Simon Balto
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469649597
- eISBN:
- 9781469649610
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649597.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
Chapter five focuses on the years from 1960 to 1967, aligning with the tenure of Chicago Police Department Superintendent Orlando Wilson. Hired in the wake of a massive scandal within the police ...
More
Chapter five focuses on the years from 1960 to 1967, aligning with the tenure of Chicago Police Department Superintendent Orlando Wilson. Hired in the wake of a massive scandal within the police department, Wilson came in as a departmental outsider, and with aims to reform and professionalize the department and ensure greater accountability to the public. For these efforts, Wilson is remembered as perhaps the most consequential leader of the CPD in the department’s history. He implemented the first Internal Investigations Division and labored to better the image of the police in the eyes of the public. However, he was also a strong law-and-order proponent who firmly believed in an expansive police power, leading to an evermore aggressive police presence in Black neighborhoods that would have longstanding consequences and a contentious relationship with Chicago’s civil rights movement (known as the Chicago Freedom Movement) when it sought to use civil disobedience in pursuit of racial justice. At the same time, Wilson’s reform efforts—especially those intended to bring more oversight and accountability to police behavior—were fought tooth and nail by many of his subordinates, led by groups like the Chicago Patrolman’s Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, and other police organizations that were direct ancestors of modern police unions. In the end, this meant that systems of accountability, while technically implemented during this period, were dysfunctional in actually halting police brutality and other abuses of power.Less
Chapter five focuses on the years from 1960 to 1967, aligning with the tenure of Chicago Police Department Superintendent Orlando Wilson. Hired in the wake of a massive scandal within the police department, Wilson came in as a departmental outsider, and with aims to reform and professionalize the department and ensure greater accountability to the public. For these efforts, Wilson is remembered as perhaps the most consequential leader of the CPD in the department’s history. He implemented the first Internal Investigations Division and labored to better the image of the police in the eyes of the public. However, he was also a strong law-and-order proponent who firmly believed in an expansive police power, leading to an evermore aggressive police presence in Black neighborhoods that would have longstanding consequences and a contentious relationship with Chicago’s civil rights movement (known as the Chicago Freedom Movement) when it sought to use civil disobedience in pursuit of racial justice. At the same time, Wilson’s reform efforts—especially those intended to bring more oversight and accountability to police behavior—were fought tooth and nail by many of his subordinates, led by groups like the Chicago Patrolman’s Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, and other police organizations that were direct ancestors of modern police unions. In the end, this meant that systems of accountability, while technically implemented during this period, were dysfunctional in actually halting police brutality and other abuses of power.
Simon Balto
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469649597
- eISBN:
- 9781469649610
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649597.003.0009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
The final chapter documents the wide range of Black-led activist efforts to reform the police at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s. The launching point is the assassination of Fred Hampton, ...
More
The final chapter documents the wide range of Black-led activist efforts to reform the police at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s. The launching point is the assassination of Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, in a 1969 killing orchestrated by the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County State’s Attorney, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the aftermath of his killing, a wave of community organizations mobilized or expanded their protests about Chicago’s police. This included groups like the Afro-American Patrolman’s League, comprised of Black CPD officers seeking to end police brutality and ensure better police services for Black Chicago. It included U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe using the power of his office to expose police violence and harassment, and the fight for community control of the police led by the Black Panthers. Some activists who advocated for police reform sought more responsive police services to better community safety from escalating gun violence; others, such as those involved in the push for community control, pursued visions of semi-abolition of the police as currently constituted. Binding them together was a common understanding that the CPD was not working for Black Chicago.Less
The final chapter documents the wide range of Black-led activist efforts to reform the police at the end of the 1960s and in the early 1970s. The launching point is the assassination of Fred Hampton, Deputy Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, in a 1969 killing orchestrated by the Chicago Police Department, the Cook County State’s Attorney, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the aftermath of his killing, a wave of community organizations mobilized or expanded their protests about Chicago’s police. This included groups like the Afro-American Patrolman’s League, comprised of Black CPD officers seeking to end police brutality and ensure better police services for Black Chicago. It included U.S. Congressman Ralph Metcalfe using the power of his office to expose police violence and harassment, and the fight for community control of the police led by the Black Panthers. Some activists who advocated for police reform sought more responsive police services to better community safety from escalating gun violence; others, such as those involved in the push for community control, pursued visions of semi-abolition of the police as currently constituted. Binding them together was a common understanding that the CPD was not working for Black Chicago.
