Struggle for a Better South
Subtitle: The Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964-1969
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: November 4, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 340
ISBN-13: 9781403960108
Subjects: Southern States; United States - 20th Century; Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights; History - U.S; Student movements; History: American; Southern Student Organizing Co; Political activity; United States - 20th Century/60s; Social Science / Minority Studies; History; Minority Studies - General; 20th century; College students
First sentence: The ten civil rights marchers were tired, sore, and scared as they approached the state highway patrolmen, national reporters, and 1,500 white onlookers who awaited them at the Alabama state line on May 3, 1963.
Description: "Struggle for a Better South dispels the notion that all whites in the South stood united against social change in the 1960s. Gregg Michel's study of the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), the leading progressive organization created by young white activists in the South during that tumultuous decade, fills a crucial gap in the literature about New Left activism. Michel shows that the SSOC was the only activist group of the era that worked to cultivate white support for the social movement. The SSOC's members gave themselves the task of reconciling their love for the South and its history - warts and all - with their modern-day commitment to equality and justice for all people."--BOOK JACKET.