What’s the story?
The Second American Revolution Conference took place at Haverford College on February 7, 8, and 9, 1964, and drew participants from over fifty-five colleges across the United States. Sponsored by the Student Conference Committee of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, it aimed to promote a better understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. Organizers described the conference as an opportunity for reflection, especially reflection on different means for achieving the same goals within the movement.Speakers at the conference included James Forman, executive secretary of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC); James Kilpatrick, editor of The Richmond News Leader and author of The Southern Case for School Segregation; Robert B. Hill, labor secretary for the NAACP; historian John Hope Franklin; James Farmer from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Rev. C.T. Vivian of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); William Worthy, journalist and ally of Malcom X; and Bill Higgs, a Congressional advisor on Civil Rights legislation. Malcom X had accepted an initial invitation to speak but did not attend.
In addition to speeches and panel discussions, the conference hosted a series of ten seminars on Saturday, February 9th, on specific themes pertaining to civil rights. Conference organizers prepared “working papers” on these themes which they distributed to all attendees. This working paper, entitled “Violence, Non-Violence, and Civil Disobedience,” explores philosophies of non-violence as well as challenges to these philosophies within the Civil Rights Movement. The corresponding seminar was moderated by Stokely Carmichael and Cortland Cox (SNCC), Arthur Waskow (Institute of Policy Studies), and Martin Oppenheimer and Charles C. Walker (American Friends Service Committee).
The Second American Revolution Conference was chaired by Alan Raphael (Haverford College Class of 1966) and Kathy Boudin (Bryn Mawr College Class of 1965). Raphael went on to become Associate Professor of Law and Social Justice at Loyola University. Boudin became a founding member of the Weather Underground and served twenty-three years in prison for her involvement in an armed robbery in 1981. Following her release, she became an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
More details
theme: Unfinished Revolutionssubjects: Civil rights movements–United States, Student movements–United States, Nonviolence
contributing repository: Haverford College Libraries, Quaker & Special Collections
submitted by: Elizabeth Jones-Minsinger
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