Broward Community College - Silver Sands Yearbook (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

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THE NEW lEFT OR 25 years, the college cam- puses across the country were politically quiet. Except for a brief spurt of Conservative reac- tion to the New Frontier, the col- lege student showed little political interest. This is no longer true. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, has come a rebirth of political ex- citement and interest by collegi- ans that has been termed The New Left. The New Left is a movement of the young. It borders on radicalism and in some organ- izations is communistic. It is vital that the college students of our nation know what it is, where and how it got its start, and where it is going. For in our time, not only does the future but also the pres- ent belong to the American youth. If only for this reason, students and parents must inform them- selves of the truth about the New Left. 2 7420566604146 7a p' ' Illustrated by Tom Oliver and john Leatherwood as 'fact Qo'f 9 'Va 'S. EC' Q: aa 4-tw? l X ,rl Cl Activity of a political nature by college students which had an ef- fect on American political life was first manifested in the 1930's. The result of the Great Depression was the loss of confidence in the American economic system by a substantial number of citizens, es- pecially among the intellectuals. In their dissatisfaction, they' turned to the Left, hoping to find the panacea. The recognition of the U.S.S.R. in 1933 focused furth- er attention on the Left. The un- fortunate result was t.he formation of a coalition between intellectual, but naive, liberals and the Com- munist Party and its front organ- izations. This became known as the Popular Front Movement of the 1930'S. College campuses expressed this. They were boiling over with fads, ideas and stunts which fermented a protest against parents, deans, I 5 r Q jx 4 l

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and more than ever before, the world situation. Students huddled around the radio listening to Roos- evelt's fireside chats or Hitler's frenzied rantings. They pieketed factories and tried to organize university janitors. They burned Hitler and Musso- lini in effigy and formed the Vet- erans of Future Wars. They dem- onstrated, paraded, and sometimes landed in jail. Radicals, pacifists, socialists, communists, and liberals were everywhere. The main theme of the 1930,s was a liberal attitude towards, and a tolerant view of Communism. These were the years of the Share the Wealth movement of Huey Long, the old-age pension move- wage '65 ment of Francis Townsend, and the violently nationalistic, anti- Semetie, inflationistie, and some- times socialistic propaganda of the radio priest Father Coughlin. In the 1940,s, college students were too involved in World War Two and in the fight to save the world from fascism to be inter- ested in picketing and parading. The Silent Cenerationn was the name given to the students of the 1950's. These were the se- rious students who, due to the interruptions of VVorld War Two and the Korean Conflict, were be- hind in their academic plans. They had not come to a univer- sity to play at politics or to be intellectually challenged by the outdated theories of Marx. They came to learn and to get an edu- cation. N the 1960's, there was a re- vival of Conservatism. It was a reaction to the New Frontier. But its growth was stunted when Barry Goldwater was defeated. Po- litical action in the Young Repub- lican and Young Democratic clubs exists, but it is not as vocal nor as imaginative as the Far Left. Todayis college generation is faced with a movement that had its quiet beginning with Fidel Castro's victory in Cuba in 1959, and with the first student civil- rights sit-in in Greensboro, N.C. in 1960. It was not until the sum- mer demonstrations of 1963 that the face of the movement became public. And it is not until now that the truth about it, along with its dangerous potentialities, is be- coming known. The college student is very much concerned with the present. He feels that he does not have to be overly concerned with the future. He is more sophisticated than his predecessors, and yet is exceedingly self-conscious. He has little faith in either of the two parties, although there is a ten- dency to try to work for changes through the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. If the political- ly motivated student, whose key words are action and personal commitment, cannot find what he is looking for in the legitimate major parties, he must turn else- where. Some of the students are turn- ing to the New Left. At tables on university campuses through- out the nation, students are sign- ing up for trips to Cuba, picketing churches, businesses, public and private projects, demonstrations against segregation and for other popular causes, and parading in front of the WVhite House. And this is happening more and more as students are becoming politi- cally aware. Although the New Left is a small minority, it is vocal, active, and growing. The New Left is a loose con- federation of socialist and com- munist organizations. It got its start with the tremendous student interest in the case of Caryl Chess- man. Despite some feeling that he was innocent, Chessman was executed in California's gas cham- ber on May 2, 1960, for kidnap- ping. Then came the Castro take-over in Cuba, the civil-rights sit-ins. the student peace movements, and the rioting and demonstrations against the House Un-American Activities Committee. And so a movement came into being. Students realized for the first time they could par- ticipate in a social revolution. The New Left manifests itself through peaceful demonstrations and picketing, through distribution of literature, through unsanetioned trips to Cuba, through sit-ins, through lie-ins, and through sleep- ins. They demonstrate against ra- cial diserimination, against the war in Viet Nam, against the rules regulating sex, against high rental rates in Harlem, against Barry Coldwater, against the House on Un-American Activities Commit- tee, against nuclear testing, and limitations on the right of free speech. The adherents of these ideas have fonned clubs, leagues. and associations which maintain full-time staffs. The propagation of the ideals and goals of the New Left is a vocation in life, to some as religious a vocation as the priesthood. HE young revolutionaries are in agreement on three major goals. One is freedom now for the American Negro. Thou- sands of these radicals joined with the NAACP and SNCC in Nlissis- sippi, Alabama, and Florida to march and picket for the equality of the Negro. The second goal is that the United States should re- treat from Viet Nam and stop fighting revolutionary socialism throughout the underdeveloped world. They feel the U.S. is inter- fering with the revolutionary proc- ess. The third goal is one of a longer range. The New Leftists want the United States itself to go socialist, or at the very least, to organize a new democratic society from the grass roots up based on a planned economy. A latent sub-conscious goal is self-expression. These young peo- ple feel strongly the need for self- expression and the unburdening of 3