Sara Rzeszutek Haviland
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166254
- eISBN:
- 9780813166735
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166254.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This collective biography of James and Esther Cooper Jackson argues that, in the face of major political transformations, activists responded to new political contexts and drew on their own personal ...
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This collective biography of James and Esther Cooper Jackson argues that, in the face of major political transformations, activists responded to new political contexts and drew on their own personal needs, demands, and relationships to craft their contributions to the black freedom movement. A black Communist couple, Esther and Jack navigated through difficult circumstances, including the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, and continued to influence the trajectory of black freedom in the twentieth-century United States. But their approaches changed as politics shifted, as their family grew, and as their relationship evolved. By following one couple over the course of a sixty-five-year, gender-egalitarian marriage, this work offers a new look at the history of social movements as it illustrates how individuals and families responded to change and revised their ideas about participation in movements as they matured. As activists during the Popular Front, McCarthy, civil rights, and post–civil rights years, Esther and Jack held on to their core ideals while adapting to the dominant trends. Their lives also illuminate the relationship between mainstream civil rights organizations and the Left by illustrating that the political spectrum in the black freedom movement was consistently more fluid, complex, and informed by earlier activist trends than the traditional narrative suggests.Less
This collective biography of James and Esther Cooper Jackson argues that, in the face of major political transformations, activists responded to new political contexts and drew on their own personal needs, demands, and relationships to craft their contributions to the black freedom movement. A black Communist couple, Esther and Jack navigated through difficult circumstances, including the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, and continued to influence the trajectory of black freedom in the twentieth-century United States. But their approaches changed as politics shifted, as their family grew, and as their relationship evolved. By following one couple over the course of a sixty-five-year, gender-egalitarian marriage, this work offers a new look at the history of social movements as it illustrates how individuals and families responded to change and revised their ideas about participation in movements as they matured. As activists during the Popular Front, McCarthy, civil rights, and post–civil rights years, Esther and Jack held on to their core ideals while adapting to the dominant trends. Their lives also illuminate the relationship between mainstream civil rights organizations and the Left by illustrating that the political spectrum in the black freedom movement was consistently more fluid, complex, and informed by earlier activist trends than the traditional narrative suggests.
Sarah Azaransky
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199744817
- eISBN:
- 9780199897308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744817.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter describes landmark legal arguments Murray made about equal protection in the 1960s. Using the category of “Jane Crow,” she demanded that the law be responsive to the synthetic nature of ...
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This chapter describes landmark legal arguments Murray made about equal protection in the 1960s. Using the category of “Jane Crow,” she demanded that the law be responsive to the synthetic nature of identity. In so doing, Murray placed African American women's experiences at the center of democratic consideration. Despite her attempts to build coalitions, she found herself increasingly at odds with leaders of the feminist and Black Freedom movements.Less
This chapter describes landmark legal arguments Murray made about equal protection in the 1960s. Using the category of “Jane Crow,” she demanded that the law be responsive to the synthetic nature of identity. In so doing, Murray placed African American women's experiences at the center of democratic consideration. Despite her attempts to build coalitions, she found herself increasingly at odds with leaders of the feminist and Black Freedom movements.
Tanisha Ford
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625157
- eISBN:
- 9781469625171
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625157.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. From the civil rights ...
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This book explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. Whether using stiletto heels as weapons to protect against police attacks or incorporating African-themed designs into everyday wear, these fashion-forward women celebrated their identities and pushed for equality. Focusing on the emergence of the “soul style” movement—represented in clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and more—the book shows that black women’s fashion choices became galvanizing symbols of gender and political liberation. Drawing from an eclectic archive, the book offers a new way of studying how black style and Soul Power moved beyond national boundaries, sparking a global fashion phenomenon. Following celebrities, models, college students, and everyday women as they moved through fashion boutiques, beauty salons, and record stores, it narrates the intertwining histories of Black Freedom and fashion.Less
This book explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. Whether using stiletto heels as weapons to protect against police attacks or incorporating African-themed designs into everyday wear, these fashion-forward women celebrated their identities and pushed for equality. Focusing on the emergence of the “soul style” movement—represented in clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and more—the book shows that black women’s fashion choices became galvanizing symbols of gender and political liberation. Drawing from an eclectic archive, the book offers a new way of studying how black style and Soul Power moved beyond national boundaries, sparking a global fashion phenomenon. Following celebrities, models, college students, and everyday women as they moved through fashion boutiques, beauty salons, and record stores, it narrates the intertwining histories of Black Freedom and fashion.
