HIST 221 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Claudia Jones, Smith Act, Urban Renewal
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Long Civil Rights Movement
Intensification in post-WWII era of:
Unequal distribution of federal resources and policies
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Anti-communism and anti-unionism
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Spatial segregation with suburbanization and urban renewal
Areas of low-income housing are raised to create new
cultural institutions
§
○
-
Patterns of privilege and exploitation were not just Southern vs.
Northern
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Civil Rights Unionism
Coalition between labour and civil rights activists rooted 1930s
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Intellectual emphasis: race and class
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WWII, international consciousness
A rising wind of anti-colonialism
○
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Goals: expanding New Deal protections, including industrializing
in the South
Wage protections, affordable housing
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Also anti-racist labour feminism (Claudia Jones)
She is arrested in 1948 for violating the Smith Act
(conspiring to overthrow the US government)
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Minority Rights
NAACP focus on schools
Thurgood Marshall - writes legal challenges to segregation
that make their way to court in the 1950s
○
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Legal crumbling of Jim Crow
Doesn't mean things on the ground actually change with
segregation
○
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Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Set of constitutional challenges to school segregation
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Brown II: school desegregation should move forward with
all deliberate speed
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Challenges Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal is ok)
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Supreme court says segregation of public schools violates
people's rights
○
-
Children are sympathetic people to the American public
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Massive Resistance
1956, "Declaration of Constitutional Principles" aka Southern
Manifesto
Congress people (democrats from the South) saying that
they will have nothing to do with the challenges to
segregation
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Urges Southerners to exhaust all Southern means and
confusion that would result from school desegregation
○
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Vigilante violence, racial terrorism
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Local politics in North and West
Homeowners rights
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Murder of Emmett Till, murdered in 1955
Open casket becomes international news during this time
period
○
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Bombing of church, death of four young girls
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"Nonviolent" Direct Action
Montgomery Bus Boycotts (1955-1956) lasts 380 days
Rosa Park's long history of activism - branch secretary of
NAACP in Montgomery
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Helped vault MLK jr. to national spotlight
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Importance of Black Church
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"Non-violence" and self-defense not necessarily mutually
exclusive
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Federal Response
Eisenhower administration "gradualism"
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Congress is divided
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Pressures of Cold War and international media visibility
Little Rock (AK) High School, 1957
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USIA: Little Rock had the attention of the very large majority
of the population in major world capitals invoking
worldwide reaction
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Giant embarrassment for the UK, AK and is very traumatic
for the individuals who tried to desegregate the school
themselves
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Louis Armstrong is sent on a tour and is able to show on the
world stage how African American culture is important to
the US
○
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Civil Rights Act of 1957 - voting rights
First federal Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction
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80 years, full decade of agitation, 20% African American
registered to vote (racist laws)
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Civil Rights division of DOJ (Department of Justice)
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US Civil Rights Commission
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Expedited lawsuits: voting (15th Amendment)
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Election of 1960
Closest race of century
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JFK: New Frontier
Early ambivalence - Southern Democrats
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Promised to use executive authority to support Civil Rights
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Increase in defence spending
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-
Nixon
California base (shows how important CA has become since
WWII as a population base and a powerhouse)
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Emphasis on states' rights
Importance of suburbia
§
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Foreshadowing of future trends in politics
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Youth Activism, Coordination
Sit ins
Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960
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1500 black demonstrators arrested by the end of the year
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SNCC founded in 1960
With advising from NAACP's Ella Baker
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Locally based, student run
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Desegregation, voting rights
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Freedom Rides
Lack of police protection (local and federal)
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Massive violence and arrests
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Importance because buses crosses state lines so it meant
that the federal government had to intervene
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Lecture 27 - Fighting for Rights (Part 2)
Friday, March 16, 2018
9:35 AM
Document Summary
Lecture 27 - fighting for rights (part 2) Areas of low-income housing are raised to create new cultural institutions. Patterns of privilege and exploitation were not just southern vs. Coalition between labour and civil rights activists rooted 1930s. Goals: expanding new deal protections, including industrializing in the south. She is arrested in 1948 for violating the smith act (conspiring to overthrow the us government) Thurgood marshall - writes legal challenges to segregation that make their way to court in the 1950s. Doesn"t mean things on the ground actually change with segregation. Brown ii: school desegregation should move forward with. Brown ii: school desegregation should move forward with all deliberate speed. Challenges plessy v. ferguson (separate but equal is ok) Supreme court says segregation of public schools violates people"s rights. Children are sympathetic people to the american public. Congress people (democrats from the south) saying that they will have nothing to do with the challenges to segregation.
