Direct action: radical pacifism from the Union Eight to the Chicago Seven

Abstract

This text tells the story of how a small group of - nonviolent activists such as David Dellinger, Staughton Lynd, A.J. Muste, and Bayard Rustin played a major role in the rebirth of American radicalism and social protest in the 1950s and 1960s. Coming together in the camps and prisons where conscientious objectors were placed during World War II, radical pacifists developed an experimental protest style that emphasized media-savvy, symbolic confrontation with institutions deemed oppressive. Due to their tactical commitment to nonviolent direct action, they became the principal interpreters of Gandhism on the American Left, and indelibly stamped postwar America with their methods and ethos.