Sara Rzeszutek Haviland
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166254
- eISBN:
- 9780813166735
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166254.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
James and Esther Cooper Jackson’s marriage, commitment to communism, and devotion to the black freedom movement evolved over the course of the twentieth century. Their experiences were shaped by ...
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James and Esther Cooper Jackson’s marriage, commitment to communism, and devotion to the black freedom movement evolved over the course of the twentieth century. Their experiences were shaped by major events like the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement. The couple’s relationship, gender dynamics, and leftist activism offer unique insight into the influence major political and social changes had on the long black freedom movement. It also provides a new look at the relationship between Communists, communism, and the civil rights movement. The couple’s love informed their activism, and their activism shaped their love.Less
James and Esther Cooper Jackson’s marriage, commitment to communism, and devotion to the black freedom movement evolved over the course of the twentieth century. Their experiences were shaped by major events like the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement. The couple’s relationship, gender dynamics, and leftist activism offer unique insight into the influence major political and social changes had on the long black freedom movement. It also provides a new look at the relationship between Communists, communism, and the civil rights movement. The couple’s love informed their activism, and their activism shaped their love.
Monica M. White
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643694
- eISBN:
- 9781469643717
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643694.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In the late 1960s, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural ...
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In the late 1960s, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort. Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.Less
In the late 1960s, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort. Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.
Carol Giardina
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034560
- eISBN:
- 9780813039329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034560.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
In this first-hand history of the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), the book argues against the prevalent belief that the movement grew out of frustrations over the male chauvinism ...
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In this first-hand history of the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), the book argues against the prevalent belief that the movement grew out of frustrations over the male chauvinism experienced by WLM founders active in the Black Freedom Movement and the New Left. Instead, it contends, it was the ideas, resources, and skills that women gained in these movements that were the new and necessary catalysts for forging the WLM in the 1960s. The book uses a focused study of the WLM in Florida to tap into the common theory and history shared by a relatively small band of Women's Liberation founders across the country. Drawing on a wealth of interviews, autobiographical essays, organizational records, and published writings, the book brings to light information that has been previously ignored in other secondary accounts about the leadership of African American women in the movement. It also explores activists' roots in other movements on the left. It is a vivid portrait of the people and events that shaped radical feminism.Less
In this first-hand history of the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), the book argues against the prevalent belief that the movement grew out of frustrations over the male chauvinism experienced by WLM founders active in the Black Freedom Movement and the New Left. Instead, it contends, it was the ideas, resources, and skills that women gained in these movements that were the new and necessary catalysts for forging the WLM in the 1960s. The book uses a focused study of the WLM in Florida to tap into the common theory and history shared by a relatively small band of Women's Liberation founders across the country. Drawing on a wealth of interviews, autobiographical essays, organizational records, and published writings, the book brings to light information that has been previously ignored in other secondary accounts about the leadership of African American women in the movement. It also explores activists' roots in other movements on the left. It is a vivid portrait of the people and events that shaped radical feminism.
Carol Giardina
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034560
- eISBN:
- 9780813039329
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034560.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This introductory chapter investigates how the pioneers of the Women's Liberation Movement gained the courage and consciousness to make a movement against male supremacy in the United States in the ...
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This introductory chapter investigates how the pioneers of the Women's Liberation Movement gained the courage and consciousness to make a movement against male supremacy in the United States in the 1960s. The Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) against male supremacy in the United States has been thought from time to time to be a result of frustrations at male chauvinism faced by women in past movements such as the Black Freedom Movement. In fact, the WLM was rather the consequence of experiences, ideas resources, and skills acquired by women activists during the movements prior to the existence of the WLM. The introductory chapter explains this fact quite thoroughly. The chapter also brings forth the sources instrumental to activists in such women's liberation movements. Feminist ideas and aspects responsible for the success of these movements are also an important part of this chapter.Less
This introductory chapter investigates how the pioneers of the Women's Liberation Movement gained the courage and consciousness to make a movement against male supremacy in the United States in the 1960s. The Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) against male supremacy in the United States has been thought from time to time to be a result of frustrations at male chauvinism faced by women in past movements such as the Black Freedom Movement. In fact, the WLM was rather the consequence of experiences, ideas resources, and skills acquired by women activists during the movements prior to the existence of the WLM. The introductory chapter explains this fact quite thoroughly. The chapter also brings forth the sources instrumental to activists in such women's liberation movements. Feminist ideas and aspects responsible for the success of these movements are also an important part of this chapter.
