During the 1960s, there was a spike in student activism throughout the United States. The goal of the student movements was to effect what they believed to be positive change and to eliminate what they perceived to be negative elements of American culture. The movements were also branded the term “New Left” because their beliefs were mostly leftist- they opposed social hierarchy and demanded for equality instead. The agenda of these student activism movements was appealing to many campus youths. Some of the regional and national student organizations that were dominant in this era included the Southern Student Organization and Students for a Democratic Society. The birth of these student movements was partly motivated by the fact that the generation of campus students who were in college during the 1960s believed the 1950s represented an era of authoritarianism, stagnation and complacency (Beilke,2017). In addition, the youth culture in this period disagreed with the segregation of the African Americans, who lived in an oppressive world that was created by Jim Crow laws. The students were against the conformist culture and institutionalized racism against African Americans.
Nonetheless, it was in 1964, at the University of California at Berkeley, that the student movement gained momentum (Rorabaugh,1989). The university had suddenly made efforts to suppress political speech and assembly. Students who were already involved in civil rights activism were provoked into protesting for free speech. Consequently, other student campuses across the country were emboldened to become more politically vocal. For instance, at the University of Michigan, the Student for a Democratic Society was formed to protest against cold war-motivated US foreign policy. The idea of participatory democracy was developed and propagated by the leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society, who wrote a manifesto that was adopted by other student activist groups of the 1960s. The Students for a Democratic Society represented the beginning of non-ideological student radicalism that unlike the previous generation of American radicals, preferred left opposition to permeationism (Beilke,2017). They led protests against racial discrimination and poverty and were extremely dissatisfied with the fact that the older generations appeared to be blind to the plight of the African American people.
The accomplishments of these student activism groups regarding race politics were significant. For instance, the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960, that primarily involved spirited invasions of lunch counters, were initiated by four teenagers. The sit-ins spread to close to 60 cities in a matter of weeks. Consequently, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed. SNCC coordinated the sit-ins, and later on, fueled voter registration rights and Freedom Rides in the American South. Therefore, the sit-ins inspired support for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-the legislation made discrimination in public places illegal (Beilke,2017). However, as it became apparent that the Vietnam war was getting increasing attention from the American military, the student-led protests prioritized anti-war campaigns as their primary agenda. Many universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, had student groups that mobilized support within campuses for anti-war actions
The spirited antagonism against the war from the student movements inspired similar protests from other segments of society, including Vietnam veterans, civil rights organizations, and religious groups. The antiwar activism gained so much momentum that the president’s war efforts were significantly undermined. For instance, students used tactics such as barricading themselves in their hostels and sabotaging administrative activities in protest against the state’s Vietnam-era contract with a company that specialized in weapons research. Their bravery led to the cancellation of the contract. The late 1960s saw the emergence of intense student-led anti-war activity from the Students for a Democratic Society at the such as the formation of a student-soldier antiwar group, the GI-Civilian Alliance for Peace. Members of GI-CAP, some of whom were actively involved in the war, organized marches, conferences, underground newspapers for the military, and greatly inspired antiwar sentiments within the military.
Other principles of the student activism movements included counterculture and social progressivism. Social progressivism, a leftist ideal, played an essential role in multiculturalism, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and the abolition of slavery. The New Left that the 1960s’ student movements belonged to was associated with a broader focus of social activism that did not only include protests against classism, but that also included problems such as sexual orientation, race, and gender. The student movements, therefore, did not seek after union action but believed that they could initiate an improved version of social revolution (Rorabaugh,1989). The social revolution that the student activists called for, inspired by the ideas of social progressivism and counterculture, opposed the existing societal authority structures which were referred to as “The Establishment”. The views of the New Left, because they provided direction for student activists, led to the rise of feminism, considering that leftism strongly supports gender equality. The struggle against a sexist and patriarchal society, therefore, led to the growth of the women’s liberation movement and social feminism.
Therefore, Berkeley’s interpretation of the 1960s is correct. Some of the lasting effects of the Baby boom generation, therefore, include an increased acceptance of equality as a social ideal. The modern world actively protects the rights of women, the LGBTQ movement, minorities and potential victims of war because of the counterculture and anti-war efforts led by students in the 1960s. Additionally, the modern world has widely embraced democracy and has resisted traditional forms of authority that were commonplace in the 1950s and 1960s. The student activist movements of the 1960s, therefore, impacted America and other nations for generations.