Simon Balto
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469649597
- eISBN:
- 9781469649610
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649597.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
In July 1919, an explosive race riot forever changed Chicago. For years, black southerners had been leaving the South as part of the Great Migration. Their arrival in Chicago drew the ire and scorn ...
More
In July 1919, an explosive race riot forever changed Chicago. For years, black southerners had been leaving the South as part of the Great Migration. Their arrival in Chicago drew the ire and scorn of many local whites, including members of the city’s political leadership and police department, who generally sympathized with white Chicagoans and viewed black migrants as a problem population. During Chicago’s Red Summer riot, patterns of extraordinary brutality, negligence, and discriminatory policing emerged to shocking effect. Those patterns shifted in subsequent decades, but the overall realities of a racially discriminatory police system persisted.
In this history of Chicago from 1919 to the rise and fall of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon Balto narrates the evolution of racially repressive policing in black neighborhoods as well as how black citizen-activists challenged that repression. Balto demonstrates that punitive practices by and inadequate protection from the police were central to black Chicagoans’ lives long before the late-century "wars" on crime and drugs. By exploring the deeper origins of this toxic system, Balto reveals how modern mass incarceration, built upon racialized police practices, emerged as a fully formed machine of profoundly antiblack subjugation.Less
In July 1919, an explosive race riot forever changed Chicago. For years, black southerners had been leaving the South as part of the Great Migration. Their arrival in Chicago drew the ire and scorn of many local whites, including members of the city’s political leadership and police department, who generally sympathized with white Chicagoans and viewed black migrants as a problem population. During Chicago’s Red Summer riot, patterns of extraordinary brutality, negligence, and discriminatory policing emerged to shocking effect. Those patterns shifted in subsequent decades, but the overall realities of a racially discriminatory police system persisted.
In this history of Chicago from 1919 to the rise and fall of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon Balto narrates the evolution of racially repressive policing in black neighborhoods as well as how black citizen-activists challenged that repression. Balto demonstrates that punitive practices by and inadequate protection from the police were central to black Chicagoans’ lives long before the late-century "wars" on crime and drugs. By exploring the deeper origins of this toxic system, Balto reveals how modern mass incarceration, built upon racialized police practices, emerged as a fully formed machine of profoundly antiblack subjugation.
Sandra Hines
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447327868
- eISBN:
- 9781447327882
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447327868.003.0019
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
In this interview chapter, Sandra Hines, President of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, discusses the origins of the Coalition, the role that it has played in reducing police brutality ...
More
In this interview chapter, Sandra Hines, President of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, discusses the origins of the Coalition, the role that it has played in reducing police brutality and violence in Detroit and areas in which the Coalition is active within the city. Hines also critically discusses the injustices of the city’s current renaissance, framing it within racial perspectives and in the form of a ‘white takeover.’Less
In this interview chapter, Sandra Hines, President of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, discusses the origins of the Coalition, the role that it has played in reducing police brutality and violence in Detroit and areas in which the Coalition is active within the city. Hines also critically discusses the injustices of the city’s current renaissance, framing it within racial perspectives and in the form of a ‘white takeover.’
Simon Balto
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469649597
- eISBN:
- 9781469649610
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469649597.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
The first chapter opens with scenes from Chicago’s Red Summer race riot in July of 1919. It explores the cascade of white violence that characterized the riot, as well as the armed self-defense that ...
