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The youth rights movement in the United States has long been concerned with civil rights and intergenerational equity. Tracing its roots to youth activism during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the youth rights movement has influenced the civil rights movement, opposition to the Vietnam War, and many other movements. Since the advent of the Internet, youth rights is gaining predominance again.
Youth rights first emerged as a distinct issue in the 1930s. The Great Depression kick started the radicalization and politicization of undergraduates for the first time. Youth Rights first began to emerge through the National Student League, and were furthered greatly when young people across the country banded together to form the American Youth Congress. Concerned with many issues of the times, this organization went so far as to present a Declaration of the Rights of American Youth to the U.S. Congress. [1] The group was so successful that its executive director claimed that it was "a sort of a student brain of the New Deal." [2] While the AYC's campaigns led to the development of the National Youth Administration in the late 1930s, its efforts lost steam when AYC leadership endorsed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact; this led to loss of support from both the AYC membership and external political allies, such as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. This schism caused the rapid decline of the organization, and shortly after the loss of its political benefactors and member support, the AYC collapsed. [3]
In the 1960s, two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, with the majority opinions authored by Justice Abe Fortas were decided in favor of youths' rights. One was Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that established free speech in public schools, and the other was In re Gault , that gave due process rights in juvenile court proceedings.
The movement emerged again in the early 1960s with the arrival of Students for a Democratic Society and Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor. The effect of the movement on the national Vietnam anti-war movement is widely acknowledged, particularly for its emphasis on youth empowerment through activism. According to Keith Hefner, a leader of Youth Liberation, "Bob Moses, a leader of Freedom Summer in 1964 who now runs the Algebra Project, and Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground who now teaches and writes about youth, are only two of the thousands of 1960s activists who turned their idealism and passion to youth..." [4]
Other successes of the movement such as lowering the voting age to 18 in 1971, [5] and the lowering of other age restrictions on the state level such as lowering the drinking age occurred in the early to mid 70s. The first recorded instance of a high school student campaigning to join a local school board happened in Ann Arbor Michigan as Sonia Yaco, a youth activist associated with Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor, ran as the Human Rights Party candidate. Despite a court challenge hindering her ability to be listed on the ballot, Yaco gained 1,300 votes in the primary. [6]
In 1974, the movement was first defined explicitly in print with the publication of Escape From Childhood by John Holt, in which Holt espoused that,
Later in that year another youth rights-focused book, Birthrights by Richard Farson, was published. [8] During the rest of the 1970s and early 1980s, youth rights faced a backlash, succumbing to the more protectionist-oriented and well-established children's rights movement.
In March 1986 the National Child Rights Alliance was founded by seven youth and adults who had been abused and neglected as children. [9] The organization started its life as a children's rights group concerned with protecting children from abuse, but as it grew and evolved it began addressing issues in a more youth rights framework, passing a Youth Bill of Rights in 1989. [10] The organization disbanded in 1999 due to funding issues.
In the mid-1990s, a youth-led movement for self-determination rights began on the Internet. This reborn Youth Rights movement coalesced in 1996 into Americans for a Society Free from Age Restrictions (ASFAR). Divisions soon emerged between radicals and moderates within ASFAR leading to the formation in 1998 of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA). NYRA, founded by leaders of ASFAR and YouthSpeak, was founded to professionalize the youth rights movement.
Today, the youth rights movement has become a broad-based movement, with central leadership from NYRA augmented by grassroots organizations around the world. [11]
Organizations such as The Freechild Project and Global Youth Action Network position the youth rights movement within the sphere of international youth activism and youth voice movements. Other organizations, including Oblivion and Peacefire provide support for the youth rights movement, as well.
The 1990s–2000s also saw a resurgence in youth rights books. Two books important for the movement, The Scapegoat Generation and Framing Youth from the late 90s by Mike Males lay out the case that young people have been unfairly blamed for the ills of society and used as a convenient scapegoat. Males describes the attack on youth as a "national pathology, unwarranted by fact, smokescreen for the failure of adulthood and its leadership to confront larger predicaments." [12] Later, in 2007, Robert Epstein published the most comprehensive book for youth rights since the 1970s with The Case Against Adolescence. The book was described by Albert Ellis as "one of the most revolutionary books I have ever read." [13] Adam Fletcher released a free publication called, A Short Introduction to Youth Rights through The Freechild Project in 2014.
