A People's Movement by Ryan Conner

Author:Ryan Conner [Conner, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636763293
Google: c9o9zgEACAAJ
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2021-02-12T03:38:17+00:00

Chapter 6

Student Activism, the New Left, and the Unionist Retreat

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Reflecting on the civil rights movement years later, Gregory Campbell, a native of Derry and eventual Unionist politician, argued that Protestants shared common ground with civil rights activists, but the demonstrations undermined it. Campbell said, “I felt very indignant that these people were marching for rights that I didn’t have.” He claimed he could have supported the civil rights movement if its agenda were only about housing and jobs. Campbell, however, insisted that the republicans and nationalists were too involved in the movement for him to support it. There was no clear distinction within the movement between the aims for reform and those who opposed partition. The republicans, Campbell concluded, took advantage of the violence of 1968 and 1969 to stage an “insurrection” against the state that “def[ied] the wishes of the majority of the people and tr[ied to] take us into a united Ireland.”144

Campbell’s recollections represent one of the two major, divergent narratives about civil rights activism that emerged in the winter of 1968–9. Even as street violence in Derry became increasingly sectarian, some civil rights leaders and activists held out hope that their movement could appeal to both working-class Catholics and Protestants. While some Protestants participated in the demonstrations, others understood the civil rights movement as a front for republicans. Despite reforms by the Unionist government, leftist groups within the civil rights movement and conservative unionists both became more influential. As the political center started collapsing, these forces and the narratives that sustained them became stronger. Northern Ireland was headed toward violent conflict.

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