Jordan T. Camp
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520281813
- eISBN:
- 9780520957688
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520281813.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter examines the relationships between the freedom movement, the Watts insurrection, and the formation of the carceral-security apparatus during the Cold War. The counterinsurgency against ...
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This chapter examines the relationships between the freedom movement, the Watts insurrection, and the formation of the carceral-security apparatus during the Cold War. The counterinsurgency against the Black freedom movement created the conditions of possibility for the Watts rebellion of 1965. A turning point in the history and future of freedom struggles, the Watts insurrection represented an organic crisis of Jim Crow racial regimes—one that presented the opportunity to form a broad alliance against racism, militarism, and poverty. In turn, these developments, alongside the rise of Ronald Reagan in California, created the political foundation upon which the neoliberal carceral state would flourish.Less
This chapter examines the relationships between the freedom movement, the Watts insurrection, and the formation of the carceral-security apparatus during the Cold War. The counterinsurgency against the Black freedom movement created the conditions of possibility for the Watts rebellion of 1965. A turning point in the history and future of freedom struggles, the Watts insurrection represented an organic crisis of Jim Crow racial regimes—one that presented the opportunity to form a broad alliance against racism, militarism, and poverty. In turn, these developments, alongside the rise of Ronald Reagan in California, created the political foundation upon which the neoliberal carceral state would flourish.
Kerry Pimblott
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813168821
- eISBN:
- 9780813169019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813168821.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter Three explores how Black Power activists rebuilt the pre-rebellion coalition under the banner of a reconstructed and relevant Christianity that drew upon both formal Black Theology and ...
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Chapter Three explores how Black Power activists rebuilt the pre-rebellion coalition under the banner of a reconstructed and relevant Christianity that drew upon both formal Black Theology and grassroots religious traditions. This chapter chronicles the formation of the Cairo United Front, an organization that brought together Black Cairoites from across organizational, class, generational, and ideological lines in support of a broad-based and inclusive movement for racial change and social justice.Less
Chapter Three explores how Black Power activists rebuilt the pre-rebellion coalition under the banner of a reconstructed and relevant Christianity that drew upon both formal Black Theology and grassroots religious traditions. This chapter chronicles the formation of the Cairo United Front, an organization that brought together Black Cairoites from across organizational, class, generational, and ideological lines in support of a broad-based and inclusive movement for racial change and social justice.
Elizabeth Todd-Breland
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469646589
- eISBN:
- 9781469647173
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646589.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter analyzes the racial politics of Mayor Harold Washington’s election, his education summit, and the supporters and critics of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act. Harold Washington’s ...
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This chapter analyzes the racial politics of Mayor Harold Washington’s election, his education summit, and the supporters and critics of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act. Harold Washington’s election as the first Black mayor of Chicago in 1983 was heralded by many as the ultimate attainment of Black Power and the success of the local Black Freedom Movement. His electoral victory was grounded in years of grassroots struggle by Black organizers fighting for integration, community control, and Black empowerment. While historians have largely considered the 1980s as a product of the political triumph of conservatism and the “Reagan revolution,” in Chicago a Black-led, urban, antimachine, progressive coalitional politics led to Washington’s electoral victory. The disparate programmatic and ideological camps detailed in previous chapters (desegregation activists, community control organizers, founders of independent Black institutions, Black educators) staked claims in Mayor Washington and his political organization. The politics of Washington’s education reform summits, however, exposed the fractures within this political coalition. The interracial and intraracial struggles over school reform in Chicago during the 1980s reveal the tensions between a politics of racial representation and a politics of progressive transformation and prefigure the increased privatization of public education in the decades that followed.Less
This chapter analyzes the racial politics of Mayor Harold Washington’s election, his education summit, and the supporters and critics of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act. Harold Washington’s election as the first Black mayor of Chicago in 1983 was heralded by many as the ultimate attainment of Black Power and the success of the local Black Freedom Movement. His electoral victory was grounded in years of grassroots struggle by Black organizers fighting for integration, community control, and Black empowerment. While historians have largely considered the 1980s as a product of the political triumph of conservatism and the “Reagan revolution,” in Chicago a Black-led, urban, antimachine, progressive coalitional politics led to Washington’s electoral victory. The disparate programmatic and ideological camps detailed in previous chapters (desegregation activists, community control organizers, founders of independent Black institutions, Black educators) staked claims in Mayor Washington and his political organization. The politics of Washington’s education reform summits, however, exposed the fractures within this political coalition. The interracial and intraracial struggles over school reform in Chicago during the 1980s reveal the tensions between a politics of racial representation and a politics of progressive transformation and prefigure the increased privatization of public education in the decades that followed.