More
The first chapter opens with scenes from Chicago’s Red Summer race riot in July of 1919. It explores the cascade of white violence that characterized the riot, as well as the armed self-defense that Blacks deployed in response. It also tracks the ways in which both police brutality and police neglect were features of how Black Chicagoans experienced the Chicago Police Department during those awful summer days in which thirty-eight Chicagoans in total were killed. From there, it shifts in the 1920s, when segregation in Chicago became more rigid, and explores how police corruption and political corruption worked hand in hand to shape the city’s Prohibition decade. It documents how politicians especially used the police department to their advantage, in particular by variously allowing vice operators to set up shop in less politically influential Black neighborhoods, and subsequently cracking down on low-level vice offenses by Black people. It also explores the long reach of police torture of civilians in 1920s Chicago.Less
The first chapter opens with scenes from Chicago’s Red Summer race riot in July of 1919. It explores the cascade of white violence that characterized the riot, as well as the armed self-defense that Blacks deployed in response. It also tracks the ways in which both police brutality and police neglect were features of how Black Chicagoans experienced the Chicago Police Department during those awful summer days in which thirty-eight Chicagoans in total were killed. From there, it shifts in the 1920s, when segregation in Chicago became more rigid, and explores how police corruption and political corruption worked hand in hand to shape the city’s Prohibition decade. It documents how politicians especially used the police department to their advantage, in particular by variously allowing vice operators to set up shop in less politically influential Black neighborhoods, and subsequently cracking down on low-level vice offenses by Black people. It also explores the long reach of police torture of civilians in 1920s Chicago.
Garrett Felber
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781469653822
- eISBN:
- 9781469653846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653822.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Throughout the 1950s, the Nation of Islam encountered increasing surveillance and harassment from local and state police on the streets as well as inside prisons. As Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam ...
More
Throughout the 1950s, the Nation of Islam encountered increasing surveillance and harassment from local and state police on the streets as well as inside prisons. As Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam became a force within the Harlem community, they seemed poised to submerge their political and religious differences in the interest of forming a local Black united front. An alliance of Black Nationalists, liberals, and labor activists was forging an ambitious and sweeping political coalition in Harlem around a platform of Black unity. Though the resulting Emergency Committee would not last long, it raises lasting questions about postwar Black social movements and the development of the carceral apparatuses that suppressed them.Less
Throughout the 1950s, the Nation of Islam encountered increasing surveillance and harassment from local and state police on the streets as well as inside prisons. As Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam became a force within the Harlem community, they seemed poised to submerge their political and religious differences in the interest of forming a local Black united front. An alliance of Black Nationalists, liberals, and labor activists was forging an ambitious and sweeping political coalition in Harlem around a platform of Black unity. Though the resulting Emergency Committee would not last long, it raises lasting questions about postwar Black social movements and the development of the carceral apparatuses that suppressed them.
Garrett Felber
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781469653822
- eISBN:
- 9781469653846
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653822.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Although civil rights historiography has largely focused on the role of the courts in changing federal jurisprudence, the Nation of Islam used the courtroom as a political arena to build Black unity ...
More
Although civil rights historiography has largely focused on the role of the courts in changing federal jurisprudence, the Nation of Islam used the courtroom as a political arena to build Black unity on the issue of police violence and across religious and political divides within Black and Latinx communities. Unlike the efforts of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund or the cases brought forth by Muslim prisoners, these trials did not seek policy changes or promote civil rights legislation. The Nation of Islam sought to shift the discourse of the trial through political theater and community organizing around a united platform against police brutality. This narrative of the Ronald Stokes trial, in which the LAPD indicted 14 members of the Nation of Islam on 40 counts of assault and resisting arrest, explores the relationship between the trial and both local anti-carceral activism and the national civil rights struggle.Less
Although civil rights historiography has largely focused on the role of the courts in changing federal jurisprudence, the Nation of Islam used the courtroom as a political arena to build Black unity on the issue of police violence and across religious and political divides within Black and Latinx communities. Unlike the efforts of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund or the cases brought forth by Muslim prisoners, these trials did not seek policy changes or promote civil rights legislation. The Nation of Islam sought to shift the discourse of the trial through political theater and community organizing around a united platform against police brutality. This narrative of the Ronald Stokes trial, in which the LAPD indicted 14 members of the Nation of Islam on 40 counts of assault and resisting arrest, explores the relationship between the trial and both local anti-carceral activism and the national civil rights struggle.
J. Michael Butler
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627472
- eISBN:
- 9781469627496
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627472.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The 1960s civil rights movement has been properly memorialized as an era of tremendous social progress in America. Yet the integration of public accommodations and passage of federal laws started a ...
