Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Richard Flacks papers
- Dates:
- 1965-1994
- Creators:
- Flacks, Richard (1938-)
- Abstract:
- Papers of Richard "Dick" Flacks, community activist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara.
- Extent:
- 14 Linear Feet (14 cartons)
- Language:
- English
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Richard Flacks papers, UArch FacP 48. Department of Special Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains research and teaching materials compiled and produced by Dick Flacks, mostly during his time in Santa Barbara, CA. Also included are some materials produced by Flacks during his own academic studies.
Materials may include course and lecture materials, notebooks and field notes, interview and survery materials, reference materials, drafts and reprints, and correspondence.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Richard "Dick" Flacks (1938- ) is a community activist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. His work focuses on roots and strategies of social movements and the American left, and the social psychology of political activism.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Flacks and his wife Mickey Hartman moved for Dick to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan in the late 1950s. While there, the Flackses joined activist and friend Tom Hayden in reorganizing the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). By 1964, he secured a tenure-track position with the University of Chicago, and Flacks resigned from SDS when he took the appointment. After surviving a physical attack in his campus office, they left Illinois, and Flacks accepted an appointment with UCSB's Sociology Department, where he taught until his "retirement" in 2006.
While in Santa Barbara, the Flackses started hosting other community activists at their home, calling it the Thursday Club. The Thursday Club produced an alternative community school, medical clinics, food co-ops, and various other community groups and programs. They also helped start the Citizens Coalition, which was successful in electing more environmentally-minded city council members. In the late '70s, the Flackses helped to start the Gray Panthers Network of Santa Barbara, to continue to advocate at City Hall, and Dick served as trustee and advisor for the Santa Barbara News and Review - which would later produce The Santa Barbara Independent. Since 1982, Flacks has hosted a weekly radio program focused on music and politics, The Culture of Protest, at KCSB. More recently, in 2002 the Flackses worked with others to form the Santa Barbara County Action Network (SBCAN), a countywide grassroots organization that works to promote social and economic justice, to preserve environmental and agricultural resources, and to create sustainable communities.
Flacks wrote extensively throughout his career. Publishing The Liberated Generation: An Exploration of the Roots of Student Protest (1967); Beyond the Barricades: The '60s Generation Grows Up (1989); Making History: The American Left and the American Mind (1988), and many articles on social movements, left culture and strategy.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Richard Flacks, 2014.
- Processing information:
-
Materials originally processed in 2020. Addition processed and finding aid prepared by Rebecca Vasquez in 2024.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-07-24 13:16:47 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
This collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All applicable literary rights, including copyright to the collection and physical objects, are protected under Chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code and are retained by the creator and the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns.
All requests to reproduce, quote from, or otherwise reuse collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB at special@ucsb.edu. Consent is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at UCSB as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or their assigns for permission to publish where the UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of Item], Richard Flacks papers, UArch FacP 48. Department of Special Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Location of this collection:
-
UC Santa Barbara LibrarySanta Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
- Contact:
- (805) 893-3062