Edward K. Spann: Democracy’s Children: The Young Rebels of the 1960s and the Power of Ideals

Précis by Rebecca McMackin

Edward K. Spann’s Democracy’s Children examines the motivations behind the radical youth of the 1960’s from several different class structures and races. The generation that followed “the greatest generation” participated in and launched some of America’s largest social movements including anti-segregation, the stop the war in Vietnam, freedom of speech, and women’s rights (3). The question that Spann attempts to answer is: how? How did a generation of young radicals generate such a passion for change in America?

According to Spann, by democratic ideals this generation of youths was motivated instilled in them by their parents. These youths were the product of values that were associated with the New Deal and World War II. At the end of World War II, there was a “hope for a new and better world” (3). People not only wanted families, but they wanted large families. Parents practicing new democratic ideals in marriage also applied them to childrearing. Accordingly, children were raised to be “oriented more toward love and were more likely to judge others based on intrinsic worth rather than race or nationality” (11).

The first step towards democratic childrearing was the influence of school. The “baby boom” of the 1940’s resulted in much larger enrollments in schools. Progressive education fostered democratic ideals in students by focusing on the importance of the individual and imparting to children skills worth knowing for the future (18). However, there was a backlash against progressive education. When it came time for students to enroll in college, they lacked academic discipline. After the launch of Sputnik, the National Defense Education geared curriculum towards math, science, and foreign languages to generate “talented” students (20). Over time, students rebelled against the emphasis of standard-based education.

As students matured into teenagers, parents did not know how to interact with them. Because family life had been structured on democratic ideals, there was very little room for emotions to be displayed. The gap between generations began to widen when teens embraced rock and roll and became fascinated with sex. The appeal of rock and roll allowed youths to develop a subculture different from that of their parents. As the sexual revolution began in America, there was an increase in venereal disease among teenagers and illegitimate births among teenage girls. These issues, originally seen as problems of the lower-class, were spreading to the middle-class (27). Accompanying the heightened interest in sex was an increase in the use of narcotics as drug abuse and crime became significant problems. Critics were quick to blame parents. Youth Councils and organizations such as the Peace Corps were created to provide teens with a productive outlet for restlessness. Although the Peace Corps and Youth Council were successful channels for teens, colleges and universities provided them with opportunities to mature.

The percentage of college-bound students increased among men and women of all social classes and races. As enrollment increased, so did competition for admission, allowing colleges to adopt “admissions policies designed to upgrade the overall quality of their new students” (35). Products of progressive education in elementary and high school, youths were unhappy with the college curriculum. Youths were eager to learn about real life and favored “free universities” where they could actively participate in the educational process and learn what they believed was relevant. By the end of the 1950’s, the assertiveness of student newspapers and student governments on campus grew to call attention to the traditional democratic process. College-age youth were “becoming a force for progress, opening new channels for social protest and change” (43). This force of progress was one to be enjoyed by all races.

Although African Americans enjoyed some of the benefits of progress, they remained far behind whites. Inequality kept many African Americans from escaping the ghetto. There were two major avenues out of the slums: education and a decent job (49). However, due to inequalities in schooling, many African Americans dropped out of school. With little education, they were hardly prepared for the work force. Those who dropped out of school were more likely to join gangs and become juvenile delinquents. They made up a “hip style” culture, creating their own dress style and sexualized language and using drugs. World War II had spurred anti-segregation movements calling for equality in education. African American youths began participating in non-violent boycotts that included the participation of whites in fighting segregation. Fighting segregation contributed to a steady rise of radical thought and behavior among those in the new generation (59).

Many white youths participated in fighting segregation because they had been raised during a time of progress; they wanted to show they could rise above a challenge to make life worth living (61). The formation of such groups as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) allowed students to pursue radical activism. Sit-ins, protests, and arrests were common on college campuses as students rallied for integration and equal rights. The ideal of the democratic family influenced student behavior and participation in civil rights activism (66). As US involvement in Vietnam expanded, students began to believe that their faith in the democratic system was being threatened.

Increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam fueled anti-war sentiment on campuses across the country. Although students against the war were the minority, they were able to recruit people to their cause by emphasizing the character of the war and how the war sacrificed money and attention that was needed to solve problems at home (82). The use of violence emerged among younger participants as part of the anti-war sentiment. SNCC continued to focus on the abolition of discrimination, leading to the emergence of “Black Power” among African Americans. After the formation of the Black Panther Party in 1966, programs were created to improve life in the ghettos (92). Colleges and universities began recruiting black students from the ghettos to participate in sports. Sports programs created nonpolitical riots when teams played each other since it didn’t take much for youth rebels to participate in youth violence.

Though many youths resorted to violence in their determination to reject conventional social norms, a minority of youth rebels used their appearance to identify themselves as part of a “counterculture.” These hippies experimented with drugs and uninhibited sex to heighten awareness “of their own inner selves” (105). “Hippie-ghettos emerged primarily in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and New York’s Greenwich Village, promoting peace, love, and brotherhood.

By 1972, millions of youths were of age to vote in the presidential election. As the war in Vietnam continued, the National Student Association “set up a committee to organize a political campaign against the reelection of President Johnson in 1968” (123). Student movements rallied behind Senator Eugene McCarthy, but McCarthy proved to be a weak candidate, and Hubert Humphrey secured the Democratic nomination. Humphrey, however, lost the presidential election to Richard Nixon. The primary reason: youths didn’t vote. Political groups such as the Yippies, Progressive Labor Party, and the Weathermen emerged during the 1972 presidential campaign, but all failed in their attempts to spread radicalism. Instead, radicalism began to decline on college campuses. In the next presidential election, those youths who did vote voted for Nixon over McGovern because they “preferred to give the incumbent president a chance to fulfill his promise to end the war with dignity” (136). Nixon won by a landslide. The seventies had brought the new generation “into a mood where self was far more important than social concerns” (138).

The maturing youth of the 1970’s fell into the Consciousness III, where there was concern for the welfare of every individual, respect for individuality, and brotherhood (142). Culture, environmentalist, and human potential movements emerged as youths searched for pleasure as part of the Me Generation. “Equal rights for all races” continued to be a theme for racial equality, but also expanded into women’s rights and gay rights movements. There was a moral change in society that created two subdivisions of youth: those born in the 1940’s, who were “reared to purse the ideal of the democratic family” and those “subjected to the greater influence of the Cold War conservatism and television” (153). Students who had participated in radical movements in the sixties were now using college to help prepare them for jobs.

Youths who participated in movements of the sixties traveled down different paths going into the seventies. Some sought refuge in exotic religions while others “tried to combine their occupations with continued efforts to change society” (160). There were those who continued to fight against racial and sexual discrimination and those who took jobs, bought homes, and raised families. Triumphs for youths during the sixties had two profound developments: the counterculture movement and the war in Vietnam (165). Unlike their parents, however, as the youths entered into adulthood, they were reluctant to have large families or even families at all. As a result, the seventies saw a drastic drop in population. Negative feelings after the Johnson administration deferred parenthood as did improvements in birth control (168). Democracy’s children have moved on, involved in a life of spending rather than contributing (171).