If We Could Change the World: Young People and America's Long Struggle for Racial Equality (review)

If We Could Change the World tells the story of young people and social activism in the 20^th century United States. De Schweinitz's book is divided into five chapters that trace young people's involvement in social causes from the Great Depression to the 1960s. Most of the author's text focuses on black children and their fight for racial egalitarianism. One of the book's main points is that many adults fought for social justice in order to provide a better future for their children. The sad fate and future of many of the nation's children stood as one of the binding features that made adults of all races coalesce for a more just future for the youth. De Schweinitz does a notable job of tracing organizational efforts, especially of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), to promote and codify children's efforts to combat both apathy and racism. The book, though it possesses few voices of children themselves, contains several positive points that make it recommendable.

One of the valuable parts of If We Could Change the World is de Schweinitz's comprehensive discussion of the historical background of children's activism in the United States from the 1930s onward. This specifically relates to President Herbert Hoover's Children's Charter. Created in 1930, the Charter established almost twenty categories in which the nation pledged to help its children. De Schweinitz also identifies 1930 as the year in which nostalgic views of childhood triumphed over a more economically utilitarian view of youth. World War II, with the Allied commitment to fight against fascism and racism, brought American segregation and hypocrisy to the forefront in the post war years. It is here that the author is at her most successful. Weaving together stories and facts from a multiple of sources, de Schweinitz demonstrates that the new generation wanted America, and their parents, to live up to the ideals that the nation espoused during the war.

If We Could Change the World is particularly compelling when explaining the importance of the NAACP Youth Leagues. Created in the 1930s as an avenue for youth participation in the NAACP, by the 1950s the Youth Leagues quickly became an incubus for major participants in the civil rights movement. De Schweinitz gives solid evidence as to the role young people had in pushing the NAACP and other groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to be more direct and confrontational.

Where If We Could Change the World falls somewhat short is in the repetitiveness of some of the first two chapters. These chapters concentrate on youth activism from the 1930s up to Brown v. Board of Education. Here a paring down of the information, perhaps even condensing it into one chapter, would provide the essential information without becoming monotonous. Some confusion also comes about as to whether de Schweinitz is referring to children as a whole or specifically to African American youth in certain parts of her manuscript. Aside from those two points, If We Could Change the World is a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of the history of children in America. One wonders how de Schweinitz would analyze current trends among youth for racial justice, say in hip-hop culture.