Student Activism, Southern Style



	Call for Papers: “Student Activism, Southern Style: Organizing and Protest in the 1960s and 70s” March 19-21, 2010 University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina Student protest is a signature element of the political turmoil of the Vietnam era. The spring of 1970 witnessed some of the largest student protests in U.S. history, many connected to the tragic events at Kent State University. Students at the University of South Carolina briefly occupied the Russell House student union, in a show of solidarity with Kent State and in protest of developments at home and abroad. Yet the histories of these students, and many others at campuses throughout the old south, tend to be neglected in the conventional narratives of student protest, civil rights activism, and broader accounts of the counter-culture. While northern student protestors and activists are typically seen as agents of change, the south is typically seen as the subject of radical change, and as a field in which northern agents encountered resistance. Yet as the story of the Russell House illustrates, the south offered its own indigenous activism that was no less sincere, if less amplified, than its northern counterpart. “Student Activism, Southern Style” seeks to draw attention to and investigate this phenomenon in its own right. The Departments of History at the University of South Carolina and Western Carolina University solicit paper proposals that address the topic of student activism at southern colleges and universities for a conference to be held March 19-21, 2010 at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. We seek a broad conversation about protest, organization, and political engagement across the political spectrum, including civil rights work, antiwar protest, the “New Right,” and other forms of political organization. We seek to examine the broad intersections among these political movements within the unique cultural and political environment that conditioned student activism in the region and throughout this critical period. Check out our "Facebook" link/button at the top of this page! This is a very good place to look for roommates, rides, and other forms of cost-sharing to attend this conference. For more information contact conference organizers at sasshist@mailbox.sc.edu. The PROGRAM Student Activism, Southern Style: Organizing and Protest in the 1960s and 70s” March 19-21, 2010 University of South Carolina Columbia, SC (NOTE: Program subject to change.) RH=Russell House *Friday, March 19* [ top page ] 12:00- : Registration 12:30-1:00: Organizers Welcome and Orientation 1:00-3:00: Session 1: Plenary: “Why We Became Active” (RH 203) Tom Gardner, Westfield State University, Chair Brett Bursey, South Carolina Progressive Network Vicki Eslinger, Nexsen Pruet TBD TBD 3:00-5:00: Session 2: Plenary: “Winter Soldiers and Southern Patriots: The VVAW in Southern Perspective” (RH 203) Scott Camil Peter Mahoney Alan Pogue Donald Donner Chair, Nancy Saunders 5:00-8:30: break for dinner 9:00-11:00: Film, Scarred Justice (Gambrell 153) *Saturday, March 20* [ top page ] 8:00-9:30: Session 3: Panels 1, 2 Panel 1: Student Activism and Southern Sexualities (RH 203) Beth Sherouse, University of South Carolina, “The Most Open, Adventurous Sex I’ve Ever Had: Freedom Summer and the Politics of Sexuality” Kelly Morrow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Sex in the South: Knowledge, Equality, and Sexual Liberation Activism at the University of North Carolina, 1969-1973” Chair/comment, Marjorie Spruill, University of South Carolina Panel 2: Beyond the Left: Conservative Southern Activism (RH 205) Christopher Huff, University of Georgia, “Race, Sexuality and Conservative Politics at the University of Georgia, 1968-1975” Barclay Key, Western Illinois University, “The Bible and Birdbaths: Student Activism at Christian Colleges in the South” Chair/comment: TBD 9:30-11:30: Session 4: Panels 3, 4 Panel 3: The New Left in the Old South (RH 203) Wesley Phelps, Rice University, “New Left Activism and the War on Poverty in Houston, 1965-1969” Jack Lorenzini , University of Memphis, “’We Didn’t Reject the System, the System Rejected Us’: The Failure of the SDS to Obtain a Charter at MSU, 1968-1970” Chair/comment, Gregg Michel, University of Texas at San Antonio Panel 4: Student Activism and Southern Place I (RH 205) Gary Sprayberry, Columbus State University, “’Eat Cornbread and Raise Hell’: The Student Antiwar Movement at the University of Alabama, 1969-1970” Carrie Hoefferle, Wingate University, “The Struggle for Movement on a Conservative Southern Campus: Student Activism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the Long Sixties” Nicholas Meriwether, University of South Carolina, The Counterculture Comes South: Notes on the Cultural Geography of the Hippie Movement in Columbia, SC Chair/comment, Ginger Williams, Winthrop University 11:30-1:00: Plenary lunch address (RH Ballroom) Robert Cohen, New York University: “Prophetic Minority vs. Recalcitrant Majority: Southern Student Politics in the 1960s” 1:00-2:30: Session 5: Panels 5, 6 Panel 5: Sitting-In and Speaking Out on the Southern Campus (RH 203) Jeffrey Turner, St. Catherine’s School, Richmond, “’We Take Our Places With Us’: The Sit-Ins and Campus Politics at Fisk and Vanderbilt Universities, 1960-1965” Marcia Synnott,” University of South Carolina, “The South Carolina Student Council on Human Relations, the Sit-In Movement and Progressive Reform in South Carolina, 1960-1966” Chair/comment: Susan Youngblood Ashmore, Oxford College of Emory University Panel 6: Repressing Southern Student Activism (RH 205) Gregg Michel, University of Texas at San Antonio, “Red Squads, Sovereignty Commissions, and COINTELPRO: Government Repression of White Southern Activists in the 1960s” Craig Kenney, University of South Carolina, “The Disruption of the New Left, Southern Style: What the Alexander Charns Papers Reveal About the FBI’s Surveillance of Student Activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill”” Chair/comment: Kent Germany, University of South Carolina 2:30-4:00: Session 6: Panels 7, 8 Panel 7: Southern Student Activism Mediated (RH 203) Karen Senaga, Mississippi State University, “’The College Press is the Only Press Telling the Truth about Race’: Campus Media and the Integration of the University of Mississippi” Melanie Knight, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, “’Any Utterance ... in Derogation or Subversive to the Authority, Peace, and Dignity of the State of South Carolina’ – The Gamecock Controversy of 1971” Chair/comment: Steve O’Neill, Furman University Panel 8: Student Activism and Southern Place II (RH 205) A. J. Angulo, Winthrop University, “Winthrop College in the Sixties: A History of Students, Activism, and Change” Mona Vance, Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, “Student Activism at Mississippi University for Women” Chair/comment: Joe Dunn, Converse College 4:00-5:30: Session 7: Research Plenary Archive Panel: “Resistance and Protest, Past and Present: Student Activism in Southern Archives” (RH 203) Douglas “Biff” Hollingsworth, UNC-Chapel Hill Kimberly Sims, Duke University TBD Paula Mangiafico, Duke University, Chair 5:30-8:00: Banquet dinner (RH Ballroom) 8:00-10:00: Public Keynote program: “Coming Down and Standing Up: Situating the South in the History of Student Activism” (Gambrell 153) Tom Hayden Connie Curry Chuck McDew Martha Noonan Moderator: Pat Sullivan, USC Department of History *Sunday, March 21* [ top page ] 8:00-9:30: Breakfast Plenary: “The Curricular Legacy of Southern Student Activism” (RH Ballroom) Cleveland Sellers, Voorhees College John Gardner, University of South Carolina Chair, Tom Terrill, University of South Carolina 9:30-11:30: Session 8: Panels 9, 10 Panel 9: In Struggle in the South: A Great Speckled Bird Roundtable (RH 203) Stephanie Coffin Bob Goodman, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition Barbara Joye, Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America Steve Wise Ian Fletcher, Georgia State University, Chair/ comment Panel 10: Desegregation and Black Power on the Southern Campus (RH 205) Jenna Steward, Louisiana Tech University, “The Role of Student Activism During the Desegregation of Louisiana Tech, 1965-1973” Erica Whittington, University of Texas at Austin, “’Human Relations’ and the Freedom Movement: the NSA Southern Student Human Relations Seminars, 1958-1965” Shirletta Kinchen, University of Memphis, “’The Students Across the Country are Moving in this Same Direction, So Why Not at LeMoyne-Owen?’: Student Activism and Black Power at LeMoyne-Owen College” Chair/comment: 11:30-1:00: Lunch (on your own) 1:00-3:00: Session 9: Panel 11, 12 Panel 11: Before They Were College Students: High School Activism in the South (RH 203) Kelechi Ajunwa, Temple University, “It’s Our School Too: Youth Activism as Educational Reform, 1960-1979” Maggi Morehouse, University of South Carolina, Aiken, “’Prepared to Fight in the Halls and the Classrooms’: Students Demanding First Amendment rights in the Long Civil Rights Movement” Candace Cunningham, University of South Carolina, “Black Teachers and the NAACP: A Case Study of the Mutually Beneficial Relationship between Black Teachers and the NAACP in Post-World War II South Carolina” Chair/comment, Gael Graham, Western Carolina University Panel 12: Southern Student Activism in Global Perspective (RH 205) Anna Roberts, Rice University, “Roxanne Dunbar: Southern Activism, Global Revolution” Sally Adams, Western Illinois University, “The Kent State Shootings & Sowetto Uprising: Their Role in the History of Student Activism” Reenea Harrison, University of South Carolina, “Shaping a Society: The Power Wielded by Southern Student Activists in Two Major Socio-political Movements” Chair/comment, Kerry Taylor, The Citadel 3:00-5:00: Session 10: Panel: To the Future: Southern Student Activism Today and Tomorrow (undergraduate panel) (RH 203) [ top page ]

