“We belong in the wider world”: The Young Christian Students and the Civil Rights Movement

The Young Christian Students (YCS), an organization of Catholic college students that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s but is little known today, focused on the issue of civil rights in the early 1960s. YCS served as a “bridging organization,” connecting Catholic college students with the broader national movement for racial justice. Its conferences exposed members to civil rights workers fresh from southern battlegrounds. Its newsletter contained updates on developments in the freedom struggle. YCS members participated in civil rights projects on their campuses and in adjacent communities and staff members acquired skills useful in movement organizing. Former national staffers volunteered for the southern freedom movement, encouraging friends and associates to break out of the “Catholic bubble” and take their places in the wider world. Ironically, this contributed to the organization’s demise as members soon found they no longer needed a Catholic organization to work for social justice.