Neil A. Hamilton - Rebels and Renegades: A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States

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Rebels and Renegades

A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States

Rebels and Renegades

A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States

Neil A. Hamilton

2002 by The Moschovitis Group, Inc.

Published in 2002 by

Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Produced by The Moschovitis Group, Inc.
339 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10016

Publisher	Valerie Tomaselli
Executive Editor	Hilary W. Poole
Editorial Coordinator	Sonja Matanovic
Design and Layout	Annemarie Redmond
Production Assistant	Rashida Allen
Photo Research	Gillian Speeth
Copyediting	Carole Campbell
Proofreading	Adams Holman
Index	Barber Indexing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hamilton, Neil A., 1949

Rebels and renegades: a chronology of social and political dissent in the United States / by Neil A. Hamilton.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-415-93639-X (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. RadicalismUnited StatesHistory. 2. RadicalsUnited StatesHistory. 3. Social reformersUnited StatesHistory. 4. Protest movementsUnited StatesHistory. 5. United StatesHistory. I. Title.

HN90.R3H354 2002

303.48'4dc21

2002008916

Contents

CHAPTER ONE Colonization and Settlement

CHAPTER TWO Revolution and Nation-Building

CHAPTER THREE Expansion and Reform

CHAPTER FOUR Civil War and Reconstruction

CHAPTER FIVE Industrialization and the Progressive Era

CHAPTER SIX World War I and the Roaring Twenties

CHAPTER SEVEN The Great Depression and World War II

CHAPTER EIGHT Postwar United States

CHAPTER NINE Contemporary United States

Through the traces of their lives, America's rebels and renegades still speak to us about society's injustices and their own hopes:

Anarchism alone stresses the importance of the individual, his possibilities and needs in a free society. Instead of telling him that he must fall down and worship before institutions, live and die for abstractions, break his heart and stunt his life for taboos, anarchism insists that the center of gravity in society is the individualthat he must think for himself, act freely, and live fully.

Emma Goldman, early 1900s

We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as retribution for slave labor and mass murder of black people.... The Germans murdered 6 million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over 50 million black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, 1966

Most Americans would classify these rebels and renegades as extremists. Their discontent with society was so strong that they called for a drastic overhauling of laws, practices, and public and personal relations. In so doing, these dissidents proposed a radical alternative to mainstream thought and actions. Their voices are the ones heard most often in this book, though our congregation of "rebels and renegades" goes beyond radicals to include more moderate reformers, along with reactionaries who defended conservatism and sought to roll back liberal developments.

"Radical" has been and remains a difficult word to define. At what point does a person fit the criteria of being a radical rather than merely a reformer? The Oxford English Dictionary defines radical in the political sense as a person "advocating 'radical reform'... or any thorough political and social change; representing or supporting the extreme section of a political party." But who fits this category resides in the eyes of the beholder, an assessment determined not only by personal opinion, but also by context and time period. A person or event that might appear to be moderate within a radical era may appear to be radical within a moderate one. For example, early twentieth-century suffragists who demonstrated outside the White House on behalf of enfranchising women were considered outrageous by many at the time, but they were quaint by the standards of 1960s feminists, who themselves would be considered antiquated by the "riot grrls" of today.

Controversy arises also over whether a discussion of radicals should include reactionaries. Many academics view radicalism as the exclusive territory of the left. But these days the label "radical right" has become shorthand for a radicalism that emerges as a reaction to leftist ideas and developments. A danger exists, of course, in applying the word radical to both liberals and reactionaries in that it could blur the distinction between them. If the word "radical" is too inclusiveif it covers too many peopleit is diluted into meaning little more than those persons making a different proposal from one that already exists. Worries about dilution of meaning, however, are less important than an understanding of how rebels and renegades have been classified as radicals and reactionaries by their contemporaries and by historians since their time. The entries in this book attempt to show classification by example.

Do Radicals Matter?: Historical Interpretations

Some historians deny that radicals and reactionaries, that rebels and renegades, have played any important role in the history of the United States; others insist that they have been crucial to society's development. As it turns out, the place of radicals in historical works has changed as history has been interpreted and reinterpreted.

Writing mainly between 1910 and 1945, Progressive historians moved radicals and reformers into the spotlight. These historians believed that for democracy to advance, the "have-nots," or the lower classes, had to do battle with the "haves," or the upper classes. Consequently, the Progressive historians argued that America's history should be told in terms of momentous struggles between conservatives and liberals. In this schema, conservatives and their supporters were the "haves" who disdained democratic advances and defended the status quo, while liberals and their supporters were the "have-nots" who fought for democracy and a more egalitarian society.

These battles can be divided into historical periods. According to the Progressive interpretation, in each period dissidents challenged entrenched conservatives and brought about reform, and the conservatives then challenged the reforms and brought about reaction, although not enough to undo all of the liberal advances. In 1939, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. described the development: "A period of concern for the rights of the few has been followed by one of concern for the wrongs of the many."

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