Rebecca de Schweinitz. If We Could Change the World: Young People and America's Long Struggle for Racial Equality. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 368 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-3235-6.

Reviewed by William Sturkey
Published on H-1960s (October, 2009)
Commissioned by Jessica Kovler (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York)

The Long, Yet Young, Civil Rights Movement

In recent years, historians of twentieth-century black freedom movements have sought to recognize the contributions of previously overlooked individuals. Scholars have particularly discussed the contributions of women, local people, and prewar activists to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Historian Rebecca de Schweinitz argues for the inclusion of yet another group in her fascinating new book, If We Could Change the World: Young People and America’s Long Struggle for Racial Equality. In this work, de Schweinitz informs readers of the central role that young people and notions of childhood played in the black freedom struggle of the twentieth century. By focusing on youths in the movement, de Schweinitz seeks to answer the question, “How did young people and popular conceptions of children and youth influence the black freedom struggle and help to change America’s racial landscape?” (p. 1). This is no small inquiry. Children played an incredibly important role in the African American freedom movement in extremely visible ways. From Brown v. Board of Ed., to the Children’s Miracle that saved Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Project C” campaign in Birmingham, children, or young people, were often at the epicenter of black protest action. De Schweinitz’s highly anticipated volume focuses on the role of black youths in the struggle for racial equality and greatly contributes to our understanding of activists, their motivations, and tactical approaches. By reminding readers that “childhood” itself is a social construct, de Schweinitz is able to provide a deep and meaningful analysis of the ways that black activists were able to transform the importance of twentieth-century American childhood, particularly among black families, into civil rights gains.

De Schweinitz positions her work within the recent historiographical conceptualization of the “long civil rights movement.” Taking a similar approach, she argues for a long view of the development of youth activism. Her book begins with a discussion of the growing recognition of children and their societal importance prior to the Great Depression. She points out that black leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois observed the importance of youth to the construction of middle-class black respectability and achievement of full citizenship. According to de Schweinitz, the role of children became even more important during the Great Depression as the problems of youths, particularly in rural settings, became widely recognized. During the postwar era, the growing importance of the familial unit further developed the centrality of America’s youths to its core values. De Schweinitz points out how the increasing importance of young people’s status led to the growth of organizations, such as the Children’s Crusade for Children, the Children’s Charter, and American Youth Commission, that fought for child welfare. Nearly all social groups prioritized children’s well-being. The black community in particular often emphasized the importance of children to achieve respectability and included young people in organizations such as the NAACP. This information provided in the first portion of de Schweinitz’s book contributes to the literature of the “long civil rights movement” by arguing that the development of the importance of children in American society and in the black community laid the groundwork for the more widely recognized successes in the black freedom movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

The next portion of de Schweinitz’s work includes more concrete examples of youth activism. She discusses the leadership opportunities presented by the NAACP Youth Councils of the 1930s before moving on to examples from the classical phase of the civil rights movement. Although de Schweinitz argues that the foundation for protest was laid in the 1930s, she notes that the movement of the 1950s and 1960s occurred during a unique historical moment. She effectively points out a myriad of factors that created the circumstances which facilitated greater activism. Among the most important stimuli were heightened postwar expectations, the Brown ruling, experiences of the Emmett Till generation, growing educational opportunities, and the leadership of young people in organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. De Schweinitz closes her book with a brief essay that advocates a greater understanding of the historical and contemporary importance of childhood in order to encourage us to protect young people’s freedom and encourage them to “shatter our histories” (p. 250). 

De Schweinitz’s book is well-organized, easy to read, concise, and clear. She has provided a model from which to more fully explore the experiences and importance of children in the civil rights movement. De Schweinitz is able to effectively point out gaps in the existing literature without trying to tackle too much in her analysis. By tactfully making historiographical arguments, de Schweinitz has written a book that will serve as prerequisite for anyone interested in pursuing the topic of children in the movement. As it should, this text not only begins to answer a lot of questions, but raises plenty more. De Schweinitz’s discussion of the importance of black children to middle-class respectability is poignant and convincing. However, although she points out that this often increased the activity of children, scholars should further explore the degree to which respectability potentially limited the opportunities of some youths, such as Claudette Colvin. Also, how much agency did children have? Were they exploited, and if so, to what degree?

Additionally, de Schweinitz’s carefully balances the “long civil rights movement” paradigm with a discussion of the unique postwar factors that led to increased youth involvement. This raises several other questions. Her argument about the long trajectory of children’s activism and their increased importance in American society is convincing, but how much did the mostly urban NAACP youth councils in the 1930s really impact black youths in the South in the 1950s and 60s? There does not necessarily seem to be a congruous connection beyond the sheer existence of the organization. Furthermore, to what degree did African American youths reject prior generations similarly to their white contemporaries? The rejection of social norms by baby boomers is well documented. Were African Americans rejecting their society and older generations with their activism for similar reasons? This is an important question because of the issue of periodization. If black youths of the 1960s were basically rejecting the societal structures built by previous generations, then how does that impact the long view of the civil rights movement?

Overall, If We Could Change the World is an important book that comes at an appropriate time. The trend in recent movement scholarship is to seek inclusion. De Schweinitz, with this thoughtful and well-researched work, has reminded historians of the important role that youths played in the movement, given scholars a model of how to pursue a further understanding of children’s involvement in the twentieth-century black freedom movement, and raised numerous concerns that will help guide the scholarship along the way.

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Citation: William Sturkey. Review of de Schweinitz, Rebecca, If We Could Change the World: Young People and America's Long Struggle for Racial Equality. H-1960s, H-Net Reviews. October, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25616

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