The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade

by Judith Clavir Albert

Featuring documents of the period by participants such as Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, H. Rap Brown, Abbie Hoffman, and Robin Morgan, this volume brings together a wide range of material on one of the most turbulent decades in American history. The contributions are divided into five sections, covering ideas influential on the early New Left, the anti-war movement, SDS and Weathermen, the counterculture and Yippies and the the women's movement. The book surveys all the major issues that concerned the sixties generation, and offers a unique documentary history of the period.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, American History

573 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1984

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite quote: "Violence is as American as Cherry Pie".

[David R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best collection out there of actual texts from the Sixties themselves, not about them. A must read for anyone who wants to know what actually went down.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such an incredible resource! A compilation of communiques, political texts, and articles written by organizers and poets during these much-romanticized and often a-historicized social movements. We see how sexism is addressed in SNCC organizing amidst white southern terror, some texts of the transnational organizing efforts by US Black and Brown and white radicals with third world revolutionaries in Vietnam and Cambodia, Black Panther Party discussions and early documents. It's great because there's not a lot of analysis from the compiling editors, the texts speak for themselves.


Table of Contents:

divisions in the text:
Considering the 1960s. Finding the 1960s in the 1950s
Sit-ins, SNCC, and the Emergence of political rebellion
The rise of the new left
The mass culture of rebellion
1968 : the movement
1969 : "the revolution"
1970 : the women's rebellion
The decade ends

articles:
Prophetic visions : formative ideas. HOWL / Allen Ginsberg
The causes of World War III / C. Wright Mills
Letter to the new left / C. Wright Mills
The white Negro / Norman Mailer
The civil rights and Black power movements. Pilgrimage to nonviolence / Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
SNCC : founding statement
SNCC position paper : women in the movement
SNCC speaks for itself
The ballot or the bullet / Malcolm X
Sex and caste : a kind of memo / Casey Hayden and Mary King
What we want / Stokely Carmichael
Rebellion in Newark / Tom Hayden
Die nigger die! / H. Rap Brown
The Black Panther Party : platform and program
For a woman / Erika Huggins
Revolutionary suicide : the way of liberation / Huey P. Newton
SDS. The Port Huron statement
The triple revolution
One dimensional man / Herbert Marcuse
Speech to the April 17, 1965 march on Washington / Paul Potter
An SDS antiwar leaflet : November 27, 1965
The look is you / Naomi Jaffe and Bernadine Dohrn
Columbia liberated / The Columbia Strike Coordinating Committee
Bring the war home / SDS
Do you need a weatherman / Shin'ya Ono
The 1960s : achievement/turning point / The Weather Underground Organization
The antiwar movement. How the United States got involved in Vietnam / Robert Scheer
The whole thing was a lie / Don Duncan
The Fort Hood three : the case of the three GIs who said "no" to the war in Vietnam : three speeches / Pvt. Dennis Mora, Pvt. David Samas, and PFC James Johnson
Nightmares of empire / The Wall Street Journal
Prison poem / Ho Chi Minh
We shall win and so will you / Ho Chi Minh
The revolted / Carl Oglesby
Unmasking genocide / Dave Dellinger
No door to tomorrow / Lee Felsenstein
The conspiracy trial : the chaining and gagging of Bobby Seale
The conspiracy trial : a witness's testimony
Revolutionary letter #7 / Diane DiPrima
Revolutionary letter #34 / Diane DiPrima
The war is over! / Phil Ochs
The counterculture. Revolutionary letter #4 / Diane DiPrima
On making a perfect mess / Keith Lampe
Notes toward a statement on anarchism and theatre / Julian Beck
The birth of the yippie conspiracy / Paul Krassner
Revolution for the hell of it / Abbie Hoffman
Festival of life / Ed Sanders
Buddhism and the coming revolution / Gary Snyder
People's Park : free for all / Stew Albert
Who owns the park? : a leaflet / F.J. Bardacke
Do it! / Jerry Rubin
Been down so long it looks like up to me / Konstantin Berlandt
Radical psychiatry and community organizing / Joy Marcus
The women's rebellion. The S.C.U.M. manifesto / Valerie Solanis
The myth of the vaginal orgasm / Anne Koedt
Sexual politics : a manifesto for revolution / Kate Millett
Birth control pills and Black children : the sisters reply
Poor Black women / Patricia Robinson
Declaration of war / Ti-Grace Atkinson
The dialectic of sex / Shulamith Firestone
Double jeopardy : to be Black and female / Frances Beale
Goodbye to all that / Robin Morgan
To a white male radical / a Berkeley sister
Hello to all that / Genie Plamondon
Alphabet soup / Karen Durbin.

[John]

history

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for source material from the time. Fascinating just to look at. Perfectly compliments many an Oliver Stone movie.