Misc

The civil-rights movement, which began to develop in 1960, was the first movement to

signal a new struggle for liberty and democracy in the United States, and it contained many

of the characteristics which, in a more highly developed form, would become part of the

New Left in the course of a few years. Integration was not the only objective at the center

of the civil-rights struggle; a new style of action, a new idealism, and a new interest in

politics were fundamental characteristics of the movement as well. During the preceding

decades there had been isolated groups fighting for integration, and the Supreme Court

decision of May 1954 requiring school desegregation could be considered in itself a result of

the pressure exercised by these liberal groups, as well as the beginning of a slow

movement, through legal action, toward the acquisition of a formally equal legal status for

blacks. The new movement was new not so much in its objectives as in the methods it

employed, the energy it mobilized, the strong feelings it aroused, and the interest it awoke

throughout the country—especially among young people—after a decade of apathy. Its

novelty lay precisely in the development of a "movement" which embodied both ideals and

action at the same time. It aroused debate, but also deeply involved people's lives,

progressively transforming mental attitudes, material habits and perspectives for the tens or

hundreds of activists at the center of the movement as well as for those millions of people

whose lives were affected by it. What occurred at the beginning of 1960 was a revival of

politics itself, both in terms of participation by people in the decisions affecting their own

lives and in the rebirth of a radical movement which, in the course of a few years, would

come to involve an ever-growing number of young people.

Sit-ins, pickets, marches, and all kinds of demonstrations took place in the South in 1960

and 1961, without much coordination, through...