The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) is a youth-led Civil and political rights led by Margin Zheng & Ashawn Dabney-Small President & Vice-President of NYRA organization in the United States promoting youth rights, with approximately 10,000 members. NYRA promotes the lessening or removing of various legal restrictions that are imposed on young people but not adults, for example, the drinking age, voting age, and the imposition of youth curfew laws.
An ally is a person who is associated with another as a helper; a person or group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity or struggle. In recent years, the term has been adopted specifically to a person supporting one or more marginalized groups. A straight ally or heterosexual ally is a heterosexual and cisgender person who supports equal civil rights, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ social movements. Individuals may meet this designation through their actions without actively identifying as an ally.
Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15–24. Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists. The young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, abortion rights and gun violence. Different from past protest or advocacy, technology has become the backbone to many of these modern youth movements. It has been shown in multiple studies that internet use along with seeking information online is shown to have positive impacts on political engagement. Popular applications like Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have become the newest tools for young activists in the 21st century. Technology and the use of digital media has changed the way youth participate in activism globally, and youth are more active in media than older generations.
The American Youth Congress (AYC) was an early youth voice organization composed of youth from all across the country to discuss the problems facing youth as a whole in the 1930s. It met several years in a row - one year it notably met on the lawn of the White House. The delegates are known to have caused a disturbance when they attempted to access the United States Congress. They focused on the draft, which was taking youths at age 18 off to war. At the time in the United States one was not legally an adult in any way until the age of 21. They also focused on the economic exploitation of youth.
Robert Alan Haber is an American activist. In 1960 he was elected the first president of the now-defunct Students for a Democratic Society, a radical student activist organization with ties to the Weather Underground. FBI files at the time indicated his official title as Field Secretary. Described variously at the time as "Ann Arbor's resident radical" and "reticent visionary", Haber organized a human rights conference in April of that year which "marked the debut of SDS" and invited four organizers of the 1960 NAACP sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Youth-led media is any effort created, planned, implemented, and reflected upon by young people in the form of media, including websites, newspapers, television shows and publications.
Adultism is "the power adults have over children". More narrowly, adultism is defined as "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people". On a more philosophical basis, the term has also been defined as "bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes".
The Human Rights Party (HRP) was a left-wing political party that existed in Michigan during the early and mid-1970s. The party achieved electoral success in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. It eventually expanded to include several other Michigan cities with large student populations. In 1975, the HRP became the Socialist Human Rights Party, and it later merged with the Socialist Party of Michigan.
Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor was an organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It existed from 1970 to 1979, and is often cited in more recent academic literature as one of the leading forerunners of several youth movements in the United States, including the youth rights movement, youth voice movement, and the youth media movement.
Hip hop activism is a term coined by the hip hop intellectual and journalist Harry Allen. It is meant to describe an activist movement of the post- baby boomer generation.
Youth politics is a category of issues which distinctly involve, affect or otherwise impact youth. It encompasses youth policy that specifically has an impact on young people and how young people engage in politics including in institutional politics, youth organisations and lifestyle.
The following is a list of youth topics.
Keith Hefner is the founder and Executive Director of Youth Communication, an influential nonprofit organization publishing magazines and books by and for youth. The magazines are YCteen, written by New York City teens, and Represent, by and for foster youth. He is also a founder of Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor, a youth rights organization in Michigan.
Sonia Yaco was the 1972 Human Rights Party candidate for the Ann Arbor, Michigan, school board. When she ran for office at the age of fifteen, she was the youngest documented candidate ever for a publicly elected school board seat in the United States.
The youth rights movement seeks to grant the rights to young people that are traditionally reserved for adults, due to having reached a specific age or sufficient maturity. This is closely akin to the notion of evolving capacities within the children's rights movement, but the youth rights movement differs from the children's rights movement in that the latter places emphasis on the welfare and protection of children through the actions and decisions of adults, while the youth rights movement seeks to grant youth the liberty to make their own decisions autonomously in the ways adults are permitted to, or to lower the legal minimum ages at which such rights are acquired, such as the age of majority and the voting age.
The Freechild Institute for Youth Engagement is a nonprofit organization focused on creating connections between adults and young people through programs, technical assistance, publications, training, and curriculum. Adam Fletcher is the executive director, and the institute is located in Olympia, Washington. The School Library Journal has said Freechild's website is, "By far the largest repository of projects, ideas, and organizational links, this resource provides more than adequate information to help students brainstorm ideas in order to start their own initiatives."
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a broad exercise in "participatory democracy". From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary" positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power.
