Search Results

Given the chance to make the case for segregated schools, or at least for delay of desegregation, the attorneys general of the southern states marshaled evidence and argument, and presented it to the Supreme Court in the days between Brown I and Brown II. District court judges, charged with managing enforcement of desegregation, in some cases adopted the suggestions of the southern state authorities. In Congress, the Southern Caucus, led by Richard Russell, prepared a pseudo legal brief, commonly called the Southern Manifesto, against Brown v. Board. Massive resistance in some of the southern states and fillibusters in the Senate did not stop the progress of desegregation.

The conclusion assesses the long term implications of the Southern Manifesto for both the course of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the larger racial dynamic s of Postwar America. Under the circumspect rhetoric of moderation, the Southern Manifesto undermined the efforts of civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to desegregate the South, and empowered southern officials to ignore the Brown decision for years. This conclusion thus places the Southern Manifesto in proper historical perspective and provides a summary of the implications of this event, the greatest episode of antagonistic racial demagoguery in modern American History.

This chapter discusses Johnson's shifting position on civil rights as his national profile grew and his political ambitions gathered steam. Despite being known as “Landslide Lyndon” because of his narrow and controversial victory in 1948, LBJ soon established himself in the Senate as an important southern Democrat whose racial views came under increasing scrutiny during the 1950s. Initially allying himself with conservatives who opposed civil rights change--notably in his relationship with the conservative senator from Georgia, Richard Russell--he soon distanced himself from segregationists in order to downplay his southern roots as his White House aspirations grew. This chapter addresses Johnson's response to the landmark 1954 Brown decision and the so-called Southern Manifesto that opposed it. As the civil rights movement grew in intensity and the nation witnessed the Montgomery bus boycott and the crisis at Little Rock, Johnson's decided to adopt an increasingly pro-civil rights position. Chapter 3 examines that choice and covers his decision to push Congress toward passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act (the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction). The chapter ends with an examination of Johnson's position on civil rights leading up to the 1960 presidential election and his decision to accept the vice presidency.

Scott took his oath of office on November 19, 1954, and remained in the Senate until his death in 1958. During his four years in Washington, he concentrated on agriculture, education, the harnessing of rivers for public water power, and issues relating to his home state, such as federal relief for hurricane damage in 1954–1955. He proposed a world food bank to help feed poor countries and gain their friendship in the fight against Communist expansion. While in the Senate, he dealt with some difficult and controversial decisions—he voted to censure Joe McCarthy, voted to make the Federal Republic of Germany a NATO member, voted against the admission of China to the United Nations, and voted yes on the Federal Housing Act of 1955, which provided new housing for the poor. He voted overwhelmingly with the Democratic Party on most issues. He frequently criticized President Dwight Eisenhower’s farm policy, and, while supporting most of the president’s foreign policy decisions during the Cold War, he accused Eisenhower of being overly militaristic when he threatened the use of atomic weapons against China over the Quemoy-Matsu crisis. The most pressing and divisive issue for Scott was civil rights. He disliked the Brown v. Board of Education decision and reluctantly signed on to the Southern Manifesto, advocating resistance to the court decision. His moderate racial views changed with his vehement criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and his rebuke of President Eisenhower for sending federal troops into Little. Kerr Scott died of a heart attack on April 16, 1958.

With the 1988 consolidation that brought the BSW program that had been housed at Clark College to the School, and the 1983 addition of the PhD program, the School now awarded the social work degree at all levels of the BSW, MSW, and PhD. Curriculum renewal during this period saw a shift from a from the generalist approach to the advanced clinical concentration, becoming again like all other schools of social work, a change that was influenced as much by the Council on Social Work Education’s reaffirmation requirements as by professional trends favoring micro practice. The “Republican Revolution” and the enactment of 1996 welfare reform bill resulted in the abandonment of the safety net philosophy, even as poverty rates soared upward. The aftermath of the election of America’s first African American president dispelled then myth of America as a post racial society, with resurgence of hate groups operating under a banner of white nationalism and white supremacy.