ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the difficulties associated with striking the proper balance among various forms of political participation. It focuses on the portion of the civil rights movement that most closely connects to the New Citizenship. The civil rights movement provides a concrete and useful example of how a renewal of democratic citizenship and the extension of basic civil rights at the national level might be achieved. The central goal of the Crusade for Citizenship program, as the new movement was called, and the citizenship schools that developed throughout the South was to empower citizens through education. The partnership between the Highlander Folk School and Southern Christian Leadership Conference around citizenship education had consequences for the role of students in the civil rights movement and for the development of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The efforts of the early civil rights movement in the form of citizenship schools, sit-ins, and freedom rides reached a climax with the 1963 interracial March on Washington.
