Ideal Citizens

<p><b>What really became of the student activists who helped define the civil rights era-and what does their story tell us about race protests and political commitment in America?</b></p><p><b>1994 </b><b><i>CHOICE</i></b><b> Outstanding Academic Title </b></p><p>In <i>Ideal Citizens</i> James J. Fendrich offers a bracing corrective to the familiar white-washed mythology of the 1960s. Grounded in rare longitudinal research this book traces the lives of Black and white college students who participated in civil rights activism-and those who did not-from the heat of the movement into the political realities of the decades that followed. Beginning with the Black student sit-ins that helped launch the era Fendrich shows that Black students were not only central to the movement but participated at higher rates than their white counterparts challenging long-standing assumptions about who drove social change. </p><p>Most strikingly <i>Ideal Citizens</i> dismantles the Big Chill thesis-the notion that activists ultimately abandoned their ideals. Instead Fendrich reveals a generation that though often marginalized in an increasingly conservative political landscape remained personally empowered politically engaged and deeply committed to democratic ideals long after the protests ended. </p><p>A study of race activism and political life <i>Ideal Citizens</i> is essential reading for scholars and students of social movements sociology and civil rights history and for anyone seeking to understand how protest reshapes lives long after the marches are over.</p>