Divided by Law: The Sit-Ins and the Role of the Courts in the Civil Rights Movement

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement

Print News and Raise Hell

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Joel Zogry
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
Student Newspaper ◽  
Print News ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Democratic Rule

This chapter covers the tumultuous 1960s at UNC and beyond, and at the Daily Tar Heel. The 1960 Dixie Classic, UNC’s most infamous sports scandal, is discussed, as is a 1961 speech on campus by President John F. Kennedy. The Civil Rights Movement is covered in detail, as Chapel Hill was a center for protest; the student newspaper took on a new activist role during this time, sending reporters across the South to report on Civil Rights events. The infamous Speaker Ban Law is examined in detail, 1963-1968. In 1963 UNC became completely co-educational, and the changes on campus and the issues facing women students is explored, including the role of the sexual revolution, access to birth control, and the fight over legalizing abortion. The major shift in state politics, away from one-party Democratic rule is discussed, and the rise of conservative politician Jesse Helms, who used UNC and the Daily Tar Heel as examples of extreme liberalism and permissiveness to help build his political base. The Vietnam War, the 1969 UNC Foodworker’s Strike, gay rights, and contributions of later renowned cartoonist Jeff MacNelly on the newspaper are other topics in this chapter

“If the March Cannot Be Here, Then Where?”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aram Goudsouzian
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Methodist Church ◽  
Black Freedom Struggle ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
National Office ◽  
Black Freedom ◽  
The City

This essay examines the role of Memphis in the Meredith March against Fear, a demonstration for black freedom that moved through Mississippi in June 1966. James Meredith began his journey from Memphis and was shot by Aubrey Norvell, who hailed from a suburb of the city. In the aftermath of the shooting, Memphis hosted important events that not only determined the character and success of the march but also influenced the course of the black freedom struggle. The titans of the civil rights movement orated from the pulpits of Memphis churches and engaged in contentious debates in the rooms of the Lorraine Motel. Even as the march continued south through Mississippi, its headquarters remained at Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis, which achieved James Lawson’s vision of an activist church driven by grassroots pressure and militant nonviolence. The city’s whites exhibited both hostility and accommodation toward black protesters, demonstrating both connections to and distinctions from the racial patterns of Mississippi. For the Memphis branch of the NAACP, the demonstration presented an opportunity to assert its historic strength, even as the march highlighted the complicated dynamics between local branches and the national office.

A Discussion of Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle that Changed a Nation By Jonathan Rieder

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 716-717
Author(s):  
Erica Chenoweth
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. civil rights movement was perhaps the most politically and symbolically important American social movement of the 20th century. And Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was a central text of the movement, and arguably one of the most important political texts of the century. Jonathan Rieder’s Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation offers a rich and sustained account of the role of King’s letter as a contribution to thinking about race and politics, religion and politics, civil disobedience, political ethics, and the struggle for social justice. This symposium brings together a range of political scientists to comment on Rieder’s book and on the importance of King’s “Letter” more generally, as a contribution both to U.S. political discourse and to political theory.

A Culture of Poverty

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-72
Author(s):  
Robin Marie Averbeck
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black Family ◽  
Culture Of Poverty ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Poverty ◽  
Moynihan Report

Chapter 3 traces the history of the idea of a culture of poverty while unpacking its racist content. Of particular importance is Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his report on the black family, known as the Moynihan Report. Chapter 3 explores how Moynihan distilled various tropes and memes in articulating a theory of black poverty that placed the primary blame on the supposed pathologies of the black family and community. Chapter 3 also explains the background of that idea and how the various versions of it differed, looking at the writing and work of Oscar Lewis, Michael Harrington, and Kenneth Clark among others. Also emphasized is how the culture of poverty idea allowed liberals to sidestep the issue of the role of capitalism and the market in black poverty, making it very effective for maintaining racial capitalism even during the height of the challenge from below the civil rights movement presented.

Fighting for Total Person Unionism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bussel
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Union Leader ◽  
Urban Revitalization ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Labor Leaders ◽  
The City

During the 1950s and 1960s, labor leaders Harold Gibbons and Ernest Calloway championed a new kind of labor movement that regarded workers as “total persons” interested in both workplace affairs and the exercise of effective citizenship in their communities. Working through Teamsters Local 688 and viewing the city of St. Louis as their laboratory, this remarkable interracial duo forged a dynamic political alliance that placed their “citizen members” on the front lines of epic battles for urban revitalization, improved public services, and the advancement of racial and economic justice. Parallel to their political partnership, Gibbons functioned as a top Teamsters Union leader and Calloway as an influential figure in St. Louis's civil rights movement. Their pioneering efforts not only altered St. Louis's social and political landscape but also raised fundamental questions about the fate of the post-industrial city, the meaning of citizenship, and the role of unions in shaping American democracy.

Handcraft as urban intervention: In recognition of the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Hinda Mandell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Social Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
Urban Intervention ◽  
Parking Lot ◽  
History Of

In 1851, in Rochester, New York, a group of nineteen women banded together as the founding members of an anti-slavery group in order to support the work of the abolitionist, writer, orator and newspaper publisher, Frederick Douglass. They were the benefactors of Frederick Douglass, himself regarded as the founder of the twentieth-century Civil Rights movement. They called themselves the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society, although they dropped ‘Sewing’ from their group’s name in 1855. Yet the fact that ‘Sewing’ was included in the original name of this reformist group indicates the foundational role of craft not only as a guiding activity, but also as a key activist mechanism to abolish the institution of slavery. This article explains how a contemporary craft intervention in downtown Rochester, New York, involving 400 swatches contributed from across the United States, sought to honour and reclaim the history of this social-reformist group, at Corinthian Hall, the physical location where they held their abolitionist fundraising bazaars in the nineteenth century. That building is now a parking lot in the heart of central Rochester. Ultimately, yarn is argued to be a social-action tool to help reverse historic erasure in a crowded urban environment.

The Role of Law in the Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955–1957

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jerome Glennon
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Montgomery Bus Boycott ◽  
Nonviolent Resistance ◽  
Bus Boycott ◽  
Martin Luther King

Accompanying the national move to create a holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., and the commemoration of anniversaries of important episodes in the modern civil rights movement, has come a welcome literature by historians, political scientists, sociologists, journalists, and movement participants analyzing and interpreting the movement. Considerable attention has naturally focused on the Montgomery bus boycott that signaled the start of the modern civil rights movement in December, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. These recent works have reaffirmed the traditional interpretation of the boycott: Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and sustained by the sacrifices of the thousands who refrained from using public buses, the boycott proved that, by acting collectively, an African-American community could demand and obtain an end to segregation. The technique of nonviolent resistance to oppression, it is said, successfully integrated Montgomery buses.

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