Left in the Midwest

St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s

Amanda L. Izzo, Benjamin Looker, Amanda L. Izzo, Benjamin Looker

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780826222862, 9780826222688
• eBook ISBN: 9780826274809
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Despite St. Louis's mid-twentieth-century reputation as a conservative and sleepy midwestern metropolis, the city and its surrounding region have long played host to dynamic forms of social-movement organizing. This was especially the case during the 1960s and 1970s, when a new generation of local activists lent their energies to the ongoing struggles for Black freedom, lesbian and gay liberation, feminist social transformations, environmental protection, an end to the Vietnam War, and more. This volume, the first of its kind, offers fifteen scholarly contributions that together bring into focus the exceptional range of progressive activist projects that took shape in a single midwestern city during these tumultuous decades.

In contrast to scholarship that seeks to interpret the era's social-movement initiatives in a primarily national context, the works presented in this expansive collection emphasize the importance of locality, neighborhood, community institutions, and rooted social networks. Documenting wrenching forces of metropolitan change as well as grassroots resilience, Left in the Midwest shows us how place powerfully shaped agendas, worldviews, and opportunities for the disparate groups that dedicated themselves to progressive visions for their city. By revising our sense of the region's past, this volume also expands our sense of the possibilities that the future may hold for activist movements seeking change in St. Louis and beyond.
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Editors’ Introduction: Building Progressive Social Movements in St. Louis: Contexts, Crises, and Coalitions
• 1. Generational Activism and Civil Rights Organizing in St. Louis
• 2. The St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey and Women’s Environmental Activism
• 3. The Gospel of the Gay Ghetto: Trinity Episcopal Church, the Urban Crisis, and the Origins of Queer Activism in St. Louis
• 4. Black Power on the Ground: Continuity and Rupture in St. Louis
• 5. Surveillance and Subversion of Student Activists, 1967–1970: Standoff in St. Louis
• 6. The Saga of Howard Mechanic
• 7. “Whacking the Elephant Where It Hurts”: The Veiled Prophet Organization, ACTION, and Economic Justice in St. Louis, 1965–1980
• 8. “The Seed Time of Gay Rights”: Rev. Carol Cureton, the Metropolitan Community Church, and Gay St. Louis, 1969–1980
• 9. The Limits of Middle-Class Activism: Neighborhood Organizing in St. Louis
• 10. “We Were on a Mission”: Feminist Activism in St. Louis in the 1960s and 1970s
• 11. Is Ivory Perry an Environmentalist (and Does It Matter)?
• 12. “Save Homer G. Phillips and All Public Hospitals”: African American Grassroots Activism and the Decline of Municipal Public Healthcare in St. Louis
• 13. “Together We Can Make a Safe Home”: Space, Violence, and Lesbian Organizing in 1970s St. Louis
• 14. The Time Is Now: Mass Defense, Coalitional Solidarity, and the St. Louis Chapter of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
• 15. Where It Took Place: Mapping Left in the Midwest
• About the Contributors
• Notes
• Index