Dissent in the Heartland, Revised and Expanded Edition

Mary Ann Wynkoop

Description

During the 1960s in the heartlands of America—a region of farmland, conservative politics, and traditional family values—students at Indiana University were transformed by their realization that the personal was the political. Taking to the streets, they made their voices heard on issues from local matters, such as dorm curfews and self-governance, to national issues of racism, sexism, and the Vietnam War. In this grassroots view of student activism, Mary Ann Wynkoop documents how students became antiwar protestors, civil rights activists, members of the counterculture, and feminists who shaped a protest movement that changed the heart of Middle America and redefined higher education, politics, and cultural values. Based on research in primary sources, interviews, and FBI files, Dissent in the Heartland reveals the Midwestern pulse of the 1960s beating firmly, far from the elite schools and urban centers of the East and West. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue that document how deeply students were transformed by their time at IU, evidenced by their continued activism and deep impact on the political, civil, and social landscapes of their communities and country.

Acknowledgments
Introduction to the New Edition

Introduction
Prologue
1. The Dawn of Dissent
2. The Awakening of Activism
3. The Antiwar Movement
4. A Precarious Peace
5. Student Rights/Civil Rights: African Americans and the Struggle for Racial Justice
6. The Women's Movement: An Idea Whose Time Had Come
7. Bloomington and the Counterculture in Southern Indiana
Epilogue: The End of an Era at Indiana University
Epilogue to the New Edition
Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• 20th Century
• HISTORY
• EDUCATION
• Histoire
• History of the Americas
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 17 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253026743
• Langue: English

