Skip to the beginning of the images gallery

Youth in the Movements

High School Student Activism in Twentieth-Century America

Edited by Dara Walker, Alexander Hyres, and Jon Hale

Paperback

$39.95 S

Hardback

$150.00 SS

eBook (ePub)

$39.95 S

Quantity

Price:: $39.95
ISBN:: 9781978843707
Published:: Oct 13, 2026

Release Date:: 13th October 2026
Contributors:: Dara Walker, Alexander Hyres, Jon Hale, Carlos Cantú, Lauren Lefty, David Walton, Matthew Kautz, Walter Stern, Nicole Wilson Steffes, Sonny Partola, Maeve Wall, Aaron Fountain, Kera Lovell, Susan Eckelmann-Berghel, and Darius Echeverria
Publisher:: Rutgers University Press
Imprint:: Rutgers University Press
Series:: New Directions in the History of Education
Pages:: 236

Description
Contents
Authors

Youth in the Movements documents the history of the rise of American high school and youth activism in the United States since the Second World War. Spaces within high schools and the adults at them provided support or inspiration – both negative and positive – for youth engaged in protest, organizing, and activism. Through rich research of archival sources and oral histories, contributors reveal new perspectives on American high school and youth activism. Viewed through the eyes of high school-aged youth around the United States – in familiar locations such as Boston, New York City, and Detroit, as well as less familiar locales in the historiography, such as Salt Lake City and the Navajo Reservation – we extend our understanding of high school and how it has been experienced by youth activists in the post-World War II period.

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: Self-Determination, Transnationalism, and the Fight for Educational Opportunity

Chapter 1: “’We Have to Credit the Young People’: Protesting Students and the Navajo Struggle for Educational Self-Determination, 1971-1973”

Carlos Cantú

Chapter 2: “’The question of Puerto Rican independence is hot among youth right now’: Colonial-Transnational High School Activism in Postwar New York City, 1948-1975”

Lauren Lefty

Chapter 3: “Understanding the Black Student United Front and Their Push for Black Studies: The Detroit Public Schools during the Black Power Era”

David Walton

Part 2: Urban Activism, School Desegregation, and the Rise of the School-to-Prison Nexus

Chapter 4: “From ‘Stay-outs’ to Pushouts: Black Student Activism in Boston, 1963-1979” Matthew Kautz

Chapter 5: “‘Give us an Opportunity to Compete’: Black Activism, Student Politics, and School Desegregation at a New Orleans High School”

Walter Stern

Chapter 6: “‘We Feel No Discrimination Exists in Our School’: High School Student Activism in Salt Lake City, Utah, 1970-2019”

Nicole Wilson Steffes, Sonny Partola, Maeve Wall, and Alexander Hyres

Part 3: Civil Rights, Gender Equality, and Wartime Activism in the United States

Chapter 7: “The ‘Backbone and Organizers’: High School Students in the Anti-Vietnam War Movement”

Aaron Fountain

Chapter 8: “’Anything You Want to Be’: Coalitions and Conflicts between Adult and Teenage Second-Wave Feminists”

Kera Lovell

Chapter 9: “’It’s People Like You We Need in the White House’: Anti–Civil Rights Youth, George Wallace, and 1960s Campaign Activism”

Susan Eckelmann-Berghel

Chapter 10: Mobilizing the Marginalized: Mexican Americans, Civil Rights, and the Making of a Movement in Post-World War II Arizona

Darius V. Echeverria

Conclusion

Dara Walker, Alexander Hyres, and Jon Hale

Notes

Notes on Contributors

Index

Dara Walker an assistant professor of African American studies, history, and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at the Pennsylvania State University.

Alexander Hyres is an assistant professor in the history of United States education at the University of Utah. He is the author of Protest and Pedagogy: Charlottesville's Black Freedom Struggle and the Making of the American High School and his writing has appeared in the Journal of African American History, Journal of the History of Child and Youth, Teachers College Record, and The Washington Post.

Jon Hale is a professor of education and educational history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has published serval books, including the award-winning book, The Freedom Schools. Hale’s research is featured in outlets including TIME, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.