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The Americas 1b
Lecture 1: the long Civil Rights Movement
Max Weber: “The state is the only human community that (successfully)
claims [for itself] a monopoly on legitimate physical violence… within a
certain geographical territory” (1919). This quote is not so far removed
from reality and is surprising, because he sees violence as the basis of the
definition of the state. Your relationship to the state depends on who you
are (e.g., the colour of your skin).
The concept of revolution is central to US mythology, so it’s oftentimes
invoked in times of crisis (e.g., in the Gettysburg Address, wherein the
revolution is showed as unfinished, that blacks should be recognized as
citizens). Martin Luther King also used the concept: “[…] the black
revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is
forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty,
militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in
the whole structure of our society . . . and suggests that radical
reconstruction of society is the real issue to be faced.” The Black Civil
Rights movement can be seen as an ongoing revolution the long civil
rights movement. When did the Civil Rights Movement begin? To
understand this, one should grasp the difference between historiography
and historiographical debate:
- Historiography: the writing of history.
- Historiographical debate: a scholarly debate between historians
about the timing, duration, location, form, etc. of a particular event
of phenomenon.
When the Civil Rights Movement began is thus part of the historiographical
debate regarding the matter.
The Classical Phase: 1954-1965
This phase begins at the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and ends
with the Voting Rights Act (1965). It’s a triumphal narrative used for
conservative political purposes, centred on one decade, region, on Martin
Luther King Jr. as heroic civil rights leader and on non-economic
objectives. This narrative is visible in the SchoolTV video on Martin Luther
King Jr. This narrative project the Civil Rights Movement as if it’s all over,
just one part of the American progression story. The idea of a Long Civil
Rights Movement expands in time (from the New Deal until unknown), in
space (South and North), in themes (race, class, gender). It also has a
centrality put on the connection between race and class (CPUSA, Popular
Front, radical community organizing). Instead of focussing on one person,
such as Martin Luther King Jr., it focusses also on grassroots players. The
goal with this is historizing the Civil Rights Movement, to show the longer
narrative.
,Part I: Reconstruction, the Blues, and Black Class Consciousness
Lead Belly (1888-1949) was “the singing convict” and wrote the song “Go
down, old Hannah”. The fact that he was called the singing convict already
shows the apparent black stereotypes. It was the minstrel history that
provided the black segregation system the term and image of Jim Crow. In
his song (a working song on plantations), he calls for some sort of
revolution to end the horrors of plantation life:
“Go down, Ol Hannah, doncha rise no more,
If you rise in the morning, bring judgement day.
Go down, Ol Hannah, doncha rise no more,
If you rise in the morning, set the world on fire—
set the world on fire”
In the Reconstruction Era (after the Civil War), there were certain
amendments made to the US Constitution. The 13 th, 14th and 15th
amendments were major changes to the rights of US citizens and were the
basis for many civil rights movements to support their cause. The 13 th
amendment forbade slavery except as punishment for a crime; the 14 th
amendment stated that all persons born or naturalized in the US were
citizens whose privileges and immunities could not be abridged, whose
property, liberty and life could not be deprived without due process and
whose equal protection of the laws can not be denied; the 15th amendment
said that the right of citizens of the US to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the US or a state on account of race, colour, or previous
condition of servitude. All these amendments were ratified between 1865
and 1870.
- 1863: Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the rebel states.
- 1865: formation of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) formed by Confederate
soldiers. Terror campaigns were held by the Democratic Party, the
White League and the first KKK.
- Compromise of 1877: end of Reconstruction Era.
Enter the Progressive Era and the emergence of Jim Crow:
- Reconciliation and Redemption (The Mississippi Plan to intimidate
people into voting Democratic, the disenfranchising of blacks in the
1890s).
- 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson: separate but equal.
- 1915: D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, founding of the second
KKK.
- 1916-1940: the First Great Migration: 1.6 African Americans move to
Northern cities.
So, basically freedmen got political power but this was taken away again
soon in the South.
The term ‘the blues’ comes from the fact that African American Union
soldiers wore blue uniforms. It’s a music style that originated somewhere
between 1860 and 1900 by the African American enslaved in the US
South. Making music was most of the time the only way to lessen or
express their suffering. The blues inspired Jazz, hip-hop and other music
,genres we still listen to until this day. The epistemology of the blues
includes realism, as well as humour and politics.
