"What My Generation Makes of America": American Youth Citizenship, Civil Rights Allies, and 1960s Black Freedom Struggle

The nursery'sIronCurtain: Children, childhood, and the globalColdWar

“…For example, several recent works draw heavily on children's correspondence. Historians often discovered these letters in archival collections unrelated specifically to youth such as repositories of letters to public figures (see, e.g., Berghel, ; Berghel, in press; Elliott, in press; Fieldston, in press). Children's missives are complicated sources, and scholars must keep in mind the ways in which they were mediated or even coerced.…”

“…Young activists' work was bolstered by American leaders' desire to showcase U.S. democracy and racial liberalism. As one high schooler noted in a letter to segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace: “[n]ot only has your behavior caused suffering and death, but in a sense it has left us wide open to communism, our greatest enemy, so they say” (Berghel, , p. 431). But the Cold War also limited young people's activism, forcing them to contend with civil rights opponents who sought to discredit them as communists (de Schweinitz, , p. 192).…”

“…For example, Susan Eckelmann Berghel examines letters written by children and teenagers to Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders during the 1960s. Highlighting young voices painstakingly recovered from collections of letters to public figures, Berghel () demonstrates how youth culture provided a venue for children and teenagers to articulate claims to citizenship and participate in efforts to shape politics. Rebecca de Schweinitz () offers a comprehensive look at the role of youth in civil rights activism.…”

A Cultural History of Youth in the Modern Age

“…In letters such as this one, Black and white youth articulated disappointment, anger, frustration, and sometimes shame at racist policies, at American political leaders' failure to uphold democracy, and at the uneven distribution of political rights. The targeted expression of emotions in letters thus played into the process through which young people began to act as participatory political agents (Berghel 2017).…”