bob Zellner ginning with a march of 400 students and faculty mem­ TALLADEGA, ALABAMA - bers, Talladega Collegetook The stimulus for leadership a giant step toward freeing and effective social change their city of segregation. at Talladega College is found The march followed fruit­ in the Social Action Com­ less negotiation with Talla­ mittee (SAC) a group found dega Mayor J . L. Hardwick within the framework of the TALLADEGA STUDENTS PROTEST - Talladega College on April 5. The students ask­ college's Student Govern­ s tudents s taged a protest march against segregation on ed the Mayor to present plans ment. As the movement at April 6. Joined by some teachers from the school, the stu- 1 for integration of public faci­ Talladega has grown, the dents paraded around the Talladega Courthouse bearing lities in the city, and when concept that every student signs reading "We Want Open Libraries" - We Want Equal no plan was forthcoming, the at the college is a member Opportunity." Social Action Committee Chairman Dorothy group marched in protest. of SAC has grown also, and Vails is on the right, above, being inte rviewed by a re- The march was peaceful, and the original smaller com­ porter. Photo by Zellner. Mayor Hardwick praised the mittee is thought of a plan­ students and the Talledega ning group. SNCC Con-ference Slated I community for their c alm- Dorothy Vails, a native of J ness.
    [Show full text]
  • The Counterculture of the 1960S in the United States: an ”Alternative Consciousness”? Mélisa Kidari
    The Counterculture of the 1960s in the United States: An ”Alternative Consciousness”? Mélisa Kidari To cite this version: Mélisa Kidari. The Counterculture of the 1960s in the United States: An ”Alternative Conscious- ness”?. Literature. 2012. dumas-00930240 HAL Id: dumas-00930240 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00930240 Submitted on 14 Jan 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Counterculture of the 1960s in the United States: An "Alternative Consciousness"? Nom : KIDARI Prénom : Mélisa UFR ETUDES ANGLOPHONES Mémoire de master 1 professionnel - 12 crédits Spécialité ou Parcours : parcours PLC Sous la direction de Andrew CORNELL Année universitaire 2011-2012 The Counterculture of the 1960s in the United States: An "Alternative Consciousness"? Nom : KIDARI Prénom : Mélisa UFR ETUDES ANGLOPHONES Mémoire de master 1 professionnel - 12 crédits Spécialité ou Parcours : parcours PLC Sous la direction de Andrew CORNELL Année universitaire 2011-2012 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Mr. Andrew Cornell for his precious advice and his
    [Show full text]
  • The Early Years 1965-1974
    Pioneering of the Simon Fraser University Daycare: The Early Years 1965-1974 by Barbara Bates M.A. (Liberal Studies), Simon Fraser University 2012 B.A. (Anthropology), Simon Fraser University, 2008 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Barbara Bates 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Barbara Bates Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title: Pioneering of the Simon Fraser University Daycare: The Early Years 1965-1974 Examining Committee: Chair: Helen Leung Professor Lara Campbell Senior Supervisor Professor Dara Culhane Supervisor Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Ellie Stebner Internal Examiner Associate Professor Department of Humanities Eryk Martin External Examiner Faculty Member Department of History Kwantlen Polytechnic University Date Defended/Approved: December 13, 2018 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract Simon Fraser University opened in September 1965 and from the very beginning, a significant number of students arrived with their children in tow. Children present on university campuses was not the norm in the 1960s and this phenomenon presented administrations with unexpected challenges. At Simon Fraser University the arrival of preschool children needing daycare, accompanied by parents, some of whom were political and part of the burgeoning student movement, some of whom were liberationists and part of the campus women’s movement, some of whom were faculty arriving with the promise of childminding, and some of whom were simply student/parents desperately in need of daycare; but not just any daycare.
    [Show full text]
  • 'The Only Position for Women in SNCC Is Prone'
    ‘The Only Position for Women in SNCC is Prone’ 29 ‘The Only Position for Women in SNCC is Prone’: Stokely Carmichael and the Perceived Patriarchy of Civil Rights Organisations in America 1 Sabina Peck Second Year Undergraduate, 1 University of New South Wales There is the danger in our culture that because a person is called upon to give public statements and is acclaimed by the establishment, such a person gets to the point of believing that he is the movement ... There are those, some of the young people [of SNCC] especially, who have said to me that if I had not been a woman I would have been well known in certain places, and perhaps held certain kinds of positions. – Ella Baker, 19702 Until relatively recently, historiography concerning the Civil Rights movement and its organisations has been fairly devoid of the study of the participation of women, focusing instead on certain charismatic, notably black male individuals such as Martin Luther King Jnr., Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X.3 Steven Lawson, for example, has traced the evolution of 1 Note the following abbreviations are used throughout the article: CORE- Congress of Racial Equality MFDP – Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People SCLC – Southern Christian Leadership Conference SNCC – Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee 2 Ella Baker, Developing Community Leadership, Taped interview with Gerda Lerner (December 1970) paragraphs 15 and 14, respectively. 3 Joan C. Browning explores the extent to which women’s activities have been glossed over in Civil Rights Historiography in her article, ‘Invisible Revolutionaries: White Women in Civil Rights Historiography’ Journal of Women’s History, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • ELCOCK-DISSERTATION.Pdf
    HIGH NEW YORK THE BIRTH OF A PSYCHEDELIC SUBCULTURE IN THE AMERICAN CITY A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By CHRIS ELCOCK Copyright Chris Elcock, October, 2015. All rights reserved Permission to Use In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of History Room 522, Arts Building 9 Campus Drive University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada i ABSTRACT The consumption of LSD and similar psychedelic drugs in New York City led to a great deal of cultural innovations that formed a unique psychedelic subculture from the early 1960s onwards.