In short, the reconstruction era simultaneously formed a 2 nd American
Revolution (with all the Amendments), but also a 2 nd enslavement via the
betrayal by Southern states and the government.
Two national leaders of black people are Booker T. Washington (former
slave, who became an educator and spokesman. In his infamous Atlanta
Compromise speech he insisted that African Americans stayed in the
South) and W.E.B. Du Bois (founder of the NAACP in 1909).
Part II: Civil Rights Organizing, from the NAACP to the Black
Panthers.
Organizing: a method of developing mass organizations (e.g., labour
unions) with the goal of shifting power in a society from a small elite to a
broad base of people (e.g., workers) who come to recognize their shared
interests. It involves convincing people not already involved in
politics/workplace struggles to get involved, in order to gain massive
participation to alter existing power structures. It’s sort of a politics from
below, but collective and coordinated. Their motivation is solidarity,
wanting to fight for each other. The NAACP laid the foundation for black
rights in politics.
- Black labour struggles, 1918-1948: Philip Randolph (1889-1979).
Randolph was president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the
first labour organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in
the American Federation of Labor. During WWII, he links the fight against
Jim Crow with the fight against fascism/Nazism. In 1941, discrimination is
banned in the Defence Industries; in 1948, the Armed Services are
desegregated. In 1963, he forms the head of the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom (MLK’s I Have a Dream). He also inspired the ‘freedom
budget’, aimed at dealing with the economic problems facing the black
community.
- The Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s
o 1954: Brown v. Board of Education
o 1955: Emmett Till is lynched in Mississippi + the Montgomery
Bus Boycott in Alabama
o 1955: Massive Resistance (white counter-reaction, Citizens’
Councils)
o 1956: Southern Manifesto (opposition to racial integration of
public spaces).
o 1957: MLK Jr. and the founding of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
o 1957: Integration of Little Rock High School by the 101 st
Airborne Division
o 1957: Civil Rights Act
Most of the Civil Rights Movement victories happened in the Supreme
Court, under the leadership of Earl Warren. This was a narrow strategy of
, the movement, aiming at legislation. It also met with a lot of violent
resistance. It also had a media strategy, for example showing the corpse
of Emmett Till in the newspaper.
- Democrats in the 1960s: John F. Kennedy (President 1961-1963).
Kennedy was a symbol for the new era, but he only enacted ‘glacial
change’, focussing on voting rights. Many of his domestic programs
languished in Congress, also because everyone was more focussed on
foreign policy (Cold War, decolonization). The Cold War played a role in the
Civil Rights Movement. On the one hand, it ignited more white resistance,
because race mixing was seen as communism. On the other hand, it
helped the movement because the US promoted democracy around the
world but didn’t even let black people vote in their own country. Because
of the Cold War the eyes were on the US and people abroad found it all
very weird. Because JFK was assassinated in november 1963, the civil
rights legislation stalled in the Senate. He was followed by Lyndon B.
Johnson: Civil Rights Act (1964) & Voting Rights Act and Affirmative Action
(1965).
Political change didn’t just happen through the Supreme Court or
Presidents, but also through organizations of citizens: SNCC, CORE, SDS,
SCLC, etc. the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) was
organized in 1960 by Ella Baker. They were critical of King and the top-
down leadership, they were pro participatory democracy and direct action,
such as sit-ins, “kneel-ins,” and Freedom Rides (1961). In 1963, there was
the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; in 1964 the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party (Fannie Lou Hamer) went to the Democratic
Party Convention (where African Americans weren’t allowed to participate)
but were ignored/refused. The MFDP realized it couldn’t change anything
within the system; in 1965, marches were held from Selma to Montgomery
for voting rights.
This realization, that change wouldn’t happen within the system, was one
of the reasons for founding the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
(1966). In this party, black nationalism, socialism and armed self-defence
were central. They wore military apparel and gear but also had a lot of
social programs, such as free breakfast for children and community health
clinics.
Statistics show that segregation of public schools is still a thing, with in
2016 40% of black students going to public schools with fewer than 1 in 10
white students. It has dropped significantly since 1968 (then: 64%), but
it’s still happening. Noticeable is also that the riots in the 1960s are very
similar to those of 2020, so why this continuance?
Part III: The Shifting Terrain of Black Revolution: Cities,
Universities, Prisons
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