CHAPTER I: THE ACTIVIST CONSENSUS Oberlin comes from a very long
tradition of social justice and it’s drilled into you even
before you come that this is the type of place it is. -- Tom
Mitchell, class of 1963 The racial situation in the South was
rather jarring to many Oberlin students because we had been
taught that American society was a democratic society and then
we discovered that white people in the South were willing to
kill other people who actually wanted to have democracy. -- Pete
Guest, class of 1963 From 1960 to 1964, the civil rights
movement had an overpowering influence on Oberlin activists.
Students gained organizational skills, but more importantly the
movement helped activists form ideas about the meaning of
community and the role that they could play in shaping the world
around them. From the time of the first southern sit-ins, the
Oberlin Review carried some coverage of civil rights protests in
almost every issue. The College catalogue for 1961 to 1963
states, The College from the beginnin