Call for Papers:
“Student Activism, Southern Style: Organizing and Protest in the 1960s and 70s”

March 19-21, 2010
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina

Student protest is a signature element of the political turmoil of the Vietnam era. The spring of 1970 witnessed some of the largest student protests in U.S. history, many connected to the tragic events at Kent State University. Students at the University of South Carolina briefly occupied the Russell House student union, in a show of solidarity with Kent State and in protest of developments at home and abroad. Yet the histories of these students, and many others at campuses throughout the old south, tend to be neglected in the conventional narratives of student protest, civil rights activism, and broader accounts of the counter-culture.

While northern student protestors and activists are typically seen as agents of change, the south is typically seen as the subject of radical change, and as a field in which northern agents encountered resistance. Yet as the story of the Russell House illustrates, the south offered its own indigenous activism that was no less sincere, if less amplified, than its northern counterpart. “Student Activism, Southern Style” seeks to draw attention to and investigate this phenomenon in its own right.

The Departments of History at the University of South Carolina and Western Carolina University solicit paper proposals that address the topic of student activism at southern colleges and universities for a conference to be held March 19-21, 2010 at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. We seek a broad conversation about protest, organization, and political engagement across the political spectrum, including civil rights work, antiwar protest, the “New Right,” and other forms of political organization. We seek to examine the broad intersections among these political movements within the unique cultural and political environment that conditioned student activism in the region and throughout this critical period.

Check out our "Facebook" link/button at the top of this page! This is a very good place to look for roommates, rides, and other forms of cost-sharing to attend this conference.

For more information contact conference organizers at sasshist@mailbox.sc.edu.

The PROGRAM

Student Activism, Southern Style: Organizing and Protest in the 1960s and 70s”
March 19-21, 2010
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC

(NOTE: Program subject to change.)

