Sixties Texts/another view

Clarence Mohr (mohr@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu)
Tue, 3 Sep 1996 16:17:25 -0400

I suspect that there may have been a certain amount of regional
variation in student reading during the 1960s. If my experience in Alabama
was at all typical white students tended to discover books published "up
North" (i. e. all books) rather belatedly--often when a young professor
was brave enough to assign a controversial work on race in a course. In
fact I think that books about race and the black experience probably loomed
larger and endured longer on southern campuses than elsewhere.

My personal list of nominations would include many of the works
discussed in Philip D. Beidler, SCRIPTURES FOR A GENERATION: WHAT WE WERE
READING IN THE 60s (Athens and London:University of Georgia Press, 1994).
Excluding books on feminism and ecology, I can recall reading perhaps
1/2-2/3 of the authors he mentions as an undergraduate between 1964 and
1968, and many of the others after entering graduate school.

The collection tends to neglect of older fiction (e.g. Howard
Fast's FREEDOM ROAD) and historical works which spoke to contemporary
concerns (e.g. C. Vann Woodward, THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW; W. J.
Cash, THE MIND OF THE SOUTH; Carleton Mabee, BLACK FREEDOM: THE NONVIOLENT
ABOLITIONISTS FROM 1830 THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR, or August meier and Elliott
Rudwick, CORE.) which were accessable to a wide audience and often had a
greater shaping influence than sociology or philosophy.

Sincerely,

Clarence Mohr

P. S. Nearly everyone I knew read Kerouac, James Baldwin, Anne Moody, and
CATCH 22. A great many also read LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN.

Clarence L. Mohr
Department of History
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA, 70118
(504) 862-8618
FAX (504) 862-8739
mohr@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu