ABSTRACT
The late fifties saw a substantial revival in student activism in the United States and paved the way for the New Left, and the most substantial student movement in American history. This chapter is concerned with some of the trends and events which marked this resurgence of activism. Three issues were crucial in the revival of student activism at the end of the 1950s: civil liberties, peace, and civil rights, in that order. Civil rights became the focus of the student movement because of its dramatic nature and the nonviolent black movement in the South which developed in the years following the 1954 Supreme Court decision on desegregation. The student peace movement was one of the major movements of the late fifties and early sixties. The College Peace Union (CPU) coordinated student peace activities in New England, and was instrumental in establishing CPU groups on campuses without peace groups.
