Reading Between the Lines

Towards An Understanding of Activism

A four-session series exploring the history of social movements in the United States.

	The series opens with a discussion of American Reformers: 1815-1869 by Ronald G. Walters, which treats the incredible diversity of social reform movements during the antebellum period including abolitionism, women's rights, and temperance.
	A discussion of Juan Williams' Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 , a powerful investigation of the Civil Rights Movement.
	This session concentrates on Antiwarriors: The Vietnam War and the Battle for America's Hearts and Minds by Melvin Small, which places the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s in a broad political and cultural context.
	The series concludes with a discussion of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, by journalist Elizabeth Royte, which explores the underworld of detritus, the movement of personal waste to the landfill and the currents of environmental activism in America.

Based on the concept developed by Brent Morris, a graduate student in the History Department of Cornell University.