More
The 1960s civil rights movement has been properly memorialized as an era of tremendous social progress in America. Yet the integration of public accommodations and passage of federal laws started a much longer process toward racial equality and justice that still persists. In Beyond Integration: The Black Freedom Struggle in Escambia County, Florida, 1960-2000, J. Michael Butler examines the accomplishments, contradictions, and limitations of the continuing black freedom struggle in one southern community. The racial unrest that surfaced during the 1970s regarding the use of Confederate imagery at Escambia High School and the persistent police brutality that resulted in the deaths of African American men demonstrates that the local movement did not end, but evolved to confront blatant reminders that blacks remained second class citizens in Northwest Florida. The power that white civic leaders possessed over issues that effected racial minorities beyond the 1960s—and the African American powerlessness to alter the status quo—culminated in the arrest and conviction of Reverend H. K. Matthews, the county’s foremost organizer, and revealed that economic, political, and educational discrepancies plagued local race relations into the twenty-first century. Beyond Integration offers a new perspective on the literature of the black freedom struggle and reveals how with each legal step taken toward racial equality, notions of black inferiority became more entrenched in Northwest Florida.Less
The 1960s civil rights movement has been properly memorialized as an era of tremendous social progress in America. Yet the integration of public accommodations and passage of federal laws started a much longer process toward racial equality and justice that still persists. In Beyond Integration: The Black Freedom Struggle in Escambia County, Florida, 1960-2000, J. Michael Butler examines the accomplishments, contradictions, and limitations of the continuing black freedom struggle in one southern community. The racial unrest that surfaced during the 1970s regarding the use of Confederate imagery at Escambia High School and the persistent police brutality that resulted in the deaths of African American men demonstrates that the local movement did not end, but evolved to confront blatant reminders that blacks remained second class citizens in Northwest Florida. The power that white civic leaders possessed over issues that effected racial minorities beyond the 1960s—and the African American powerlessness to alter the status quo—culminated in the arrest and conviction of Reverend H. K. Matthews, the county’s foremost organizer, and revealed that economic, political, and educational discrepancies plagued local race relations into the twenty-first century. Beyond Integration offers a new perspective on the literature of the black freedom struggle and reveals how with each legal step taken toward racial equality, notions of black inferiority became more entrenched in Northwest Florida.
Kenneth Robert Janken
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624839
- eISBN:
- 9781469624853
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624839.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The conclusion brings the case of the Wilmington Ten from the overturning of their convictions into the twenty-first century when they received pardons of innocence in 2012. Returning to the reality ...
More
The conclusion brings the case of the Wilmington Ten from the overturning of their convictions into the twenty-first century when they received pardons of innocence in 2012. Returning to the reality that the state of North Carolina ruined lives in order to forestall inevitable change and combat radicalism, the conclusion briefly examines what happened to the individual members of the Wilmington Ten. It also reappraises the movement to free them in light of recent scholarship on the trajectory of African American politics and black radicalism. Since this century began, North Carolina has pulsed with struggle over the types of issues that characterized the conflicts of the 1970s. Public schools have re-segregated, and state government’s support for quality education for all has been hijacked by a mania for charter, religious, and for-profit schools. Fighters for criminal justice reform have brought to light many other cases of wrongful conviction. Police misconduct, including instances of corrupt investigations, brutality and death under at best questionable circumstances, bubbles to the surface, as in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere. This and more has brought forth in North Carolina collective efforts to find solutions, including the broad-based Moral Monday movement, which has been emulated across the South.Less
The conclusion brings the case of the Wilmington Ten from the overturning of their convictions into the twenty-first century when they received pardons of innocence in 2012. Returning to the reality that the state of North Carolina ruined lives in order to forestall inevitable change and combat radicalism, the conclusion briefly examines what happened to the individual members of the Wilmington Ten. It also reappraises the movement to free them in light of recent scholarship on the trajectory of African American politics and black radicalism. Since this century began, North Carolina has pulsed with struggle over the types of issues that characterized the conflicts of the 1970s. Public schools have re-segregated, and state government’s support for quality education for all has been hijacked by a mania for charter, religious, and for-profit schools. Fighters for criminal justice reform have brought to light many other cases of wrongful conviction. Police misconduct, including instances of corrupt investigations, brutality and death under at best questionable circumstances, bubbles to the surface, as in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere. This and more has brought forth in North Carolina collective efforts to find solutions, including the broad-based Moral Monday movement, which has been emulated across the South.
Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635866
- eISBN:
- 9781469635873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635866.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter begins with urban renewal, which destroyed the entire quadrant of Southwest Washington in the late 1950s. The catastrophic impact of urban renewal helped catalyze an era of grassroots ...
More
This chapter begins with urban renewal, which destroyed the entire quadrant of Southwest Washington in the late 1950s. The catastrophic impact of urban renewal helped catalyze an era of grassroots citizen activism throughout Washington in the decade after the legal barriers to racial segregation had tumbled. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, black and white activists fought back against the business interests and unelected officials who ran Washington, challenging embedded economic inequalities in the black-majority city. Mobilizing citizen power, they struggled to stem white flight, open economic opportunities, build affordable housing, end police brutality, and win home rule. It was a time of extraordinary social ferment, escalating tensions, and explosive confrontation as Washingtonians questioned the basic relationship between the city and the nation. Progress, however, did not keep up with expectations. Despite years of protests, negotiations, hearings, and reports about racial inequality, Washington remained separate and unequal, the divide between black and white only seemed to grow wider, and frustration within the low-income black community intensified.Less
This chapter begins with urban renewal, which destroyed the entire quadrant of Southwest Washington in the late 1950s. The catastrophic impact of urban renewal helped catalyze an era of grassroots citizen activism throughout Washington in the decade after the legal barriers to racial segregation had tumbled. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, black and white activists fought back against the business interests and unelected officials who ran Washington, challenging embedded economic inequalities in the black-majority city. Mobilizing citizen power, they struggled to stem white flight, open economic opportunities, build affordable housing, end police brutality, and win home rule. It was a time of extraordinary social ferment, escalating tensions, and explosive confrontation as Washingtonians questioned the basic relationship between the city and the nation. Progress, however, did not keep up with expectations. Despite years of protests, negotiations, hearings, and reports about racial inequality, Washington remained separate and unequal, the divide between black and white only seemed to grow wider, and frustration within the low-income black community intensified.
LaKisha Michelle Simmons
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496817396
- eISBN:
- 9781496817440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496817396.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In this chapter, LaKisha Simmons argues that the Jim Crow streets in New Orleans were sites of racial violence for black women and girls. By exploring cases of assault and police brutality on the ...
More
In this chapter, LaKisha Simmons argues that the Jim Crow streets in New Orleans were sites of racial violence for black women and girls. By exploring cases of assault and police brutality on the city streets during segregation, the chapter contends that bodily vulnerability defined black womanhood. Yet despite the violence and trauma of Jim Crow life, black women went out on the streets in search of pleasure. Simmons contends that the Million Dollar Baby Dolls declared their humanity and reclaimed their bodies by seeking out pleasure. Simmons analyzes Ralston Crawford photographs of black women dancing and partying to better understand pleasure geographies and black female performance culture in New Orleans during segregation.Less
In this chapter, LaKisha Simmons argues that the Jim Crow streets in New Orleans were sites of racial violence for black women and girls. By exploring cases of assault and police brutality on the city streets during segregation, the chapter contends that bodily vulnerability defined black womanhood. Yet despite the violence and trauma of Jim Crow life, black women went out on the streets in search of pleasure. Simmons contends that the Million Dollar Baby Dolls declared their humanity and reclaimed their bodies by seeking out pleasure. Simmons analyzes Ralston Crawford photographs of black women dancing and partying to better understand pleasure geographies and black female performance culture in New Orleans during segregation.
Adam Malka
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469636290
- eISBN:
- 9781469636313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636290.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The opening chapter introduces the broader story that the next seven chapters will tell, and makes clear that this is a study of policing which culminates in the mass black incarceration of late ...
