The Sixties New Social Movements and Cultural Critique on the Left

Revival of the “Left” By the 1960s, American political discourse began to thaw from the McCarthy era, and it was possible once again to begin to critique inequality, foreign policy, and cultural conformity in America But many of the old liberal and left organizations had either become part of the “establishment” – e.g., labor; or beyond the pale politically, e.g., the Communist Party USA.

New Social Movements on the Left Sources: –Continuing struggles of the Civil Right movement –Challenges to American policies in the Cold War –Cultural and social critiques of affluent America

A Generational Challenge Civil Rights organizations. –NAACP (1909) –Urban League (1910) –Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC (1957) –Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (1960) –Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) (1942) –Black Panther Party (1966)

A Generational Challenge Resurgence of Feminism: –National Organization for Women (1966) –Women’s Liberation movement (1968) Redstockings SCUM New York Radical Women

A Generational Challenge Old Left to New Left. –Communist Party USA (1919) –Socialist Party (1896) –Students for a Democratic Society (1960) –Berkeley Free Speech Movement (1964) –War Resister’s League (founded in 1923)

A Generational Challenge To “lifestyle” movements for a “counterculture” –“hippies” –Live the life of “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” –Rock Festivals: Monterey, Woodstock….

Radicalization over the decade Protesting for peace and civil rights and against the war in Vietnam –From teach ins and peaceful protests ( ) –To sit ins and draft resistance ( ) –To open support for the Communists in Vietnam (1969 and later) and –Militant attacks on the American “war machine” - including incidents of terrorism (1970 and later).

Radicalization over the decade Agitating for Civil Rights –From lunch counter sit ins at Woolworth (1960) –To “Freedom rides” to desegregate interstate buses (1961) –To voter registration drives in the South: Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964) –To Selma March (1965) –To Meredith March in Mississippi (1966) –To calls for “Black Power” and Black Nationalism

Selma, 1965

Meredith March, 1966

BLACK POWER “Black Power is not Black supremacy; it is a united Black voice reflecting racial pride in the tradition of our heterogeneous nation. Black Power does not mean the exclusion of White Americans from the Negro Revolution; it means the inclusion of all men in a common moral and political struggle.” Floyd McKissick, CORE chairman

Black Panther Party

Women’s Liberation Challenged women’s economic and social inequality Coined new terms: sexism And new slogans: “The personal is political” Started new organizational forms: consciousness raising groups Alternative information for women: Ms Magazine (1971) and…..

New manifestos and tracts The Politics of HouseworkThe Politics of Housework The Myth of the Vaginal OrgasmThe Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm No More Miss AmericaNo More Miss America Boston Women’s Health Collective (1970)

As the decade continued… Continued resistance of mainstream institutions pushed some in these movements to more radical positions and thus to vilification in the media… By the early 1970s, there were a variety of new left, antiwar, pro peace, feminist, black nationalist, hippie, radical, counterculture organizations in the US… And they also generated a “counter” movement on the right….