IT WAS LITTLE A FEVER ... - NARRATIVE AND IDENTITY IN SOCIAL PROTEST

Although the 1960 student sit-ins were not nearly as uncoordinated as contemporaneous nad subsequent accounts suggested, their repeated char acterization in participants' accounts as ''spontaneous'' merits expla nation. Analysis of campus newspaper articles and letters to the edito r, speeches, and organizational and personal correspondence shows the emergence of a coherent and compelling narrative of the sit-ins, in wh ich spontaneity denoted not a lack of prior coordination but independe nce from adult leadership, urgency, local initiative, and action by mo ral imperative rather than bureaucratic planning. Narratives of the si t-ins, told by many tellers, in more and less public settings, and in which spontaneity was a central theme, helped to constitute ''student activist'' as a new collective identity and to make high risk activism attractive. It was the storied character of representations of the si t-ins that compelled participation. This case suggests the more genera l importance of narrative-as distinct from collective action ''frames' '-in accounting for mobilization that takes place before the consolida tion of movement organizations.