A Short History of Youth Voice

By Adam Fletcher

For more than a century Youth Voice has brought the front pages of newspapers across the United States to life. As the "active, distinct, and concentrated ways young people represent themselves throughout society," Youth Voice has been an important, if under-recognized, part of American culture for more than 100 years. The past shows us that the future is only more exciting!

The New York Times archives shows that as early as 1885 a 20-year-old elected official - the youngest mayor of any town in the U.S. at the time - shot a man during an argument. As a distinct phenomenon, I have identified Youth Voice first emerging as a distinct movement in the 1890s when newsboys across the Eastern U.S. went on strike against William Randolph Hearst, effectively defeating one of the largest economic titans of their day.

In the mid-1930s Youth Voice resurfaced again, this time in the form of the Declaration of the Rights of American Youth, which was delivered directly on the floor of the U.S. Congress by the American Youth Congress (AYC). Schools have been an important focus of Youth Voice since at least 1937, when the Times reported that, “Children Protest School Transfer: 200 Stage Demonstration in City Hall Park and One Airs Grievance to Mayor.” The early 1940s led to the formation of the federal National Youth Administration, which was championed by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1950 the paper celebrated Youth Voice as it announced, “Jersey Youth Leads Advisory Council.” Almost appearing surprised, in 1960 a headline stated, "Teen-Agers Blunt at State Discussion of Their Problems."

In 1961 Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society. In 1963 the Times finally determined that, “Teen-Agers Take Action on Urgent Social Issues.” In 1965 three young high school students' activism led to a landmark free speech ruling in the US Supreme Court's 1969 judgment Tinker v. Des Moines. This stepping out fostered the so-called "youth revolution" of the 1960s and early 70s, birthing many radical attempts to thrust young people into the mainstream political of American society. A lot of that energy came to fruition with the passage of the 26th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1971. A student in Ann Arbor, Michigan, provides the first documented example of a teenager running for school board in 1972.

In the late 1970s Youth Voice moved began to go viral, seeping into the mainstream culture and encouraging idealism, passion and enthusiasm in many corners of society. This became apparent in Hip hop, embracing rap, DJing, graffiti writing, and break dancing and infusing them with vigor and fervor. This cultural development led to the reverse-influencing of hip hop on activism, and vice versa.

The determination of 1970s radical youth and 1980s self-serving youth was not lost into the air. In the 1990s their leadership led to the development of a variety of Youth Voice programs and initiatives across the U.S. and around the world. National nonprofits, foundations, and other organizations began beating the drums for youth involvement, and community-based organizations rose to the task and led the way, illustrating diverse, new ways to engage young people throughout society.

With the emergence of new technologies that are quickly adopted by young people the new millennium has brought a celebration of Youth Voice that has never been seen. Organizations such as Freechild, YouthNoise and TakingITGlobal came out quickly as national and international networking hubs focused on connecting divergent young people and moving forward. The Funder's Collaborative on Youth Organizing is providing an important voice, as organizations like Future5000 and the BLOC Network are elevating the voices of young people of color and other youth who have been historically denied opportunities to be heard to the forefront. As history is proceeding faster than ever there are a variety of new uses for technologies, with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube providing young people and their adult allies with new platforms to promote, engage and infuse Youth Voice throughout our communities.

The rest of the history is ahead of us - won't you help write it? 

Learn more about the history of Youth Voice in the U.S. by checking out this book list on Amazon.com!

© 2010. Adam Fletcher owns the copyright for this material on behalf of The Freechild Project. You are welcome to print out this material for educational purposes only - you cannot make any financial gain from them without the explicit permission of the author. You may not photocopy any part of this material without explicit permission of the author. For more information write info [at] freechild.org 

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