Conservative Activism
Conservative Activism
1962-1980
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In 1962, lawyers Kieran O’Doherty and J. Daniel Mahoney helped form the Conservative Party of New York, aiming to take action against what they saw as a city and state gone seriously wrong. New York has a long history of conservative activism, but in the 1960s, this tradition merged with new fears and discontents stemming from changes in the city, nation, and world.
Many white working- and middle-class New Yorkers expressed frustration over the city’s changing demographics, rising crime rates, and growing counterculture. After decades of the expansion of the role of government by Democrats and Republicans, conservatives mobilized against school busing, the creation of low-income housing, and higher taxes to pay for social programs. Conservatives also accused the city’s liberal establishment of being soft on communism and protesters of the war in Vietnam.
In the 1970s, liberals and conservatives fought “culture wars” over issues such as gay rights, abortion, the role of religion in public life, and affirmative action. Urban crime and government spending also spurred conservatives into action. They made their voices heard in rallies, boycotts, the press, and in local and national elections.
In 1980, 38% of New York City residents voted for Ronald Reagan, indicating the continued presence of a vocal conservative minority. The Conservative Party of New York remains active and organized in the city. New York conservatives have helped elect several Republican mayors, and the city is home to conservative institutions such as National Review magazine and the influential Manhattan Institute.
Meet the Activists
Paul Sarkisian
Paul Sarkisian
Paul Sarkisian ran unsuccessfully in 1964 as the Conservative candidate for the state assembly seat for Washington Heights and Inwood in northern Manhattan, losing to Democrat John J. Walsh. But the issues Sarkisian espoused, including opposition to public school busing and to Mayor Lindsay’s inclusion of civilians on complaint review boards that heard charges of police misconduct, remained popular in many largely white neighborhoods.
Image Info: ca. 1964, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Rosemary Gunning
Rosemary Gunning
Rosemary Gunning, a key figure in the Conservative Party and the city’s anti-busing movement, marched with other party leaders during the “Support Our Boys in Vietnam” parade on Fifth Avenue, May 13, 1967. Gunning ran as the Conservative candidate for City Council president in 1965.
Image Info: 1967, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, a New York-based conservative intellectual and founder of Young Americans for Freedom, ran for mayor on the Conservative ticket in 1965 to protest the Republican nomination of the liberal John V. Lindsay. Although he only won 13% of the vote, Buckley used the campaign to articulate his vision of an urban government that should reduce taxes and welfare programs while cracking down on crime and social disorder.
Image Info: 1965, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University of Albany Libraries.
Objects & Images
Sheet Music, “Conservative’s Creed”
Sheet Music, “Conservative’s Creed”
This sheet music was distributed in New York during Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. His nomination as Republican candidate energized Conservative Party members and conservative Republicans. Some 800,000 New York City residents voted for Goldwater, but he lost in a landslide to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. Music arranged by Nick Daglis, lyrics by John Comwinel, 1964.
Image Info: ca. 1964, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Young Americans For Freedom Button
Young Americans For Freedom Button
Founded in 1960 by William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) was an incubator for conservatives on college campuses in New York and throughout the country.
Image Info: 1971, Courtesy Steven H. Jaffe.
Mothers Protest Against Integration
Mothers Protest Against Integration
As civil rights activists pressed for an integrated public school system in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some white families organized against plans to bus children to schools out of their neighborhoods. In 1963, three mothers and a grandmother were arrested for trespassing after staging a three-week sit-in at a Queens schools to protest redistricting, and in 1964, activists staged a boycott against school busing with over 275,000 students. A racially divided and polarized educational system persisted through a major school strike in 1968 and beyond.
Image Info: October 1, 1963, ©Bettmann/Corbis.
Petition
Petition
The grassroots, Queens-based organization Parents and Taxpayers (PAT) formed in 1964 to oppose busing. Their opponents accused the group of racism, but PAT members responded that their real concern was to maintain neighborhood control over local schooling. As court-ordered school busing became a national issue in the 1970s, PAT fought plans to bus children to Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn, which had a largely black student body, and urged President Gerald Ford to ban “reverse discrimination of forced busing.” Despite their efforts, the school was integrated through court-mandated busing in 1976.