RH=Russell House

Friday, March 19 [ top page ]

12:00- : Registration
12:30-1:00: Organizers Welcome and Orientation
1:00-3:00: Session 1: Plenary: “Why We Became Active” (RH 203)

Tom Gardner, Westfield State University, Chair
Brett Bursey, South Carolina Progressive Network
Vicki Eslinger, Nexsen Pruet
TBD
TBD

3:00-5:00: Session 2: Plenary: “Winter Soldiers and Southern Patriots: The VVAW in Southern
Perspective” (RH 203)

Scott Camil
Peter Mahoney
Alan Pogue
Donald Donner
Chair, Nancy Saunders

5:00-8:30: break for dinner

9:00-11:00: Film, Scarred Justice (Gambrell 153)

Saturday, March 20 [ top page ]

8:00-9:30: Session 3: Panels 1, 2
Panel 1: Student Activism and Southern Sexualities (RH 203)

Beth Sherouse, University of South Carolina, “The Most Open, Adventurous Sex I’ve
Ever Had: Freedom Summer and the Politics of Sexuality”
Kelly Morrow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Sex in the South: Knowledge,
Equality, and Sexual Liberation Activism at the University of North Carolina, 1969-1973”
Chair/comment, Marjorie Spruill, University of South Carolina

Panel 2: Beyond the Left: Conservative Southern Activism (RH 205)

Christopher Huff, University of Georgia, “Race, Sexuality and Conservative Politics at the
University of Georgia, 1968-1975”
Barclay Key, Western Illinois University, “The Bible and Birdbaths: Student Activism at
Christian Colleges in the South”
Chair/comment: TBD

9:30-11:30: Session 4: Panels 3, 4
Panel 3: The New Left in the Old South (RH 203)

Wesley Phelps, Rice University, “New Left Activism and the War on Poverty in Houston,
1965-1969”
Jack Lorenzini , University of Memphis, “’We Didn’t Reject the System, the System
Rejected Us’: The Failure of the SDS to Obtain a Charter at MSU, 1968-1970”
Chair/comment, Gregg Michel, University of Texas at San Antonio

Panel 4: Student Activism and Southern Place I (RH 205)

Gary Sprayberry, Columbus State University, “’Eat Cornbread and Raise Hell’: The
Student Antiwar Movement at the University of Alabama, 1969-1970”
Carrie Hoefferle, Wingate University, “The Struggle for Movement on a Conservative
Southern Campus: Student Activism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill in the Long Sixties”
Nicholas Meriwether, University of South Carolina, The Counterculture Comes South:
Notes on the Cultural Geography of the Hippie Movement in Columbia, SC
Chair/comment, Ginger Williams, Winthrop University

11:30-1:00: Plenary lunch address (RH Ballroom)
Robert Cohen, New York University:
“Prophetic Minority vs. Recalcitrant Majority: Southern Student Politics in the 1960s”

1:00-2:30: Session 5: Panels 5, 6
Panel 5: Sitting-In and Speaking Out on the Southern Campus (RH 203)

Jeffrey Turner, St. Catherine’s School, Richmond, “’We Take Our Places With Us’: The
Sit-Ins and Campus Politics at Fisk and Vanderbilt Universities, 1960-1965”
Marcia Synnott,” University of South Carolina, “The South Carolina Student Council on
Human Relations, the Sit-In Movement and Progressive Reform in South Carolina, 1960-1966”
Chair/comment: Susan Youngblood Ashmore, Oxford College of Emory University

Panel 6: Repressing Southern Student Activism (RH 205)

Gregg Michel, University of Texas at San Antonio, “Red Squads, Sovereignty
Commissions, and COINTELPRO: Government Repression of White Southern Activists in the 1960s”
Craig Kenney, University of South Carolina, “The Disruption of the New Left, Southern
Style: What the Alexander Charns Papers Reveal About the FBI’s Surveillance of Student Activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill””
Chair/comment: Kent Germany, University of South Carolina

2:30-4:00: Session 6: Panels 7, 8
Panel 7: Southern Student Activism Mediated (RH 203)

