America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s

366 Pages·1999·3.18 MB·English

by  Maurice Isserman

A
MERICA
D
IVIDED
The Civil War of the 1960s
MAURICE ISSERMAN
MICHAEL KAZIN
NEW YORK OXFORD
Oxford University Press
2000
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 2000 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Isserman, Maurice.
America divided : the Civil War of the 1960’s / Maurice Isserman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-19-509190-6. — ISBN 0-19-509191-4 (pbk.)
1. United States—History—1961–1969. 2. Kazin, Michael, 1948–
I. Title.
E841.I87 1999
973.923—DC21 99–13711
CIP
Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To
D a n i e l K a z i n
R u t h I s s e r m a n
M a i a K a z i n
D a v i d I s s e r m a n
THEEIGHT YEARSIN AMERICA FROM 1860 TO 1868 UPROOTED INSTITUTIONS
THATWERECENTURIESOLD, CHANGEDTHEPOLITICSOFAPEOPLE, TRANSFORMED
THESOCIALLIFEOFHALFTHECOUNTRY, ANDWROUGHTSOPROFOUNDLYUPON
THEENTIRENATIONAL CHARACTERTHAT THEINFLUENCECANNOT BEMEASURED
SHORTOFTWO ORTHREEGENERATIONS.
—Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age:
A Tale of To-Day (1873)
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1. Gathering of the Forces 7
2. Black Ordeal, Black Freedom 23
3. The New Frontier of American Liberalism 47
4. Why Did the United States Fight in Vietnam? 67
5. 1963 83
6. The Rise of the Great Society 103
7. 1965 127
8. The Making of a Youth Culture 147
9. The New Left 165
10. The Fall of the Great Society 187
11. The Conservative Revival 205
12. 1968 221
13. Many Faiths: The ’60s Reformation 241
14. No Cease-Fire: 1969–1974 261
Conclusion: Winners and Losers 293
Critical Events During the Long 1960s 301
Bibliographical Essay 309
Notes 315
Index 345
vii
Preface
“History,” a great scholar once declared, “is what the present wants to know
about the past.” We have written this book to make sense of a period that
continues to stir both hot debate and poignant reminiscence in the United
States and around the world. The meaning of the ’60s depends, ultimately,
upon which aspects of that time seem most significant to the retrospective
observer. We have chosen to tell a story about the intertwined conflicts—
over ideology and race, gender and war, popular culture and faith—that trans-
formed the U.S. in irrevocable ways. The narrative does not remain within
the borders of a single decade; like most historians, we view “the ’60s” as de-
fined by movements and issues that arose soon after the end of World War
II and were only partially resolved by the time Richard Nixon resigned from
the presidency.
Our own friendship is a creation of the long 1960s and its continuing af-
termath. We met in 1970 in Portland, Oregon—two young radicals of col-
lege age who cared a great deal more about changing history than studying
it. For a while, we lived in the same “revolutionary youth collective” and
wrote for the same underground paper—signing only our first names to ar-
ticles as an emblem of informality. We then left to attend graduate school on
different coasts and found teaching jobs at different schools. But a passion
for understanding and telling the story of the ’60s brought us together as
writers. In the late ’80s, we coauthored an article on the failure and success
of the New Left and began to consider writing a study of the period as a
whole.
That shared past animates our story but does not determine how we’ve
told it. While still clinging to the vision of a democratic Left, we certainly do
not endorse all that radicals like ourselves were doing in the 1960s. And, un-
like some earlier scholars and memoirists, we no longer view the narrative
of the Left—old, new, or liberal—as the pivot of the 1960s, around which
other events inevitably revolve. What occurred during those years was too
important and too provocative to be reduced to the rise and fall of a politi-
ix
x America Divided
cal persuasion. We intend this to be a book for people who were not alive in
the ’60s as well as for those who may remember more than they can explain
about that time in their life and in world history.
A variety of people were indispensable to the making of this book. At
Oxford University Press, Nancy Lane convinced us to embark on it, and Gioia
Stevens inherited the assignment and handled both the developing manu-
script and its authors with intelligence and grace. Stacie Caminos and Karen
Shapiro, artisans of the book trade, prodded and instructed. And Brenda Griff-
ing copyedited splendidly.
We got essential aid on the illustrations from Lisa Kirchner and a few
good shots from David Onkst, Todd Gitlin, Jefferson Morley, Pamela Nadell,
David Weintraub, Paul Buhle, and Paula Marolis.
Two of America’s finest historians helped us avoid at least the most ob-
vious errors. Leo Ribuffo critiqued a draft of the religion chapter, and Nel-
son Lichtenstein gave the entire book a perceptive and encouraging read.
We thank our families for continuing to persevere through yet another
’60s story. Beth Horowitz, as always, was a demon on bad prose and sloppy
thinking. Marcia Williams took time off from her law school education to re-
mind her husband of the importance of the Warren Court. We dedicate the
book to our children. Now, it’s their turn.
Introduction
WEHAVENOT YET ACHIEVED JUSTICE. WEHAVENOT YET CREATED A UNION
WHICH IS, IN THEDEEPESTSENSE, A COMMUNITY. WEHAVENOTYETRESOLVED
OURDEEPDUBIETIESORSELF-DECEPTIONS. IN OTHERWORDS, WEARESADLYHU-
MAN, AND IN OURCONTEMPLATION OFTHECIVILWARWESEEA DRAMATIZA-
TION OFOURHUMANITY; ONEAPPEALOFTHEWARISTHATITHOLDSIN SUS-
PENSION, BEYOND ALL SCHEMATIC READINGS AND CLAIMS TO TOTAL
INTERPRETATION, SO MANYOFTHEISSUESAND TRAGICIRONIES—SOMEHOW ES-
SENTIALYETINCOMMENSURABLE—WHICH WEYETLIVE.
—Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War, 19611
As the 1950s drew to a close, the organizers of the official centennial obser-
vances for the Civil War were determined not to allow their project, sched-
uled to begin in the spring of 1961 and to run through the spring of 1965,
to become bogged down in any outmoded animosities. Among other con-
siderations, much was at stake in a successful centennial for the tourism,
publishing, and souvenir industries; as Karl S. Betts of the federal Civil War
Centennial Commission predicted expansively on the eve of the celebration,
“It will be a shot in the arm for the whole American economy.”2 Naturally,
the shot-in-the-arm would work better if other kinds of shots, those dispensed
from musketry and artillery that caused the death and dismemberment of
hundreds of thousands of Americans between 1861 and 1865, were not ex-
cessively dwelt upon. The Centennial Commission preferred to present the
Civil War as, in essence, a kind of colorful and good-natured regional ath-
letic rivalry between two groups of freedom-loving white Americans. Thus,
the commission’s brochure “Facts About the Civil War” described the re-
spective military forces of the Union and the Confederacy in 1861 as “the
Starting Line-ups.”3
Nor did it seem necessary to remind Americans in the 1960s of the messy
political issues that had divided their ancestors into warring camps a century
earlier. “Facts About the Civil War” included neither the word “Negro” nor
the word “slavery.” When a journalist inquired in 1959 if any special obser-
vances were planned for the anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Procla-
1