Image Info: Parents and Taxpayers, 1975, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Conservative Party Of New York Campaign Flyer
Conservative Party Of New York Campaign Flyer
Conservative Party State Assembly candidate Henry Middendorf’s 1964 campaign flyer featured the 1932 lithograph Woman Taken by Death (Death and the Mother) by German artist Kathe Kollwitz to symbolize New Yorkers’ increasing sense of vulnerability to violent crime and urban turmoil during the 1960s. As civil rights groups called for tighter controls over the police, especially in black and Latino neighborhoods, conservatives protested that such policies hindered the fight against crime. Conservatives won a key victory in 1966, when voters rejected Mayor John V. Lindsay’s program to allow civilian appointees to participate in reviewing charges of police misconduct.
Image Info: Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Pro-vietnam-war Demonstration, New York, 1970
Pro-vietnam-war Demonstration, New York, 1970
On May 8, 1970, 200 flag-carrying construction workers, many from the nearby World Trade Center site, confronted student anti-war protesters on Wall Street. In the ensuing melee, which became known as the “hard hat riot,” at least 70 people, most of them students, were injured. In a show of unity 10 days later, 100,000 workers and others paraded down Broadway to affirm their support for President Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War.
Image Info: Benedict J. Fernandez, 1970, Modern Print, Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Benedict J. Fernandez, 99.150.15
Pro-vietnam War Flyer
Pro-vietnam War Flyer
At a time when many on the American left viewed the U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia as shameful, Vietnam veterans were welcomed home with a parade on Broadway attended by more than 100,000 flag-waving spectators on March 31, 1973.
Image Info: 1973, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
"National Review"
"National Review"
National Review, founded in an East 37th Street office in 1955, became a biweekly guide for American conservatives. In its pages, editor William F. Buckley and other New York-based intellectuals, along with conservatives from across the country, defended the Vietnam War as a necessary conflict against Communism. In 1971, the magazine accused liberal Madison Avenue firms of pressuring magazines to run anti-war public service announcements.
Image Info: August 10, 1971, Courtesy Steven H. Jaffe.
Flyer, “Choose Decency”
Flyer, “Choose Decency”
By the late 1960s, many conservatives blamed liberals for the permissiveness they claimed was fostering an immoral culture. Campaigns against pornography and sex education foreshadowed battles over abortion, feminism, and gay rights. The New York-based National Committee for Responsible Patriotism encouraged Americans to “choose decency.”
Image Info: National Committee for Responsible Patriotism, 1969, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Flyer, “It's A Tough Life”
Flyer, “It's A Tough Life”
This cartoon, preserved in the files of the Conservative Party of New York State, embodies a widely held conservative view that liberal “big government” and the youth counterculture, student radicalism, and the sexual freedom of the 1960s and 1970s reinforced each other.
Image Info: ca. 1980, Courtesy Conservative Party of New York State Records, M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.
Key Events
| Global | Year | Local |
|---|---|---|
| Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain Speech” and the Truman Doctrine signal the beginning of the Cold War between United States and Soviet Union | 1946 | |
| 1955 | National Review launched in New York as a mouthpiece for “responsible conservatism” | |
| 1962 | Conservative Party of New York State founded | |
| 1964 | Parents and Taxpayers protest plan for integrating and redistricting New York City public schools | |
| 1965 | Conservative Party runs William F. Buckley Jr. for mayor and Rosemary Gunning for City Council president | |
| 1966 | Conservative Party spearheads overturn of Civil Complaint Review Board | |
| 1967 | “Support Our Boys in Vietnam” parade draws 70,000 marchers to Fifth Avenue | |
| 1970 | Construction workers attack antiwar demonstrators on Wall Street during the “Hard Hat Riot” |
