NEW RADICALISM
527
sense of vast solidarity, but the sense
is
illusory; worse, it
is
a form of
self-indulgence which radicals cannot afford.
The first component is a youthful wing of the civil rights move–
ment whose evolution can most conveniently be traced back to the
1960 sit-ins. Here were lower-middle-class Negro college youth chal–
lenging through direct action a set of institutions (lunch counters,
libraries, etc.) which directly constrained and oppressed them. These
institutions, visible and close at hand, were concrete manifestations
of a social order that blocked the upward mobility which this class of
Negro youth and their parents had been experiencing for roughly two
decades, as a consequence of the postwar prosperity and industrializa–
tion. These institutions were an affront to a new self-image based
on the perception of new possibilities.
The sit-in movement was not merely a flash in the pan but helped
stimulate motion in other segments of the Negro community because
the institutions under attack were part and parcel of a socioeconomic
order which oppressed the entire Negro community. Almost every
feature of that order has come under attack. Because of the relative
economic homogeneity of the Negro community, the revolt of one
stratum spread rapidly to the others, and a full-scale social revolution
is now in progress.
It
is a revolution rooted in a definable social base.
Obviously the
entire
Negro community is not actively participat–
ing in the revolution (though it has been estimated that nearly one
out of every ten Negroes in the country joined the 1963 March on
Washington!). Still, its extraordinarily democratic character
is
clear
from its demands and from the massive participation it has stirred.
The demands and needs of the Negro community are articulated,
however imperfectly, by the civil rights movement. But aren't the
organizations comprising this movement merely bureaucratic shells,
representing in membership only a stratum of the community? To
some extent, sadly, this is true. Let it be noted, however, that this
condition applies to
all
of the civil rights organizations-from the
NAACP to SNCC. Merely to speak in the name of, and to "orient
toward," the dispossessed is not to have their proxy at the conference
table or a mandate to haul them into your end of the political
spectrum. Merely to talk about community organization neither
achieves it nor preempts the field. The need to dig roots deep into the
Negro community faces all of the civil rights organizations. The
