- Historic Sites Is Our Civic Life Really In Decline? VOTER
TURNOUT MAY BE DOWN IN RECENT YEARS, BUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE
COMMON CITIZEN HAS GROWN TO FAR SURPASS ANYTHING THE FOUNDING
FATHERS EVER DREAMED OF October 1999 | Volume 50, Issue 6 Today
we are at the tail end of the long Progressive Era. We know it
has got us less than we hoped, but we don’t know how to picture
a mode of citizenship that might give us more. Not that it is at
all the whole story of citizenship in this century. Citizenship
has changed again in the past fifty years, as the civil rights
movement and the “rights revolution” broadly added the courtroom
to the voting booth as a locus for civic participation. Social
movements and political organizations that in the past could
hope for change only through legislative action have found that
the judicial system can offer a powerful alternative route to
their goals. The civil rights movement opened the door to a
widening web of constitutionally guaranteed citizen rights and
state and federal