Introduction
Introduction
This introductory chapter briefly explores the pivotal role of young blacks in social movements and political discourse, and looks at how this role diminished in the post-civil rights movement period. Youth-based activism has been central to black political historiography in the past century. Several youth groups such as the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were at the forefront of youth activism during the earlier half of the twentieth century. But by the mid-1970s the militant phase of the civil rights, black power, and New Left movements was virtually over and transformational movements—high-risk, geographically diffuse movements—declined toward the end of the twentieth century. The demobilization of these movements was due to political repression, movement fatigue, party realignment, and the triumph of the conservative agenda in the last three decades of the century.
Keywords: young blacks, social movements, political discourse, post-civil rights, youth activism, Southern Negro Youth Congress, political repression, black power, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.