MMW 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Civil Rights Act Of 1964, The Affluent Society, Voting Rights Act Of 1965
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Outline Lecture Twenty—The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
Key Questions This Week:
1) What are the dangers of conforming to the status quo when that status quo is based on
injustice and inequality?
2) What social inequalities remain unresolved since the 1960’s?
I) The Paradoxes in “The American Dream”
a) America “The Affluent Society” in the 1950’s
i) Lifestyle of upwardly mobile, suburban, white middle-class
(1) Generation of G.I. Bill veterans
ii) Marcuse saw this as example of “democratic totalitarianism”
(1) Blissful homogeneity maintained through addiction to material consumption
iii) No “alternatives” to the pervasive interlocking of politics and big business?
b) Exclusions from “The American Dream”
i) Global iniquities
ii) Domestic disenfranchised groups shut out from “The American Dream”
iii) Three realities that galvanized and mobilized these groups in early 1960’s
iv) Malcolm X: “I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare”
II) The African-American Civil Rights Movement
a) Sparked by Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)
i) The decision that “rocked the boat”
b) Momentum of the Civil Rights Movement
i) 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
ii) 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott—Rosa Parks
iii) March on Washington 1963
iv) Civil Rights Act 1964
v) Voting Rights Act 1965
c) Opposition to Civil Rights Movement
i) Role of the “Dixiecrats” in 24 day filibuster in 1964
ii) The “deferral” stance of white moderates
(1) Race protests were “unwise and untimely”
(2) Law and order argument—why provoke violence? Why stir up trouble?
d) King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” 1963
i) For the oppressed, “wait” means “never”
ii) “Patience” merely a luxury of the privileged
iii) The problem with the white moderates
iv) Unjust vs. just laws
e) The Methodology of Civil Protest—The Critique from Within
i) Legacy in both substance and strategy
ii) Four steps of non-violent protest
(1) Collection of facts concerning injustice
(2) Negotiation
(3) Self-purification
(4) Direct action
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
