Coming of Age in the 1950s and 1960s: The Distinctive Liminality of Silent Generation African-Americans

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 18: Stratification and Economic Inequality

Abstract

Sandwiched between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, the Silent Generation, defined by the Pew Research Center as individuals born between 1928 and 1945, has largely been overlooked in academic, social, and journalistic discourse about generational identity. Moreover, the idea of a Black Silent Generation with a distinctive generational identity is almost completely absent from journalistic and academic writings. As a partial remedy for this oversight, this paper analyzes the younger cohort of Black Silents, specifically individuals born between 1938 and 1945, and hereby referred to as “Liminals”.

Following a discussion of Raymond Williams’ conception of “structure of feeling” and its implications for generational analysis, I summarize the prevailing research on the Silent Generation and justify the use of the years 1938-1945 as the generational boundaries for Liminals. Using a variety of quantitative data sources, including IPUMS microdata, I document Black Liminals’ educational attainment, rates of employment, and military participation, particularly with respect to combat service in Vietnam. I also delineate the average age at which they entered the workforce, got married, and had their first child. To understand Black Liminals’ “structure of feeling” as they came of age, I utilize memoirs, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, academic studies, histories, literature, films, and other relevant sources. To avoid an overly impressionistic account, I look at NORC survey data and other public opinion surveys conducted from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.

I assert that the use of a generational framework provides a more thoughtful and nuanced appreciation of life-course trajectories, facilitates greater empathy for individuals who had to endure the particular misfortunes of their generation, and serves as an antidote to a corrosive nostalgia predicated on false myths.

Author

• Evan Cooper, SUNY-Farmingdale