Expanding Citizenship
from Choosing to Participate Study Guide [1]

 

The crisis in Little Rock was a turning point for many Americans—particularly young Americans. It raised their political consciousness and expanded their "universe of obligation." It also revealed the power and the responsibilities citizens have in a democracy.

By 1960, some young Americans, both black and white, were heading to southern states to register black voters, integrate public facilities, or participate in civil rights marches. Others tried to make a difference by getting involved in politics. Many young people, like Doris Kearns Goodwin, were no longer satisfied to be "observers of injustice." They undertook to right wrongs both at home and abroad. Their idealism came at a time when a new president was taking office.

John F. Kennedy succeeded Dwight Eisenhower as President of the United States in 1961. From the start, he inspired the enthusiasm of young people by urging them to take action. In his inaugural address, he admonished them and other Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," and urged his "fellow citizens of the world" to "ask not what America can do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man."

A new idea exemplified the spirit Kennedy celebrated in his address. That idea is said to have had its beginnings in an off-hand remark he made on the campaign trail. When Kennedy arrived at the University of Michigan late one October night, he was greeted by 10,000 students who had waited for hours just to see him. Speaking without prepared notes, Kennedy issued a challenge: "How many of you are willing to spend two years in Africa or Latin America or Asia working for the United States and freedom? How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana; technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the foreign service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness . . . to contribute part of your life to this country will depend the answer as to whether we as a free country can compete."

Graduate students Alan and Judith Guskin were in the crowd that night. Several days later they heard Chester Bowles, Kennedy’s foreign policy advisor, speak of the work that his son and daughter-in-law were doing in an African village. Alan Guskin later wrote, "Kennedy had inspired us, and we were ready to make a commitment. Perhaps others were, too. Still, we never expected what was about to happen."

In a letter to the student newspaper, the Guskins expressed their willingness to serve abroad and urged others interested in doing so to contact them. Alan Guskin recalls:

The phone in our apartment rang constantly, spontaneous discussions dominated the campus, and we did what we could to organize a response. We founded a group called Americans Committed to World Responsibility. In less than two weeks, 800 students had signed petitions committing themselves to spend several years of their lives serving in developing countries, most of them students who had never previously been involved in campus activism of any kind.

A few weeks later, the group presented Kennedy with the petitions. Just weeks after his inauguration, on March 1, 1961, he responded by issuing an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. He named Sargent Shriver its first director. In the months that followed, thousands of young people enlisted, including Alan and Judy Guskin.

Both Kennedy and Shriver were aware of the growing civil rights movement in the United States. They knew that the Peace Corps would have to take a stand on an issue that was polarizing the nation. They chose to support equality for all Americans by recruiting volunteers from "every race and walk of life." In her history of the Peace Corps, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman notes that "the Peace Corps actively sought to hire as many qualified African Americans as would apply, and to convince many who might never have considered applying to do so. It did so as much for the sake of young white Americans as for young black Americans: experiencing one another as equals was prerequisite to accepting the essential equality of all humankind and proving that America could live up to its ideals."

As part of that commitment to equality, Shriver announced that the Peace Corps would train volunteers only at integrated colleges and universities. It would not bring volunteers to schools where "off-campus racial attitudes" would limit their freedom. For Shriver, these policies were essential to achieving the goals of the Peace Corps. He later wrote:

When the Peace Corps goes abroad, it spreads the ideal of a free and democratic society Its strategic premise is the sense of concern that every member has shown by the act of volunteering. The Peace Corps’ secret weapon is example. This example proclaims that in America, the color of a volunteer’s skin, or a human’s religious or political beliefs, do not determine personal dignity and worth. We have sent black Americans to white men’s countries, white Americans to black men’s countries. We were told that we could not send Protestants to certain parts of Catholic countries in Latin America, and that we could not send Jews to Arab countries. But we sent them. Rarely have these decisions spawned discontent.

We never meant for Peace Corps volunteers to go abroad as promoters of a particular political theory or economic system, much less a religious creed. But that did not mean they were without a mission. The volunteer goes overseas as a willing and skilled worker. He also goes as a representative of the ideals that America, with all its imperfections, embodies better than any society in our time. It is the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another. The Peace Corps has a commitment to overcome old hostilities and entrenched nationalisms, to bring knowledge where ignorance has dominated, to challenge traditions that may enslave, even as it respects the societies from which they emerge. The Peace Corps was designed for different cultures to meet on the common ground of service to human welfare and personal worth, so that men and women might share what is valuable in the spirit of each.

Thomas J. Scanlon served in the Peace Corps in Chile from 1961 to 1963. In recounting his experiences organizing cooperative development projects there, he suggests how he and other volunteers tried to reflect the nation’s democratic ideals:

. . . .There is need for a democratic approach from the very beginning. You must listen patiently to the people, wait for them to make their own judgments and respect these judgments even if you feel they’re about to make a mistake. If this mistake would be from ignorance, you can try to educate. If from stubbornness, you can try to demonstrate results. But if their decision is in full view of the facts and in good faith, there is only one thing to do and that is to let them go ahead and do it their own way. You shouldn’t interfere by dictating. Perhaps they will prove you wrong.

For a Peace Corps volunteer, democracy is more than an ideal or a political system. You can have both without real democracy. For you, democracy must be an approach to development. It must be an attitude you maintain when dealing with the people which assures them that the problem is theirs to solve. For the people, democracy is their ability to determine their own future. It is a fragile plant which can grow steadily if it’s cultivated, or be damaged dangerously by a major act of impatience.

Since the establishment of the Peace Corps in 1961, over 150,000 Americans have volunteered for service in the 132 countries that have participated in the program. Many of them returned some with a new commitment to democracy and a deeper understanding of their links not only to other Americans but also to people in other parts of the world. They remained eager to make a difference in the world. A number of them have taken a leadership role in a variety of non-profit groups, education, government, and the foreign service—in fact, about ten percent of each class of foreign service officers are returned volunteers. The successes of these volunteers gave rise to the idea of a "domestic Peace Corps." In 1963, Kennedy proposed such a program of voluntary service at home. Known as VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), it became part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s "war on poverty" program in 1964. What ideals and values prompted the establishment of the Peace Corps? What role did ordinary citizens play in making the Peace Corps a reality?

 

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Connections questions for this reading

• Review Sargent Shriver’s account of the goals of the Peace Corps. How important is the idea that "free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of foreign tradition, and great disparities of wealth and culture, to work in harmony with one another" toward democracy? Social justice? What does Thomas Scanlon’s account suggest about the difficulties carrying out that idea? What does American history teach us about the importance of doing so?

• What inspired young people to join the Peace Corps? To what extent did it provide volunteers with an opportunity to walk even briefly in someone else’s shoes? What do you think they learned from that experience? How do you think it affected the way volunteers like Scanlon viewed themselves and others?

• The push to end segregation intensified during Kennedy’s administration. Find out about the civil rights movement during those years. What coalitions that brought Americans together were built during those years? What role did the federal government play in efforts to expand voting rights and equality of opportunity?

• The Peace Corps inspired VISTA. It also inspired similar volunteer organizations in nearly every industrialized nation. Why do you think the idea has spread? What does that spread suggest about the way nations learn not only from their own experiences but also from the experiences of others?