Extrait

DISSENT IN THE HEARTLAND
DISSENT IN THE HEARTLAND
The Sixties at Indiana University
Revised and Expanded Edition
Mary Ann Wynkoop
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
New introduction and epilogue 2017 by Mary Ann Wynkoop
First edition 2002 by Mary Ann Wynkoop
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier edition as follows:
Wynkoop, Mary Ann.
Dissent in the heartland : the sixties at Indiana University / Mary Ann Wynkoop.
p. cm. - (Midwestern history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-253-34118-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Indiana University-History-20th century. 2. Indiana University-Students-Political activity-History-20th century. 3. Student movements-Indiana-Bloomington-History-20th century. I. Title. II. Series.
LD2518.8 .W96 2002 378.772 255-dc21
2001007662
ISBN 978-0-253-02668-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-02674-3 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
In memory of
J EFF S HARLET AND C LARENCE R OLLO T URNER
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION
INTRODUCTION
Prologue
Chapter 1. The Dawn of Dissent
Chapter 2. The Awakening of Activism
Chapter 3. The Antiwar Movement
Chapter 4. A Precarious Peace
Chapter 5. Student Rights/Civil Rights: African Americans and the Struggle for Racial Justice
Chapter 6. The Women s Movement: An Idea Whose Time Had Come
Chapter 7. Bloomington and the Counterculture in Southern Indiana
Epilogue: The End of an Era at Indiana University
Epilogue to the New Edition
Conclusion
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Illustrations
1. March to the courthouse
2. Guy Loftman speaking to students
3. Secretary of State Dean Rusk
4. Protestors holding up peace armbands
5. Spring 1969 student gathering in Dunn Meadow
6. Former University of California chancellor Clark Kerr
7. James Retherford in devil costume
8. WITCH demonstration
9. First Earth Day celebration
10. IU students march after Kent State incident
11. Clarence Rollo Turner
12. Students gathered at the Black Market
13. The Black Market after the Klan bombing
14. Martha Vicinus
15. Spectator Headitorial
16. Spectator cover art
17. Spectator reader
18. Keith Parker
Acknowledgments
To David P. Thelen, my advisor: I offer thanks for your enthusiasm, your irrepressible sense of humor, and your support for this project. It s been a long, winding road from Columbia, Missouri, to Bloomington, Indiana, but I couldn t have asked for a better guide or a better friend. Muchas gracias.
To James Madison: the fact that these words are being printed is tribute to your faith and determination and sound advice. Thank you.
To Terry H. Anderson: your suggestions about revising this manuscript were invaluable.
To Gregory D. Black: you provided much-needed support and words of wisdom about how to survive academic life that have been immensely helpful.
Thanks also to Susan Armeny, Casey Blake, Richard Blackett, Susan Curtis, Jim O Brien, and Tom Poe, who have all provided valuable counsel at critical times.
Brad Cook at the Indiana University Archives gave much-needed help with lost citations and photographs. Indiana University and the Indiana State Historical Society offered essential financial support. Rosalie Donavan and Bonita Lewis helped with organizing the revisions of my revisions.
When you re a slow runner, you have lots of time to talk-thanks to Suzanne Crews for the proper perspective on life in general and to Molly Jessup for early morning walks. My brother, Allen Brauninger, has been generous and good-humored even when I have not. I owe him more than I can say. Finally, I want to acknowledge two people who died before I had a chance to thank them: Clarence Rollo Turner and Richard McKenzie.
This book is dedicated to the memories of my father and mother, Clarence and Edna Brauninger, whose love, patience, and compassion were a constant source of strength, and last, but certainly not least, to Thomas the tomcat, who at the age of twenty-five decided that he had done all that he could. I loved them all very much.
Introduction to the New Edition
Since Dissent in the Heartland was first published in 2002, America has changed in ways that few of the activists at Indiana University (IU) in the 1960s could have imagined. Many of the causes they fought for and the policies they struggled to make possible have become more or less real. Others remain on the horizon for future generations to grapple with. The war in Vietnam did end, only to be followed by a series of conflicts never named as wars. The civil rights movement achieved its most dramatic goal when Americans elected the first African American president, but segregated schools and communities remain very much a part of our landscape. Presently, the women s movement can claim one of its own as the Democratic nominee for the highest office, yet women continue to earn less than their male counterparts and dominate the poorest populations along with their children. Roe v. Wade (1973) made abortion legal, but continuing conservative attacks have left large numbers of women without accessible providers. Marriage equality for same-sex and transgendered citizens is legal at the same time that homophobia rears its ugly head in acts of violence and hatred.
Since 2002, I spent several years teaching American history and culture, including a course on the 1960s that usually drew a respectable number of students. I was encouraged by the continued interest in a period of history that I had studied and written about, though at the same time I was sometimes troubled by the misconceptions that popular culture had presented to many students about that decade. Like a wet blanket at a beach party, I tried to describe the very dark periods that many Americans lived through while simultaneously injecting the sense of humor and creativity that kept activists sane and productive. Contrary to television shows and films, many Americans supported the war in Vietnam, although by the early seventies a majority of citizens had turned against it. Only small groups of women embraced feminist ideals in the sixties, but twenty years later, the movement was successful enough to promote a backlash against it. While many African Americans and their white allies exhibited enormous courage in the civil rights movement, there were also substantial numbers who feared racial integration and either actively fought against it or retreated to restricted enclaves. The riot at Stonewall was an early milestone in the struggle for gay/lesbian rights, but it took decades of patient organizing and hard work for the recent judicial and legislative victories. And, yes, there were sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but it wasn t always the good time that we think of today. It was often hard to counteract the nostalgia students felt for a part of history they hadn t experienced directly.
Still, I will continue to argue that the experiences of 1960s activists, including those at Indiana University, provide valuable lessons for today s students. The fact that IU students were from mostly average backgrounds in the middle of the country makes the point that the entire country underwent significant challenges during those years, ones that we continue to face in one way or another today. In the end, they left the university a more open and egalitarian institution than it was before they came, but there will always be new causes, different roadblocks, and higher goals for future generations. The point they made, I think, is to keep trying, keep organizing, and keep on believing that you can make a difference.
In the end, while I tried to present the sixties as realistically as I could, I also concluded that it remains a significant period in my own experience as well as our larger national history. It was a time that was visionary in ways that continue to provide hope to those who share ideals of a more peaceful and humane society. I was only marginally a part of it, but I m very glad that I wrote about it, and I will be forever grateful to the people who shared that part of their lives with me, many of whom have pointed out errors and significant omissions in the text. I wish I could have corrected all of them, but I nevertheless dedicate this new edition to activists at IU in the 1960s (and 1970s), some of whom are gone but many of whom are still very much alive. This book would not exist without your generosity of spirit and willingness to tell your stories.
Introduction
This book is about students at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, during the 1960s. They came of age during a decade that stands as a turning point in American history. Many American