David Barber
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781934110171
- eISBN:
- 9781604733051
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781934110171.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
By the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year ...
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By the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year later, SDS splintered into warring factions and ceased to exist. Its development and its dissolution grew directly out of the organization’s relations with the black freedom movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging struggle for women’s liberation. For a moment, young white people could comprehend their world in new and revolutionary ways. But New Leftists did not respond as a tabula rasa. On the contrary, these young people’s consciousnesses, their culture, their identities had arisen out of a history which, for hundreds of years, had privileged white over black, men over women, and America over the rest of the world. Such a history could not help but distort the vision and practice of these activists, good intentions notwithstanding. This book traces these activists in their relation to other movements and demonstrates that the New Left’s dissolution flowed directly from SDS’s failure to break with traditional American notions of race, sex, and empire.Less
By the spring of 1969, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had reached its zenith as the largest, most radical movement of white youth in American history—a genuine New Left. Yet less than a year later, SDS splintered into warring factions and ceased to exist. Its development and its dissolution grew directly out of the organization’s relations with the black freedom movement, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the newly emerging struggle for women’s liberation. For a moment, young white people could comprehend their world in new and revolutionary ways. But New Leftists did not respond as a tabula rasa. On the contrary, these young people’s consciousnesses, their culture, their identities had arisen out of a history which, for hundreds of years, had privileged white over black, men over women, and America over the rest of the world. Such a history could not help but distort the vision and practice of these activists, good intentions notwithstanding. This book traces these activists in their relation to other movements and demonstrates that the New Left’s dissolution flowed directly from SDS’s failure to break with traditional American notions of race, sex, and empire.
David A. Canton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604734256
- eISBN:
- 9781621036555
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734256.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines Raymond Pace Alexander’s judicial activism in Philadelphia as well as his views on the Black Freedom Movement in the city and in the South. It looks at Alexander’s creation of ...
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This chapter examines Raymond Pace Alexander’s judicial activism in Philadelphia as well as his views on the Black Freedom Movement in the city and in the South. It looks at Alexander’s creation of the Community Legal Services, an organization intended to provide free legal assistance for the poor, along with his campaign for the desegregation of Girard College in Philadelphia. The chapter also discusses his appointment as judge of the Court of Common Pleas, his role in the Democratic Reform Movement, his continued involvement in the civil rights movement in the South and in Philadelphia, his efforts to address juvenile delinquency and poverty in the city, and his dispute with Cecil B. Moore, a black lawyer and president of the NAACP’s Philadelphia branch.Less
This chapter examines Raymond Pace Alexander’s judicial activism in Philadelphia as well as his views on the Black Freedom Movement in the city and in the South. It looks at Alexander’s creation of the Community Legal Services, an organization intended to provide free legal assistance for the poor, along with his campaign for the desegregation of Girard College in Philadelphia. The chapter also discusses his appointment as judge of the Court of Common Pleas, his role in the Democratic Reform Movement, his continued involvement in the civil rights movement in the South and in Philadelphia, his efforts to address juvenile delinquency and poverty in the city, and his dispute with Cecil B. Moore, a black lawyer and president of the NAACP’s Philadelphia branch.
Evan Faulkenbury
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469652009
- eISBN:
- 9781469651330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469652009.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This introduction lays out the main arguments of the book. It begins with a case study, a voting rights campaign in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during the early 1960s with support from the Voter ...
