Ideal Citizens : The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement

What really became of the student activists who helped define the civil rights era―and what does their story tell us about race, protests, and political commitment in America?

1994 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

In Ideal Citizens, James J. Fendrich offers a bracing corrective to the familiar, white-washed mythology of the 1960s. Grounded in rare longitudinal research, this book traces the lives of Black and white college students who participated in civil rights activism―and those who did not―from the heat of the movement into the political realities of the decades that followed. Beginning with the Black student sit-ins that helped launch the era, Fendrich shows that Black students were not only central to the movement but participated at higher rates than their white counterparts, challenging long-standing assumptions about who drove social change.

Most strikingly, Ideal Citizens dismantles the “Big Chill” thesis―the notion that activists ultimately abandoned their ideals. Instead, Fendrich reveals a generation that, though often marginalized in an increasingly conservative political landscape, remained personally empowered, politically engaged, and deeply committed to democratic ideals long after the protests ended.

A study of race, activism, and political life, Ideal Citizens is essential reading for scholars and students of social movements, sociology, and civil rights history, and for anyone seeking to understand how protest reshapes lives long after the marches are over.