More
The opening chapter introduces the broader story that the next seven chapters will tell, and makes clear that this is a study of policing which culminates in the mass black incarceration of late 1860s Baltimore. The book has two primary arguments: first, that Baltimore’s police institutions were from the onset shaped by a liberal order that assumed criminality as the essence of black freedom; and second, that the criminalization of black freedom in turn encouraged white police power. The introduction also defines three concepts central to these arguments – police, property, and manhood – while situating the book in existing historiography, especially that of 19th century criminal justice and American liberalism. Finally, it suggests that this history of the nineteenth-century is an antecedent to today’s stories of racialized police brutality and mass black incarceration.Less
The opening chapter introduces the broader story that the next seven chapters will tell, and makes clear that this is a study of policing which culminates in the mass black incarceration of late 1860s Baltimore. The book has two primary arguments: first, that Baltimore’s police institutions were from the onset shaped by a liberal order that assumed criminality as the essence of black freedom; and second, that the criminalization of black freedom in turn encouraged white police power. The introduction also defines three concepts central to these arguments – police, property, and manhood – while situating the book in existing historiography, especially that of 19th century criminal justice and American liberalism. Finally, it suggests that this history of the nineteenth-century is an antecedent to today’s stories of racialized police brutality and mass black incarceration.
Robin Bunce
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526106438
- eISBN:
- 9781526120939
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526106438.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as ...
More
The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as CLR James and Walter Rodney, and drawing activists from radical organisations such as the Black Panthers and the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the Race Today Collective became the most influential black rights group in Britain in the 1980s. Centred around a magazine, Darcus Howe and the Collective organised some of the most important grassroots campaigns of the decade, bringing black power to housing, industry, policing and the arts. This chapter considers the group’s emergence in the 1970s, the intellectual foundations on which the Collective was built, its distinctive approach to campaigning, its relationship to various ‘white left’ groups, and the different aspects of its work during the 1980s.Less
The Race Today Collective occupied a unique position on the British left during the 1980s. Inspired by the example of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the thought of radicals such as CLR James and Walter Rodney, and drawing activists from radical organisations such as the Black Panthers and the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the Race Today Collective became the most influential black rights group in Britain in the 1980s. Centred around a magazine, Darcus Howe and the Collective organised some of the most important grassroots campaigns of the decade, bringing black power to housing, industry, policing and the arts. This chapter considers the group’s emergence in the 1970s, the intellectual foundations on which the Collective was built, its distinctive approach to campaigning, its relationship to various ‘white left’ groups, and the different aspects of its work during the 1980s.
J. Michael Butler
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469627472
- eISBN:
- 9781469627496
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627472.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In 1984, Pensacola and Escambia County implemented new election procedures for public office. Existing demographic data, however, indicates that political alterations did little to change the social ...
More
In 1984, Pensacola and Escambia County implemented new election procedures for public office. Existing demographic data, however, indicates that political alterations did little to change the social and economic disparities between American Americans and whites in Northwest Florida during the 1980s and 1990s. The area continued to endure repeated incidents of police brutality against black citizens, and debates regarding the public display of Confederate symbols in public places often resurfaced. Yet attempts to organize in either traditional or new ways provided little relief for Panhandle residents. The failed campaigns of the 1970s, therefore, created a deep mistrust of traditional institutions such as the political process and formal civil rights organizations among African Americans, and did little to alter the economic and educational inequities that plague Escambia County race relations into the twenty-first century. African American powerlessness to alter racial status quo, influence the local power structure to acknowledge the validity of black concerns, or initiate meaningful reform in those areas remain the most enduring legacy of the area freedom struggle.Less
In 1984, Pensacola and Escambia County implemented new election procedures for public office. Existing demographic data, however, indicates that political alterations did little to change the social and economic disparities between American Americans and whites in Northwest Florida during the 1980s and 1990s. The area continued to endure repeated incidents of police brutality against black citizens, and debates regarding the public display of Confederate symbols in public places often resurfaced. Yet attempts to organize in either traditional or new ways provided little relief for Panhandle residents. The failed campaigns of the 1970s, therefore, created a deep mistrust of traditional institutions such as the political process and formal civil rights organizations among African Americans, and did little to alter the economic and educational inequities that plague Escambia County race relations into the twenty-first century. African American powerlessness to alter racial status quo, influence the local power structure to acknowledge the validity of black concerns, or initiate meaningful reform in those areas remain the most enduring legacy of the area freedom struggle.