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This introduction lays out the main arguments of the book. It begins with a case study, a voting rights campaign in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during the early 1960s with support from the Voter Education Project (VEP). It then zooms out and explains the scope and importance of the VEP during the civil rights era. The book argues that the VEP was the main engine that drove the civil rights movement forward by providing money and support to hundreds of African American grassroots campaigns throughout eleven southern states, money deriving from philanthropic foundations, up until conservatives cut off the money supply through the Tax Reform Act of 1969.Less
This introduction lays out the main arguments of the book. It begins with a case study, a voting rights campaign in Orangeburg, South Carolina, during the early 1960s with support from the Voter Education Project (VEP). It then zooms out and explains the scope and importance of the VEP during the civil rights era. The book argues that the VEP was the main engine that drove the civil rights movement forward by providing money and support to hundreds of African American grassroots campaigns throughout eleven southern states, money deriving from philanthropic foundations, up until conservatives cut off the money supply through the Tax Reform Act of 1969.
Françoise N. Hamlin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835494
- eISBN:
- 9781469601694
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807869857_hamlin.5
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on two local leaders who are emblematic of postwar grassroots black freedom movements: Aaron Henry and Vera Pigee. Virtually unknown on the national stage, both organized and ...
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This chapter focuses on two local leaders who are emblematic of postwar grassroots black freedom movements: Aaron Henry and Vera Pigee. Virtually unknown on the national stage, both organized and sustained the local movement in Clarksdale and spent the greater part of their adult lives devoted to the struggle for racial justice in Mississippi.Less
This chapter focuses on two local leaders who are emblematic of postwar grassroots black freedom movements: Aaron Henry and Vera Pigee. Virtually unknown on the national stage, both organized and sustained the local movement in Clarksdale and spent the greater part of their adult lives devoted to the struggle for racial justice in Mississippi.
Linda M. Grasso
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252043109
- eISBN:
- 9780252051982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043109.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter compares two 1915 issues of The Crisis and The Masses that focused on women’s suffrage as a way of identifying similarities, differences, and cross-periodical dialogues between black and ...
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This chapter compares two 1915 issues of The Crisis and The Masses that focused on women’s suffrage as a way of identifying similarities, differences, and cross-periodical dialogues between black and white justice-seeking communities, both of which deemed advocating women’s suffrage important to their projects and audiences. The Crisis and The Masses spoke to gender-integrated audiences, included women as editors and contributors, and created public spaces for protest, outrage, and affirmation that countered dominant culture beliefs. Focusing on their words, images, argumentation, and advertisements, this study situates these two special issues in the contexts of debates about women’s suffrage, women’s rights, and feminism, as well as within the fraught conflicts between the nineteenth-century abolitionist and Black freedom movements and the women’s rights movement. Comparing the contents of both issues makes clear that considering race in gendered radicalism and gender in race radicalism are essential when examining suffrage media rhetoric.Less
This chapter compares two 1915 issues of The Crisis and The Masses that focused on women’s suffrage as a way of identifying similarities, differences, and cross-periodical dialogues between black and white justice-seeking communities, both of which deemed advocating women’s suffrage important to their projects and audiences. The Crisis and The Masses spoke to gender-integrated audiences, included women as editors and contributors, and created public spaces for protest, outrage, and affirmation that countered dominant culture beliefs. Focusing on their words, images, argumentation, and advertisements, this study situates these two special issues in the contexts of debates about women’s suffrage, women’s rights, and feminism, as well as within the fraught conflicts between the nineteenth-century abolitionist and Black freedom movements and the women’s rights movement. Comparing the contents of both issues makes clear that considering race in gendered radicalism and gender in race radicalism are essential when examining suffrage media rhetoric.
Philip F. Rubio
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833421
- eISBN:
- 9781469604053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895733_rubio
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book brings to life the important but neglected story of African American postal workers and the critical role they played in the U.S. labor and black freedom movements. It integrates civil ...
