Youth Movements: From 1968 to School Strikes

Young people have repeatedly driven political change. In 1968 student protests swept Paris, Mexico City, Prague, US campuses and elsewhere, over issues ranging from the Vietnam War to university rules and political freedom. In Soweto in 1976, Black South African students marched against being forced to learn in Afrikaans, a turning point in resistance to apartheid.

More recently, the US student-led March for Our Lives in March 2018 drew large crowds to demand gun-law changes, and Swedish student Greta Thunberg began a solitary school strike for climate outside parliament in August 2018, inspiring the Fridays for Future movement and global climate strikes in 2019 that drew millions.

Youth movements bring energy, moral urgency and media attention, but often face challenges in sustaining organization, translating protest into policy and being taken seriously by older decision-makers. Reactions to them vary widely, and their impact is debated by historians and political scientists.