[AtLast]

Angela Davis- both parents college educated, professionals as well as her father a business owner. She is a graduate of an Ivy League university. And a professor.


Caesar Chavez- his father owned not only a grocery store, but a large ranch in AZ. During the Great Depression, their land was lost and never recovered by the family. Thus- how Chavez began working as a migrant worker. His roots are middle class. This is a story of many in the US during that time period.

Joan Baez (not just a folk singer)- father was one of our leading physicists (co-invented the x-ray microscope) and served as a diplomat for the US in UNESCO. His family was highly educated in seminary as was her mother’s family, originally from Scotland.

Alex Haley- both parents highly educated, his father a professor of agriculture and his mother a teacher. Very much a middle-class New York family. And well, Haley is one of our most brilliant minds and writers.

There are many civil rights movement leaders of color that did not come from poor backgrounds and were middle-class. A pet peeve of an African American man I dated in college during the 70’s was that “white people immediately assume we are all poor and from the same kinds of backgrounds“- (paraphrasing).

A central theme throughout the social movements in the 1960’s and 70’s is that college and university campuses served as fertile grounds for free speech and political activism. Access to higher education has always been slanted toward middle or upper middle-class people, even among minorities. Many did find access that were from very desperate backgrounds, but not all. After JFK’s initial “affirmative action” executive order in the early 60’s, doors opened to many that it had shut on previously.

If you go back and look at the suffrage movement, you will find a very distinct middle and upper middle class- and very white grouping of leaders. Although, take a look at African American women in the 1800’s that were part of social movements in the US.

The other thing that amazes me about these conversations is that are many of us in the age group of the 60’s and 70’s activism and were there! I had many conversations with “sisters” & “brothers” telling me that most of the people they wanted to represent had no way of taking to the streets because of their socio-economic class. But, this is only my story from one region of the US at that time.

One of my pet peeves here is that so often, one or two sentences are quoted from a post and flamed. The rest of one’s comments and thoughts are left out. One reason, I quote entire posts so that the entire context is available for other’s to look at. I do this even with lengthy posts because I don’t think is fair to “cherry pick” someone’s post and then take aim. Also, there are some members that take the time to explain where they are coming from and I think I ought to honor their entire process.


It looks like the thread is getting back to the OP’s initial ideas for discussion- good because this is really an important thing going on.