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This book brings to life the important but neglected story of African American postal workers and the critical role they played in the U.S. labor and black freedom movements. It integrates civil rights, labor, and left-movement histories that too often are written as if they happened separately. Centered on New York City and Washington, D.C., the book chronicles a struggle of national significance through its examination of the post office, a workplace with facilities and unions serving every city and town in the United States. Black postal workers—often college-educated military veterans—fought their way into postal positions and unions, and became a critical force for social change. They combined black labor protest and civic traditions to construct a civil rights unionism at the post office. They were a major factor in the 1970 nationwide postal wildcat strike, which resulted in full collective-bargaining rights for the major postal unions under the newly established U.S. Postal Service in 1971. In making the fight for equality primary, African American postal workers were influential in shaping today's post office and postal unions.Less
This book brings to life the important but neglected story of African American postal workers and the critical role they played in the U.S. labor and black freedom movements. It integrates civil rights, labor, and left-movement histories that too often are written as if they happened separately. Centered on New York City and Washington, D.C., the book chronicles a struggle of national significance through its examination of the post office, a workplace with facilities and unions serving every city and town in the United States. Black postal workers—often college-educated military veterans—fought their way into postal positions and unions, and became a critical force for social change. They combined black labor protest and civic traditions to construct a civil rights unionism at the post office. They were a major factor in the 1970 nationwide postal wildcat strike, which resulted in full collective-bargaining rights for the major postal unions under the newly established U.S. Postal Service in 1971. In making the fight for equality primary, African American postal workers were influential in shaping today's post office and postal unions.
Maegan Parker Brooks and Davis W. Houck (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604738223
- eISBN:
- 9781604738230
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604738223.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Most people who have heard of Fannie Lou Hamer are aware of the testimony that this Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights activist delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Far fewer ...
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Most people who have heard of Fannie Lou Hamer are aware of the testimony that this Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights activist delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Far fewer are familiar with the speeches she delivered at the 1968 and 1972 conventions, to say nothing of addresses she gave closer to home, or with Malcolm X in Harlem, or even at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Until now, dozens of Hamer’s speeches have been buried in archival collections and in the basements of movement veterans. This book presents twenty-one of Hamer’s most important speeches and testimonies. It includes speeches from the better part of her fifteen-year activist career delivered in response to occasions as distinct as a Vietnam War Moratorium Rally in Berkeley, California, and a summons to testify in a Mississippi courtroom. The book includes brief critical descriptions that place Hamer’s words in context. The book also includes the last full-length oral history interview she granted, a recent oral history interview with Hamer’s daughter, as well as a bibliography of additional primary and secondary sources. The book demonstrates that there is still much to learn about and from this valiant black freedom movement activist.Less
Most people who have heard of Fannie Lou Hamer are aware of the testimony that this Mississippi sharecropper and civil rights activist delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Far fewer are familiar with the speeches she delivered at the 1968 and 1972 conventions, to say nothing of addresses she gave closer to home, or with Malcolm X in Harlem, or even at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Until now, dozens of Hamer’s speeches have been buried in archival collections and in the basements of movement veterans. This book presents twenty-one of Hamer’s most important speeches and testimonies. It includes speeches from the better part of her fifteen-year activist career delivered in response to occasions as distinct as a Vietnam War Moratorium Rally in Berkeley, California, and a summons to testify in a Mississippi courtroom. The book includes brief critical descriptions that place Hamer’s words in context. The book also includes the last full-length oral history interview she granted, a recent oral history interview with Hamer’s daughter, as well as a bibliography of additional primary and secondary sources. The book demonstrates that there is still much to learn about and from this valiant black freedom movement activist.
Aniko Bodroghkozy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036682
- eISBN:
- 9780252093784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036682.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter examines early discourses on the relationship between television and the developing black freedom movement, with particular emphasis on optimistic hopes that television could be a ...
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This chapter examines early discourses on the relationship between television and the developing black freedom movement, with particular emphasis on optimistic hopes that television could be a progressive tool for African American advancement and racial justice. Unlike radio, early network television appeared to take seriously obligations to present African Americans in respectful ways. In the early 1950s, for example, NBC's politically progressive chief censor worked to eradicate offensive black stereotypes from programming by scrubbing references to “darkies,” images of Stepin Fetchit–style characters. This chapter first considers the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's protest against the Amos 'n' Andy and response to the Beulah radio shows before discussing the role of entertainment television in the pre-civil rights period. It looks at the ABC program The Beulah Show. While Beulah exemplifies early television's initial foray into the arena of race relations and black representation, this chapter argues that it did not give viewers a concept of black and white on equal terms.Less
This chapter examines early discourses on the relationship between television and the developing black freedom movement, with particular emphasis on optimistic hopes that television could be a progressive tool for African American advancement and racial justice. Unlike radio, early network television appeared to take seriously obligations to present African Americans in respectful ways. In the early 1950s, for example, NBC's politically progressive chief censor worked to eradicate offensive black stereotypes from programming by scrubbing references to “darkies,” images of Stepin Fetchit–style characters. This chapter first considers the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's protest against the Amos 'n' Andy and response to the Beulah radio shows before discussing the role of entertainment television in the pre-civil rights period. It looks at the ABC program The Beulah Show. While Beulah exemplifies early television's initial foray into the arena of race relations and black representation, this chapter argues that it did not give viewers a concept of black and white on equal terms.
