1968: The Global Revolutions

Protest in the early 1960s centered around a growing, inspirational civil rights activism, which began with grassroots organizing in the South and eventually became a national and international campaign. Diverse strands of this campaign are evident here, from a photograph showing U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in the White House, with (from left) Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, James Farmer from the Committee on Racial Equality, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and Whitney Young, of the National Urban League.   A pamphlet by Students for a Democratic Society offering “background information” about the Mississippi freedom struggles “for supportive campaigns by campus groups” suggests the ways that white college students worked as allies of civil rights protesters. The telegrams from Dr. King’s executive assistant to New York Senator Herbert H. Lehman describe some of the risks that civil rights leaders took in direct confrontations against white terror in the South.