Wonderful points by Marty, Jeremy, Ted. Great having this list back.
Well, THIS ancient "pre-babyboomer" (born 1939) remembers the leadership of
the antiwar movement in the 1960s being nearly entirely pre-1945ers; I think
the change may have have come with the Weatherpeople? Or with us wwII-grown
pulling back ("a year later [after People's Park] we had all gone somewhere
else," as whatshername says in B. in the Sixties).
I also remember going from anti-Axis/pro-U.S. childhood sentiments through
TERROR OF THE BOMB, beginning around 1948 or so--in conjunction, too, with
the obvious points about McCarthy and the like--viz. "Taking the 5th
amendment doesn't mean they're Communists"--and "How can there be national
security" [the '50s excuse, n.b., for everything not ascribed conveniently
instead to "normal" or "togetherness" behavior] when the Bombs'll kill all of
us"--rather thoroughly turned off any nationalism/ patriotism. Remember that
the bombs were, for those of us raised in "comfortable circumstances,"
usually the most easily recognizable "point of oppression". And a sense of
fairness--an American value instilled not only by WWII us-vs.-Axis (and Cold
War us-vs.-bad-bad-Commies) stuff but by watching good ol' American cowboy
movies, as we did, made McCarthyism immediately suspect. By the late
'50s, I think few of us were "patriotic" in the least, though--especially if
we were in the intellectual crowd at "good" universities; civil rights issues
and, soon, the rights of lives of people in Viet Nam--seemed more a universal
ethical issue.
More than that, from--for me, anyway--1965 on, the issue was one of
empathy with these persons, of connection with one's feelings, really a form
of anarchism.
This for some led easily to environmentalism, sisterhood, other forms of
connection--and I'm glad someone else has noted there were 1939 etc. born
women's in the leadership. It did not go too easily, however--if one hadn't
oneself experienced economic or ethnic oppression much, yet, anyway--into the
more violent forms of protest, thus one reason for the isolation of those
groups.
Generally, there seemed, in Berkeley anyway, lots of '30s activists
involved, often as leaders. And I remember marching around Glen Echo in 1961
or so, where there were many young--but not necessarily THAT young--ministers
and theology students from Howard leading. And indeed there were the Beats,
the NY intellectuals of the Paul Goodman variety, the folk singers--the
"generation" born as early as the late 1920s. Generationally, there seems to
have been a sort of wave motion; yet also my memory backs Bill Mandel's point
that there was a sharp break to the COFO/NSM/SDS groups.
Paula
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