Red roots, radical fruit: Children of the Old Left in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left

Children of the Old Left were leading participants in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. These activists were raised in families involved in the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and its affiliate organizations, non-Communist trade unions, and other leftist groups. During their childhood these individuals often participated in their parents' political activities and many developed their own organizations to support Old Left causes. Like their parents, young leftists were persecuted for their activism during the McCarthy period. Red Diaper Babies (RDBs), children raised by parents associated with the Communist movement, and their peers from other Old Left organizations were followed by FBI agents, attacked on the playground, and harassed in the classroom.;When these young activists entered college in the Sixties, they helped start or joined social movements that supported these Old Left values learned during their childhoods. These radical youth were instrumental in starting some of the major protest organizations of the decade, most notably Students for a Democratic Society, the Free Speech Movement, and later the Weathermen. Their activism during the Sixties helps demonstrate continuity between the Old Left and the New Left, and demonstrates that activists from Old Left backgrounds were both at least responsible for the creation and destruction of the New Left.;In addition to their participation in the New Left, radicals were involved at all levels of the Civil Rights Movement in the North and the South. These second-generation activists were often well educated about socioeconomic racism, grew up with African American friends and neighbors, and expected the federal government's reluctance to help the civil rights workers. As a result of their childhood experiences, these young activists were significantly different from other white non-leftist volunteers and their experiences help expand historians' understand of white activism during the Civil Rights Movement.