Tanya Katerí Hernández
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479830329
- eISBN:
- 9781479840748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479830329.003.0005
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
When mixed-race persons are removed from society because they have either been arrested or convicted of a criminal offense, the criminal justice system they enter is not devoid of racial hierarchy. ...
More
When mixed-race persons are removed from society because they have either been arrested or convicted of a criminal offense, the criminal justice system they enter is not devoid of racial hierarchy. In fact, there are ways in which the criminal justice system is even more explicitly racially stratified with whites as the bulk of law enforcement officers and non-whites as the disproportionate portion of arrestees and inmates. Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states are black and/or Latino, and convictions for drug offenses have been identified as the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States. It is thus noteworthy to observe that mixed-race arrestees and prisoners describe their experiences of discrimination in ways that parallel the white versus non-white binary found in all other multiracial discrimination contexts.Less
When mixed-race persons are removed from society because they have either been arrested or convicted of a criminal offense, the criminal justice system they enter is not devoid of racial hierarchy. In fact, there are ways in which the criminal justice system is even more explicitly racially stratified with whites as the bulk of law enforcement officers and non-whites as the disproportionate portion of arrestees and inmates. Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states are black and/or Latino, and convictions for drug offenses have been identified as the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States. It is thus noteworthy to observe that mixed-race arrestees and prisoners describe their experiences of discrimination in ways that parallel the white versus non-white binary found in all other multiracial discrimination contexts.
Maurice J. Hobson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635354
- eISBN:
- 9781469635378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635354.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter Five focuses on the calculated and concerted steps taken by Atlanta’s white business elite and black city government to bid for the Centennial Olympic Games. A diverse cohort of private ...
More
Chapter Five focuses on the calculated and concerted steps taken by Atlanta’s white business elite and black city government to bid for the Centennial Olympic Games. A diverse cohort of private interests generated the necessary funds to give Atlanta a competitive bid for the Games was formed. This cohort included officers of Atlanta’s fortune 500 companies comprising of the Coca-Cola Company and Delta Airlines, Atlanta businessman Billy Payne, and politicians Mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. Once awarded the Centennial Games, two movements of paramount importance commenced, representing what the author calls the “olympification” of Atlanta. “Olympification” connotes the policies where urban renewal and gentrification were implemented to get Atlanta ready for the Games. The first of these movements, a joint effort between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the Atlanta Organizing Committee (AOC) worked to prepare the city for the Games is of extreme importance. The second movement, the Atlanta Project, gave way to social change in Atlanta waging war against poverty within the city. Started by the former U.S. president, humanitarian and Georgia native Jimmy Carter, this project had good intentions. But in the end, it did very little for Atlanta’s poor, thus further excluding them from the popular image of Atlanta as black Mecca.Less
Chapter Five focuses on the calculated and concerted steps taken by Atlanta’s white business elite and black city government to bid for the Centennial Olympic Games. A diverse cohort of private interests generated the necessary funds to give Atlanta a competitive bid for the Games was formed. This cohort included officers of Atlanta’s fortune 500 companies comprising of the Coca-Cola Company and Delta Airlines, Atlanta businessman Billy Payne, and politicians Mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. Once awarded the Centennial Games, two movements of paramount importance commenced, representing what the author calls the “olympification” of Atlanta. “Olympification” connotes the policies where urban renewal and gentrification were implemented to get Atlanta ready for the Games. The first of these movements, a joint effort between the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the Atlanta Organizing Committee (AOC) worked to prepare the city for the Games is of extreme importance. The second movement, the Atlanta Project, gave way to social change in Atlanta waging war against poverty within the city. Started by the former U.S. president, humanitarian and Georgia native Jimmy Carter, this project had good intentions. But in the end, it did very little for Atlanta’s poor, thus further excluding them from the popular image of Atlanta as black Mecca.