Karen Senaga, Mississippi State University, “’The College Press is the Only Press Telling
the Truth about Race’: Campus Media and the Integration of the University of Mississippi”
Melanie Knight, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, “’Any Utterance ...
in Derogation or Subversive to the Authority, Peace, and Dignity of the State of South Carolina’ – The Gamecock Controversy of 1971”
Chair/comment: Steve O’Neill, Furman University

Panel 8: Student Activism and Southern Place II (RH 205)

A. J. Angulo, Winthrop University, “Winthrop College in the Sixties: A History of
Students, Activism, and Change”
Mona Vance, Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, “Student Activism at Mississippi
University for Women”
Chair/comment: Joe Dunn, Converse College

4:00-5:30: Session 7: Research Plenary
Archive Panel: “Resistance and Protest, Past and Present: Student Activism in Southern Archives” (RH 203)

Douglas “Biff” Hollingsworth, UNC-Chapel Hill
Kimberly Sims, Duke University
TBD
Paula Mangiafico, Duke University, Chair

5:30-8:00: Banquet dinner (RH Ballroom)

8:00-10:00: Public Keynote program: “Coming Down and Standing Up: Situating the South in the
History of Student Activism” (Gambrell 153)
            Tom Hayden
            Connie Curry
            Chuck McDew
            Martha Noonan
            Moderator: Pat Sullivan, USC Department of History

Sunday, March 21 [ top page ]

8:00-9:30: Breakfast Plenary: “The Curricular Legacy of Southern Student Activism” (RH Ballroom)
            Cleveland Sellers, Voorhees College
            John Gardner, University of South Carolina
            Chair, Tom Terrill, University of South Carolina

9:30-11:30: Session 8: Panels 9, 10
Panel 9: In Struggle in the South: A Great Speckled Bird Roundtable (RH 203)

Stephanie Coffin
Bob Goodman, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition
Barbara Joye, Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America
Steve Wise
Ian Fletcher, Georgia State University, Chair/ comment

Panel 10: Desegregation and Black Power on the Southern Campus (RH 205)

Jenna Steward, Louisiana Tech University, “The Role of Student Activism During the
Desegregation of Louisiana Tech, 1965-1973”
Erica Whittington, University of Texas at Austin, “’Human Relations’ and the Freedom
Movement: the NSA Southern Student Human Relations Seminars, 1958-1965”
Shirletta Kinchen, University of Memphis, “’The Students Across the Country are Moving
in this Same Direction, So Why Not at LeMoyne-Owen?’: Student Activism and Black Power at LeMoyne-Owen College”
Chair/comment:

11:30-1:00: Lunch (on your own)

1:00-3:00: Session 9: Panel 11, 12
Panel 11: Before They Were College Students: High School Activism in the South (RH 203)
Kelechi Ajunwa, Temple University, “It’s Our School Too: Youth Activism as Educational
Reform, 1960-1979”

Maggi Morehouse, University of South Carolina, Aiken, “’Prepared to Fight in the Halls
and the Classrooms’: Students Demanding First Amendment rights in the Long Civil Rights Movement”
Candace Cunningham, University of South Carolina, “Black Teachers and the NAACP: A
Case Study of the Mutually Beneficial Relationship between Black Teachers and the NAACP in Post-World War II South Carolina”
Chair/comment, Gael Graham, Western Carolina University

Panel 12: Southern Student Activism in Global Perspective (RH 205)

Anna Roberts, Rice University, “Roxanne Dunbar: Southern Activism, Global Revolution”
Sally Adams, Western Illinois University, “The Kent State Shootings & Sowetto Uprising:
Their Role in the History of Student Activism”
Reenea Harrison, University of South Carolina, “Shaping a Society: The Power Wielded
by Southern Student Activists in Two Major Socio-political Movements”
Chair/comment, Kerry Taylor, The Citadel

3:00-5:00: Session 10: Panel: To the Future: Southern Student Activism Today and Tomorrow (undergraduate panel) (RH 203) [ top page ]