eBook

Peace and Freedom

SIMON HALL

2011,2005

Overview

Two great social causes held center stage in American politics in the 1960s: the civil rights movement and the antiwar groundswell in the face of a deepening American military commitment in Vietnam. InPeace and Freedom, Simon Hall explores two linked themes: the civil rights movement's response to the war in Vietnam on the one hand and, on the other, the relationship between the black groups that opposed the war and the mainstream peace movement. Based on comprehensive archival research, the book weaves together local and national stories to offer an illuminating and judicious chronicle of these movements, demonstrating how their increasingly radicalized components both found common cause and provoked mutual antipathies.Peace and Freedomshows how and why the civil rights movement responded to the war in differing ways-explaining black militants' hostility toward the war while also providing a sympathetic treatment of those organizations and leaders reluctant to take a stand. And, while Black Power, counterculturalism, and left-wing factionalism all made interracial coalition-building more difficult, the book argues that it was the peace movement's reluctance to link the struggle to end the war with the fight against racism at home that ultimately prevented the two movements from cooperating more fully. Considering the historical relationship between the civil rights movement and foreign policy, Hall also offers an in-depth look at the history of black America's links with the American left and with pacifism. With its keen insights into one of the most controversial decades in American history,Peace and Freedomrecaptures the immediacy and importance of the time.

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc,University of Pennsylvania Press
• Subject: 1960–1980 / 1963–1969 / 20th Century / African American civil rights workers / African Americans / African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 20th century / African Americans -- Politics and government -- 20th century / Civil rights / Civil rights movements / Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century / Contemporary history / Government policy / HISTORY / Peace movements / Peace movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century / Politics and government / Protest movements / Race relations / Social conditions / Social movements / U.S.A / United States / United States -- Politics and government -- 1963-1969 / United States -- Race relations / United States -- Social conditions -- 1960-1980 / Vietnam War / Vietnam War, 1961-1975 / Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements / Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975
• ISBN: 0812219759, 9780812219753, 0812238397, 9780812238396