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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific Look At The Sixties Social Movement!, November 20, 2003
This review is from: The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (Paperback)
I stumbled upon this wonderful book as a used book at the local bookshop, and was delighted to discover just how complete and accurate a description it renders of the virtual kaleidoscope of activities associated with what came to be called 'the movement" in what was likely the most turbulent and tumultuous decade of the 20th century; the nineteen sixties. Professor Terry Anderson delivers a yeoman historian's look at the details of how what began as a fairly narrowly circumscribed civil rights effort on behalf of American blacks was transformed into a far-more comprehensive and sometimes all-inclusive broadside social and cultural critique of mainstream American society. In this book, "The Movement and the Sixties", Anderson breathes considerable life & pointed animation into a cautionary tale many of us actually lived through some forty years ago. Anderson finds the origins of the so-called movement in the civil rights movement originating in the Greensboro sit-in protests in 1960. Through meticulous research and impressive documentation, he traces how the combination of moral outrage, youthful energy, and the rapid economic changes transforming American society itself combined to create an almost unstoppable cultural force, one that literally brought millions of citizens into the streets into social activism, and in the process transformed almost every aspect of contemporary society, from race relations to sexual equality, from student activism to the cultural view on the war in Vietnam. This is indeed a penetrating effort that succeeds in meaningfully exploring the nature of the social history of the sixties generation, who dared to question the very nature of and validity surrounding the American social system. Anderson shows how the initial efforts of the civil rights activists eventually blossomed into a garden variety of different protest activities, most profoundly, of course, in connection with the war in Vietnam. In the fullness of time, the coalition of different communities in this widely-supported anti-war effort led to the further flowering of cultural criticism into many other areas of the contemporary culture, from minority rights to the counterculture, from gay rights to feminism. In the process, an impressive array of important aspects of our society came to be more closely examined, and were subsequently criticized and attacked, ranging from elements such as corporate polluters, who were then attacked by the environmental movement, to the behavior of organizations like the FBI and CIA, who were revealed later to have committed a wide range of transgressions against American citizens, most of whom had done nothing wrong and who the federal agencies had no legal right to either spy upon, nor to harass, nor to smear in the mass media, all of which was done. Anderson covers the history of the era with precision and a plethora of evidence regarding how the events and individuals depicted made the history of the times, and how profoundly they influenced how life in this country changed forever as a result. Enjoy!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent look at the 1960's, July 27, 2007
This review is from: The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (Paperback)
This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.
Terry H. Anderson did an exceptional job in his book delineating how a myriad of causes and movements got started and were conducted throughout the 1960's. Politically, the sixties were the most turbulent decade in America's history. Anderson took eight years to meticulously research and write a most informative book, explaining the chain of events that took place beginning in 1960 with a lunch counter sit-in at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ending with the end of the Vietnam War. This was not an easy task, considering many of the different movement organizations were not well organized, had no membership lists, and relied on small underground newspapers that were not published on a regularly scheduled basis. Anderson wisely noted that one can look back on the decade and glean from it much good for society that is still with us today; such as, the improvement in civil rights for minorities in America, and an awareness to improve the environment. One can also find social ills spawned by the decade that still plague American society today such as, the pernicious use of illegal drugs, and the sharp rise in teen-age pregnancy rates. Anderson took a different approach than most other historians who researched the sixties. He did not look at the decade from the standpoint of the leaders of the various movements, nor did he focus his attention on movement organizational history. Instead, Anderson's book is more of a national study of the sixties. In his approach, Anderson actually traced the chronological development of activism as it swept across the country, and how different movements allied with one another and/or became outgrowths of preceding struggles. In addition, he explained how activism spawned a completely new counter culture near the end of the decade. Thus, Anderson's book is an extremely useful social and political historical guide to the 1960's.
Anderson astutely traced how activism started with the struggle for civil rights that college students joined in the South. The sixties was also an age of television, and students were disgusted by the injustices and bloody violence against Blacks that they witnessed in news stories on television. Anderson noted that this was the catalyst that caused many White students to leave the safety of their college campuses, and travel down south on Freedom Rides to help Blacks fight the inequities of the Jim Crow laws. This activist desire to change America's status quo swept up both coasts, taking hold at elite universities where students created and joined liberal organizations. Once men started to go off to fight in Vietnam in 1965, activism started to change in two ways. First, besides just being involved in the civil rights struggle, activists took on the new cause of also demonstrating against the war. Secondly, activism spread to all the liberal cities across the country with large universities, including America's heartland. Although Anderson found that the New Left ideology came from many different influences, it was the ideas espoused in the Port Huron Statement, which typified many activists' dreams for how they wanted to transform American society.
In December of 1961, Robert Haber a University of Michigan student and president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), along with other members of a steering committee, understood that the organization needed a manifesto to express its political and social ideals. In June of 1962 at a campsite in Port Huron Michigan, 43 SDS members and a few other activists spent five days debating a draft manifesto written by Tom Hayden, a student at the University of Michigan and editor of its newspaper. What eventually emerged was the Port Huron Statement, which examined "American politics, economics, racism, and foreign policy; the nuclear issue; the role of students; communism; and the themes and values of SDS" (62). The first line in the statement embodied the reason why students in the sixties took to becoming activist. "We are people of this generation bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit." Anderson's research indicated that many activists believed the manifesto's significance was far reaching. The Port Huron Statement repudiated all the socio-economic and political values of the 1950's. It also proposed a new idealism that Hayden claimed was a bit to the left of the Democratic party for the sixties such as, advocating "social programs to fight poverty, establish national health care, help family farmers, and develop equal educational opportunities" (63). By the 1972 Democratic Party convention, many of the ideals of the Port Huron Statement found their way into the party platform. They were placed there by a plethora of minority delegates from various movement streams that had finally attained recognition in a major American political party. "Compared with 1968, the ratio of female delegates at the 1972 convention tripled to almost 40 percent, blacks tripled to 15 percent, and those under the age of 30 soared from 2 to over 20 percent" (397). They nominated the most liberal candidate in the party's, Senator George McGovern, who was soundly defeated by President Richard Nixon in the election.
In conclusion, although many movement activists took the loss of the 1972 election as a bitter defeat of their sixties idealism, Anderson astutely proved that activism did not die in 1972--it took a slower more peaceful pace. New activist movements, more recently termed "pressure groups," owe their birthright to the movements and activists of the sixties such as, Gray Power, a movement of senior citizens that was formed to advocate for their demands. The recent and intense focus on "global warming" is certainly an outgrowth of the sixties activists' concerns for the protection of the environment. Finally, Anderson's book showed that although various sixties movements such as the SDS, Hippies and Yippies may have disappeared, activism is a part of the lifeblood of both of America's political parties. Since the sixties, Americans have been more receptive to questioning socio-economic, political, and religious institutions.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, Civil Rights history.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Authoritative guide to who/what changed America in '60s, April 9, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Movement and The Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (Paperback)
As one of Dr. Anderson's former students, I happened upon this book in a local bookstore and recognized it as his. It is an outstanding, unique look at a time in American life when ACTION was how to be heard and how to get things done, instead of just words. If you remember the time, it's like a second, much more pleasurable walk through it. If you don't (or you were too young), this is the next best thing. Anderson's personable writing style makes an interesting topic even more wonderful to read.
Alison Fisher (alfisher@mail.utexas.edu)
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