"Education not ptotection"[:] Student activism on Western North Carolina campuses, 1960s-1970s

WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Bailey Hope Lawrence (Creator)
Institution
Western Carolina University (WCU )
Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
Advisor
Robert Ferguson

Abstract: The dialectic between pro-and-anti-Vietnam War supporters has been an overlooked part of the history of Vietnam War student activism. The divided baby boomer generation on college and university campuses during the 1960s and 1970s are the focus demographic of this study. Rather than present them as a coherent group of disaffected youth, as the media and many adults did at the time, this thesis will explore, within the scope of, how three college campuses in western North Carolina underscore the ways that baby boomers disagreed over events that defined their generation. The disagreements expressed by Vietnam war groups would grow into the articulation of the New Left and the New Right politics of the 1960s and 1970s. These separate political affiliations, which developed in the late 1960s, have historically been identified as incubated in two separate spaces. The New Left is famous for its prosperous beginnings on college campuses across the nation, while the New Right gained traction within working-class America during Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign. However, the New Right’s values can also be found on college campuses articulated through the public opinions of Vietnam veterans and conservative students. For western North Carolina college students the focus was on campus and student life improvement which dovetails in the womens liberation movement, free speech movement, and anti-censorship movements. The formulation of student’s rights movements were articulated on campuses such as Appalachian State University, University of North Carolina at Asheville, and Western Carolina University, which serves as an example of small regionally comprehensive universities student activism which serve larger political purposes than they have been given credit for.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2022
Keywords
Appalachian Studies, Counterculture, Free Speech, Social movements, Student Activism, Women's Rights
Subjects
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Student movements
Counterculture
Women's rights
College students

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