Where Have All the Boomers Gone?

In the summer of 1961, between my fifth and sixth grade years at Dan D. Rogers Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, I attended Camp Grady Spruce for two weeks. Among the camp experiences in which I participated were sing-alongs, led by young people from Texas high schools and colleges. Folk music was very big at the time, but this was my first significant exposure to the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. I remember so clearly the words to Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” represented by the lyrics at the beginning and end of the song as follows:

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago…

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

I cannot say that at the time I grasped the full context for the words, but those lyrics clearly conveyed to me a sense of soldiers dying in lamentable wars, leaving behind grieving loved ones. And more even than the words themselves was the sincerity that seemed to underscore the lyrics, calling listeners forward to a commitment for the betterment of people’s lives.

This was just the beginning of the message songs that would pervade the 1960s and early 1970s, whereby rock and rhythm ‘n blues music also sent out a call to action. Such music very much formed the backdrop for the opportunity that came for commitment in the civil rights, women’s, and antiwar movements. Young people rose to the occasion, lending energy, time, and a variety of talents to public actions that improved the lives of women and people of color; and to a consideration of the wisdom of using military violence in addressing human conflict.

I was a student at Southern Methodist University (SMU)in Dallas from 1969 through 1973, right at the time when the great social movements were reaching the nation’s heartland. Many of us committed time to what was then SMU Volunteer Services, to Project Motivation (which connected college students as tutors to inner city schools), and many other organizations dedicated to the betterment of people’s lives. But I know of only one person from that era at SMU who is still in Dallas working day to day in an endeavor synchronous with the spirit of social activism that infused the campus in those days. That person is Terry Ford, who in 1978 launched East Dallas Community School and has been at it ever since, founding two additional schools on the model of the birth-to-Grade 3 model of foundational academic instruction meant to secure a student for continued academic success.

And the fact is that I know far too few boomers in any locale who have dedicated themselves to sustained efforts for social justice. Very few boomers have come to my attention who are consciously and assertively devoting their lives to the improvement of conditions for people mired in poverty, or to initiatives that advance human equity toward the achievement of genuine democracy.

Having achieved much in the realms of civil rights and women’s rights, our next great task is the overhaul of K-12 education. We have much work to do if we are to impart to all of our precious children the quality of education that they will need for full and successful participation in the life of the polity. At the time, the most articulate voice and the most dedicated spirit in furthering educational equity is Michelle Rhee, the erstwhile education chief in Washington, D. C., who has now initiated StudentsFirst with the mission of achieving transformational education reform. But Rhee was born in 1969, the year that I began matriculating at SMU.

Where have all the boomers gone? Most still have many years before they go to graveyards. Many will have the time and the money to return to conscious social activism. Having ridden the waves of the social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, they have a responsibility to direct new currents for the advancement of human equity and the attainment of full democracy in the United States.