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A Powerful Weapon: Integration for Equality, 1940–1965

Zoë Burkholder

in An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North

Chapter 3 highlights a resurgence of northern Black support for school integration alongside the expanding civil rights movement. The outbreak of World War II created economic opportunities that drew ... More

Chapter 3 highlights a resurgence of northern Black support for school integration alongside the expanding civil rights movement. The outbreak of World War II created economic opportunities that drew Black migrants North in a second wave and sparked more militant civil rights activism. NAACP leaders persuaded northern Black communities to reject school segregation. By citing anti-discrimination legislation and organizing petitions and boycotts, these activists won the formal desegregation of public schools in the North between 1940 and 1954. A potent combination of civil rights activism, the decline of scientific racism, and the emergence of the Cold War pushed school integration to the forefront of national politics. Following the Brown decision, northern Blacks demanded school integration. The process was contentious, especially when districts closed Black schools and fired Black teachers. By 1965, many Black northerners expressed frustration with school integration and what they viewed as its failure to improve the quality of education for Black youth.Less

Caste Abolished: Integration for Freedom, 1840–1900

Zoë Burkholder

in An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North

Chapter 1 examines the earliest debates over school integration in Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Jamaica (New York), and a number of smaller towns. It argues that Black northerners viewed integrated ... More

Chapter 1 examines the earliest debates over school integration in Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Jamaica (New York), and a number of smaller towns. It argues that Black northerners viewed integrated public schools as essential to abolishing slavery, establishing Black citizenship, and eliminating racial prejudice. For abolitionists and Black leaders, the symbolic ideal of school integration took precedence over concerns about the quality of education available to Black youth. In contrast, Black families and teachers prioritized access to high-quality education and believed separate schools could better meet this goal. The ensuing debates between Black integrationists and separatists were intimately tied to the abolitionist movement, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the rise of Jim Crow. By the turn of the twentieth century, Black northerners had won the right to attend public school on an equal and integrated basis, yet they struggled against a rising tide of bigotry and residential segregation.Less

Chinese Americans, Orientals, Minorities: Politics in a New Era

Charlotte Brooks

in Between Mao and McCarthy: Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years

Chapter Six examines Chinese American political activity in the 1960s against the backdrop of the black civil rights movement, growing Asian American socioeconomic mobility, the Vietnam War, changes ... More

Chapter Six examines Chinese American political activity in the 1960s against the backdrop of the black civil rights movement, growing Asian American socioeconomic mobility, the Vietnam War, changes in US immigration policy, and the intergenerational tensions that the Asian American movement helped provoke. During this period, activist Chinese Americans youths increasingly rejected moderate politics and condemned as reactionaries the same community liberals who had long struggled against Chinatown conservatives.Less

Conclusion

Zoë Burkholder

in An African American Dilemma: A History of School Integration and Civil Rights in the North

The book concludes with a consideration of how northern Black debates over school integration versus separation transformed the Black civil rights movement. Black northerners who participated in acts ... More

The book concludes with a consideration of how northern Black debates over school integration versus separation transformed the Black civil rights movement. Black northerners who participated in acts of educational protest challenged institutionalized racism in American schools and enacted lasting, substantial improvements. They organized grassroots movements that demanded specific reforms in local public institutions, in the process mobilizing Black northerners to become involved in local, state, and national politics. The inherent tensions between school integrationists and separatists created a dynamic, evolving grassroots movement for Black educational reform that insists on racial justice in public education and moves Americans closer to the meaningful reforms that will create equitable and high-quality public schools for all.Less

Managing Contradictions: The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 7 studies the role that nonprofits played in undermining the efforts of New Orleans public housing communities post-Katrina.

ConclusionLessons from New Orleans

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

In the conclusion I identify the lessons–the “silver lining”–that the human-made disasters of St. Thomas and Katrina can provide for reigniting a movement for racial and economic justice.

Confronting the New Boss: Struggles for Home and Community in the Postsegregation Era, 1965–1985

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 1 provides a demographic profile of the St. Thomas and the collective efforts residents mounted to address their grievances.

No Hope in Hope VI: Dismantling Public Housing from the Nation to the Neighborhood

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 4 analyzes how federal public housing policy was “neoliberalized” in the 1990s, the embrace of “reform” by New Orleans developers and public officials, and how federal initiatives were worked ... More

Chapter 4 analyzes how federal public housing policy was “neoliberalized” in the 1990s, the embrace of “reform” by New Orleans developers and public officials, and how federal initiatives were worked out at the neighborhood level.Less

Whose City Is It?: Hurricane Katrina and the Struggle for New Orleans’s Public Housing, 2003–2008

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 6 looks at the struggle to defend New Orleans public housing communities, and the role that nonprofits played in undermining those efforts, post-Katrina.

Neoliberalism and Nonprofits: Selling Privatization at St. Thomas, 1989–1995

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 3 continues a focus on political strategy by addressing how and why the St. Thomas residents and their advisors undertook a dramatic political reversal by forging a partnership with the ... More

Chapter 3 continues a focus on political strategy by addressing how and why the St. Thomas residents and their advisors undertook a dramatic political reversal by forging a partnership with the city’s most powerful real estate mogul to redevelop their community and surrounding area.Less

Undoing the Black Urban Regime: Resistance to Displacement and Elite Divisions, 1986–1988

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 2 outlines the expansion, and intertwining, of tourism and gentrification in New Orleans. I then detail and evaluate the effectiveness, in the context of electing the city’s second black ... More

Chapter 2 outlines the expansion, and intertwining, of tourism and gentrification in New Orleans. I then detail and evaluate the effectiveness, in the context of electing the city’s second black mayor, of the insider and outsider political strategies St. Thomas residents and their advisors employed to protect their community from the increasing development pressures they faced.Less

‘Killing yourself is no way to make a living’: environmental justice in the United States

Karen Bell

in Achieving environmental justice: A cross-national analysis

No discussion of how to achieve environmental justice would be complete without reference to the United States, the birthplace of the concept and what has become known as the ‘environmental justice ... More

No discussion of how to achieve environmental justice would be complete without reference to the United States, the birthplace of the concept and what has become known as the ‘environmental justice movement’. This chapter critically assesses the state of environmental justice in the United States, drawing on the relevant literature as well as the authors own observations and a number of semi-structured interviews carried out between 2008 and 2012. The US is typologised here as the most capitalist of the seven case-study countries examined in this book, primarily because it has no recent experience of extensive public ownership of the means of production. The chapter outlines how the country is weak on substantive, distributive, procedural intergenerational, inter-species and international aspects of environmental justice. The main issues are excessive use of resources and production of waste; high levels of environmental inequities, based on pronounced social inequalities; and inadequate procedural justice frameworks and policies, which have often focused more on managing and controlling communities than on empowering them.Less

When Things Fall Apart: From the Dreams of St. Thomas to theNightmare of River Gardens, 1996–2002

John Arena

in Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization

Chapter 5 chronicles the creation of the final redevelopment plan, the promises broken by developers, the mayor, and housing officials, internal divisions, and the final eviction of the residents. ... More

Chapter 5 chronicles the creation of the final redevelopment plan, the promises broken by developers, the mayor, and housing officials, internal divisions, and the final eviction of the residents. Why, I ask, did tenant leaders and community activists maintain their commitment to the privatization road map, despite the radical departure from earlier promises made to them?Less