2008/12/01 by David C. Geary · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Race, History, and American Society #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #American Political and Social Dynamics #Wright #History #World history #Library science #Sociology #Genealogy #Classics #Art history #Ancient history #Computer science
paper · doi:10.2307/27694377
openalex publication_date 2008/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
For American left student activists of the early 1960s, C. Wright Mills's 1960 “Letter to the New Left” provided inspiration. The prominent radical sociologist and social critic proclaimed to the emerging white student movement that “new generations of intellectuals” could be “real live agencies of social change.” Thus, to readers who already revered Mills for his trenchant social analysis, “Letter to the New Left” legitimated the notion that university students, although relatively privileged, could be pivotal agents of social transformation. Mills's “Letter” was published in a leading American New Left journal, Studies on the Left, in 1961 and reprinted in pamphlet form by the movement's most prominent organization, Students for a Democratic Society (sds). Its publication in the United States was all the more influential because Mills was perceived as a quintessentially American thinker. He had the body of a football player and a noticeable Texas twang in his voice. He famously rode a motorcycle and wore a black leather jacket, suggesting to many a heroic outlaw figure akin to movie characters played by James Dean and Marlon Brando. If such a red-blooded American could become an outspoken radical, then, far from being un-American, left-wing politics had native roots from which it could grow.1