This is in response to Julie Reuben's posting on '60s campus activism.
I hope that in your research into campus activism in the 60s you are looking
beyond NSA (National Student Association) (unless you're defining your
subject very narrowly). NSA was valuable in many ways but consisted mainly
of delegates from student government and was a great forum for discussion but
it was not an action organization and the people who went were generally not
activists but student government types. Tho some student governments did get
involved in campus reforms, that was not the main activism of the 60s.
Sometimes student government people turned into activists. SDS (Students for
a Democratic Society) saw NSA as a way to meet and recruit smart, thinking
students and let them know more about social/political issues. Some NSA
delegates became very involved in SDS and other groups after NSA congresses
and SDS and other groups urged NSA to act more, but it was not a hotbed of
student activism. I was an alt NSA delegate from Radcliffe in 1962, mostly
because I had led a big (& successful) fight against dorm ('parietal') hours
on campus. I knew about SDS before that NSA congress but learned much more
about it there, soon got more involved in SDS, and went back to NSA 2 years
later, when I was asst nat'l sec of SDS, to run SDS's 'Liberal Study Group"
(a caucus to present a more liberal/radical view of things) at the 1964 NSA
congress (as I remember we took SDS literature, put out a daily paper, and
held meetings on social issues).
I hope you managed to catch the showing of REBELS WITH A CAUSE at the Harvard
Film Archives a few weeks ago. The film covers only a small amount of what
was happening on campuses (and omits, because of time constraints, most of
the campus-only-oriented battles, such as campus rules and free speech) but
will give you a different perspective and a good idea of what was happening
on campuses then.
Helen Garvy (director, REBELS WITH A CAUSE)
26873 Hester Creek Rd
Los Gatos, CA 95033
sdsrebels@aol.com
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