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

Abstract

This article engages questions about the relationship between charismatic leadership and youth action, conceptions of age and competence, childhood pastimes and adult concerns, and private acts and public correspondence. An analysis of children's typed and handwritten letters, notes, poetry, and school pamphlets mailed to public leaders offers a new understanding of 1960s youth protests, rights discourses, and grassroots action. Building on Lori Rotskoff's concept of postage power, this article understands child and teenager letter correspondence with 1960s public leaders as a citizenship practice. By focusing on the world of predominantly, but not exclusively, white, middle-class girls and boys, I argue that such written communication not only acted as a key strategy for children's political participation, but also allowed young people to define such action using lenses uniquely relevant to them as children and teenagers. Bake sales and monetary charity made their citizenship practices visible. School assignments and creative productions provided minors with a medium to assert their moral competence. Markers of childhood, such as jelly beans and The Wizard of Oz, allowed young people to articulate their critical understanding of Jim Crow practices and the violation of constitutional statutes without relinquishing childhood innocence or abandoning youth-based customs.