NEW RADICALISM
57
ventional career-pattern that threatens to shape the lives of young
people, the Movement-with its slogan, "Don't get hung up!"-has
got a substantial number of people moving, and has shown an even
larger number that they do not need to be "hung up" forever.
The Movement's third contribution has to do with the
ways
through which participation is possible. Here the picture is more
mixed. No one can deny the historic meaning of the Civil Rights
protests of the last decade. "Who among us can say," President
Johnson asked on the eve of the March to Montgomery, "that we
would have made the same progress" without these protests "designed
to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to
stir reform?" Nor can anyone deny that the student revolt at Berkeley
has stirred the academic world, to the point where the American
Council of Education convened a special meeting on "The Student
in Higher Education."
When words get worn out, when conventional political methods
prove ineffective, resort to direct action is called for; and as the sit-ins
demonstrated, nonviolent direct action is indeed a powerful form of
persuasion.
But there is a danger that fascination with the new forms of
protest will blind people to the other possibilities and responsibilities
of participation. Saying
No
is important, but that is only one dimen–
sion of direct action. Just as important are the ways of saying
Yes
ef–
fectively. Gandhi always insisted that the other side of the coin of
Civil Disobedience was Constructive Service. In between the dramatic
campaigns of nonviolent mass action against the British, Gandhi
organized
his
people for personal service and institution-building in the
villages and cities of India.
Working in the slums, tutoring children, teaching adults, serving
in hospitals or public health projects, organizing community institu–
tions, serving steadily and working hard in community action of all
sorts seems dull and not very radical, at least not in the dramatic
or explosive sense often associated with the word radicalism. But that
is
where most of the action is, that is what most of the action must be,
if
one is concerned with peoples' lives rather than their ideology.
There have been, of course, Freedom Summers of work as well as
Freedom Rides. Nevertheless, I think, there is a partial blindness in
the Movement. The full rhythm of protest
and
constructive service
has not taken hold. For the most part, the Movement sees and gives
