Student activism contextualized Marcuse’s essay on repressive tolerance

Evidence

In their struggles for civil rights, many in the American South had been attempting since the early 1960s to force the abolition of racial segregation in restaurants, shops and public transport, using sit-in and go-in tactics. Studentsand not only black studentshad been the victims of violence from whites during these campaigns. In Berkeley, the Free Speech Movement grew up, and students had fought for the right to collect money on the university campus to support civil rights organizations and other causes. In December 1964, 800 students had been arrested during a sit-in strikethe largest mass arrest in United States history. Students were also protesting against the war in Vietnam and fighting against being drafted by burning their draft cards. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2587

Categorization

• XREF: The 800 arrests in December 1964 as the largest mass arrest in US history is a concrete data point useful for the institutional history. — connects to: Habermas’s account of student protest merged conflict-displacement theory with Marcuse’s new sensibility thesis — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2650; Tolerance is a power-laden denial that masks racial inequality — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 835; Freire’s work gave oppressed US students a political language for their resistance

Broader Connections

• Habermas’s account of student protest merged conflict-displacement theory with Marcuse’s new sensibility thesis #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2650
• Tolerance is a power-laden denial that masks racial inequality #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 835