Catherine O. Jacquet
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781469653860
- eISBN:
- 9781469653884
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653860.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter examines the case of Joan Little, a North Carolinian inmate who defended herself against sexual assault by her white jailer and was subsequently put on trial for murder in 1975. Little ...
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This chapter examines the case of Joan Little, a North Carolinian inmate who defended herself against sexual assault by her white jailer and was subsequently put on trial for murder in 1975. Little found avid support from the black freedom, women’s liberation, and prisoner’s rights movements, all of which employed varying frameworks to theorize Little’s plight. The confluence of multiple political agendas around this single case reveals the many ways that activists defined the injustices of rape. The dominant racial justice discourse focused on Little’s vulnerability as a black woman, attacked by both a white man and then a white supremacist legal system. From the prisoner’s rights perspective, the defining issue was Little’s status as an incarcerated woman. Her case revealed the violence and oppression of the legal system as a whole. Finally for feminists, Little epitomized the situation faced by all women, first victimized by men and then a male-dominated legal system that refused to grant her her right to self-defense. Although not in conflict with one another, these varying interpretations reveal what motivated activists to respond to rape and when and why activists deemed rape a political issue.Less
This chapter examines the case of Joan Little, a North Carolinian inmate who defended herself against sexual assault by her white jailer and was subsequently put on trial for murder in 1975. Little found avid support from the black freedom, women’s liberation, and prisoner’s rights movements, all of which employed varying frameworks to theorize Little’s plight. The confluence of multiple political agendas around this single case reveals the many ways that activists defined the injustices of rape. The dominant racial justice discourse focused on Little’s vulnerability as a black woman, attacked by both a white man and then a white supremacist legal system. From the prisoner’s rights perspective, the defining issue was Little’s status as an incarcerated woman. Her case revealed the violence and oppression of the legal system as a whole. Finally for feminists, Little epitomized the situation faced by all women, first victimized by men and then a male-dominated legal system that refused to grant her her right to self-defense. Although not in conflict with one another, these varying interpretations reveal what motivated activists to respond to rape and when and why activists deemed rape a political issue.
Catherine O. Jacquet
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781469653860
- eISBN:
- 9781469653884
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653860.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter examines the conflicts and constraints posed by varying antirape discourses and approaches to antirape activism in the 1970s. At this time, activists in the women’s liberation and black ...
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This chapter examines the conflicts and constraints posed by varying antirape discourses and approaches to antirape activism in the 1970s. At this time, activists in the women’s liberation and black freedom movements confronted one another’s politics on rape, sometimes unable to find common ground. The competing beliefs and approaches that activists brought to their antirape work heightened the potential for discord between movements. This was particularly exacerbated by the increasing role of the state in antirape work. By the mid-1970s, state actors and agencies played a dominating role in antirape work, leaving many feminists deeply concerned about the direction of the movement. State co-optation of key feminist interventions, such as rape crisis centers, resulted in a movement that was largely reformist. Feminists saw their once radical vision of social revolution overshadowed by increasing state efforts for reform-based solutions to the problem of sexual violence.Less
This chapter examines the conflicts and constraints posed by varying antirape discourses and approaches to antirape activism in the 1970s. At this time, activists in the women’s liberation and black freedom movements confronted one another’s politics on rape, sometimes unable to find common ground. The competing beliefs and approaches that activists brought to their antirape work heightened the potential for discord between movements. This was particularly exacerbated by the increasing role of the state in antirape work. By the mid-1970s, state actors and agencies played a dominating role in antirape work, leaving many feminists deeply concerned about the direction of the movement. State co-optation of key feminist interventions, such as rape crisis centers, resulted in a movement that was largely reformist. Feminists saw their once radical vision of social revolution overshadowed by increasing state efforts for reform-based solutions to the problem of sexual violence.