    [Show full text]
  • Working Class
    A NEW WORKING CLASS Students for a Democratic Society and the United Auto Workers in the Sixties Amanda L. Bullock A NEW WORKING CLASS: Students for a Democratic Society and the United Auto Workers in the Sixties by Amanda Leigh Bullock A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelors of the Arts with Honors Department of History University of Michigan March 27, 2006 Advised by: Professor Matthew D. Lassiter © 2006 Amanda Leigh Bullock TABLE OF C ONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II INTRODUCTION: STUDENTS, MIDDLE AMERICANS, AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS 1 DEMOCRATIC DISSENT 4 HISTORIOGRAPHY 7 CHAPTER ONE: NATURAL ALLIES? 15 THE LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 17 THE PORT HURON STATEMENT: “AN AGENDA FOR A GENERATION” 19 THE “OLD” LEFT 23 THE NEW LEFT: THE NATURAL ALLIANCE OF THE LABOR AND CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTS? 27 STUDENTS AND LABOR 30 AUTONOMY 36 CHAPTER TWO: THE WAR ON POVERTY AND THE NEW INSURGENCY 42 THE CITIZENS’ CRUSADE AGAINST POVERTY 46 INSURGENCY TO THE WAR ON POVERTY 53 FROM FAYETTE COUNTY TO THE GHETTO 56 “AN INTERRACIAL MOVEMENT OF THE POOR” 60 THE FAILURE OF ERAP 67 FAILURE: THE CAMPUS VERSUS THE COMMUNITY 67 FAILURE: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF AN EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT 71 FAILURE: THE ESCALATION OF THE VIETNAM WAR 73 THE LEGACY OF THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH AND ACTION PROJECT 75 CHAPTER THREE: IMPLOSION 79 THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT: SDS OUTGROWS ITSELF 81 STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY’S 1968 WORK-IN 90 THE 1968 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 94 THE DEATH OF SDS 101 THE TROUBLED AMERICANS 106 PRIMARY SOURCES 113 BIBLIOGRAPHY 115 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I am indebted to Professor Matt Lassiter, without whose guidance and patience I never could have accomplished this.
    [Show full text]
  • The Commune Movement During the 1960S and the 1970S in Britain, Denmark and The
    The Commune Movement during the 1960s and the 1970s in Britain, Denmark and the United States Sangdon Lee Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of History September 2016 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement ⓒ 2016 The University of Leeds and Sangdon Lee The right of Sangdon Lee to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ii Abstract The communal revival that began in the mid-1960s developed into a new mode of activism, ‘communal activism’ or the ‘commune movement’, forming its own politics, lifestyle and ideology. Communal activism spread and flourished until the mid-1970s in many parts of the world. To analyse this global phenomenon, this thesis explores the similarities and differences between the commune movements of Denmark, UK and the US. By examining the motivations for the communal revival, links with 1960s radicalism, communes’ praxis and outward-facing activities, and the crisis within the commune movement and responses to it, this thesis places communal activism within the context of wider social movements for social change. Challenging existing interpretations which have understood the communal revival as an alternative living experiment to the nuclear family, or as a smaller part of the counter-culture, this thesis argues that the commune participants created varied and new experiments for a total revolution against the prevailing social order and its dominant values and institutions, including the patriarchal family and capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • From Civil Rights to Women's Liberation: Women's Rights in SDS
    From Civil Rights to Women’s Liberation: Women’s Rights in SDS and SNCC, 1960-1969 Anna Manogue History 4997: Honors Thesis Seminar 6 May 2019 2 “I had heard there was some infighting in the Women’s March between Jewish women and Black women, and I’m a Native American woman and I think it’s ridiculous that we’re dividing ourselves like this. We’re all women,” proclaimed Barbara McIlvaine Smith as she prepared to attend the third annual Women’s March in January of 2019.1 Smith’s comments succinctly summarized the ideological controversy over the intersection of race and gender— known since 1991 as intersectionality or intersectional feminism—that has plagued feminist activism since the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement in 1968.2 The concept of interactions between racial and sexual forms of oppression first emerged in the early 1960s, when women in the Civil Rights Movement began to identify similarities between the racial oppression they were fighting and the unequal treatment of women within their organizations. Many women asserted that their experiences as civil rights activists refined their understanding of gender inequality, improved their community organizing skills, and inspired their support of feminism.3 Historians have long acknowledged that women in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) first contemplated the connection between women’s rights and civil rights in the early 1960s and ultimately inspired their fellow women in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to instigate the Women’s Liberation Movement in 1968.4 During the 1960s, SNCC and SDS both gained reputations as staunchly democratic organizations dedicated to empowering students and creating a more equal society.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Liberation and Second-Wave Feminism: “The
    12_Gosse_11.qxd 11/7/05 6:54 PM Page 153 Chapter 11 WOMEN’S LIBERATION AND SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM: “THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL” Objectively, the chances seem nil that we could start a movement based on anything as distant to general American thought as a sex-caste system. —Casey Hayden and Mary King, “Sex and Caste,” November 18, 1965 Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men’s lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescribed behavior is enforced by the threat of physical violence.... We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy; men dominate women, a few men dominate the rest . All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women. We identify with all women. We define our best interest as that of the poorest, most brutally exploited woman. The time for individual skirmishes has passed. This time we are going all the way. Copyright © 2006. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. Macmillan. All rights © 2006. Palgrave Copyright —Redstockings Manifesto, 1969 Van, Gosse,. Rethinking the New Left : A Movement of Movements, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unistthomas-ebooks/detail.action?docID=308106.<br>Created from unistthomas-ebooks on 2017-11-17 13:44:54.
    [Show full text]