Re: Re: Antiwar Movement & Civil Rights Movement

EDWARD P. MORGAN (epm2@lehigh.edu)
Sat, 20 Apr 1996 00:34:45 -0400

John Andrew offered a different take on civil rights vs. antiwar (structural
vs. ideological challenge).

Maybe this is just semantics (what do you mean by civil rights movement? I
distinguish it from the black power/black nationalist movement), but re.
John's:
>I would argue that this is not quite right - that is, the CR movement did
>challenge more profoundly than the antiwar movement the structural aspects
>of Amer. society

I'd ask WHAT structural aspects of American society were challenged (at all)
by the CR movement? As opposed to the black power movement, I see CR as a
fundamentally liberal movement (transforming the South into a model more like
the rest of the country via Dem. Party influence, national legislation, etc.),
yet one containing implications and practices that inclined in a radical direction, that could be and were taken that way (e.g.,
the democratic community organizing base of the poor people's movement, the
potential anti-capitalist strains of MLKing, the Panthers, the poor people's
movement, the very late Malcolm X, etc.) --as well as the other implications
mentioned by drieux re. other groups.

Ted Morgan