Re: [sixties-l] "Generation" as the wrong focus

From: Paul Lyons (Plyons@stockton.edu)
Date: Tue Jun 06 2000 - 12:14:12 CUT

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    I want to second Marty Jezer's comments and add to them: I am working on a
    study of the Movement in Philadelphia and have found that there were a
    number of inbetween generational folks--between the Depression generation
    and the baby-boomers--who played significant roles, but not in a singular
    way. Several--Marty Oppenheimer and Leo Kormis, both born in the
    1930s--came out of Old Left struggles, were Schactmanites, YSPLs, but were
    able to see something new--they were learners, especially re the civil
    rights movement--and helped baby-boom new leftists to keep their eyes on
    the prize of democracy. Others were more apolitical during the 1950s,
    getting their degrees, having families, but were politicized by civil
    rights and the war, often taking leadership roles in organizations like
    SANE, Clergy and Layman, campus faculty groups, etc. There's a book to be
    written about these folks who don't fit the conceit of a baby-boom 60s
    generation, both the war-babies noted in some commentary and what I'll call
    the 1948 generation(Wallace and then downhill). Paul Lyons



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