scholarly journals Reinhold Niebuhr During the Time of the White Compromise

2022 ◽  
pp. 95-115
Author(s):  
Marvin T. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Good Picture ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
White Families ◽  
Beloved Community ◽  
Martin Luther King

AbstractThe story of how the theological ethicist, Reinhold Niebuhr, dealt with race during the “white compromise” (from after Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement) gives us a good picture of what will work and not work in re-directing American Prosperity toward a sustainable future. In his early years, Niebuhr argued against the Ku Klux Klan in Detroit, and supported sharecropper cooperatives in Arkansas. He guided his later ethical analysis of national and international groups by what he called “Christian realism,” which assumed that groups had limited capacity for doing good. At the height of his national status, he wrote books as though American history was the same as white history. He suggested caution in applying the Brown v. Board of Education decision to white families and after the civil rights movement had disrupted the “white compromise,” Niebuhr moved somewhat closer to Martin Luther King Jr.’s view of the “beloved community.”

Contouring Black Hope and Despair

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Corrigan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
White House ◽  
Beloved Community ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Martin Luther King

This chapter examines Martin Luther King, Jr.’s production of the “beloved community” that he wanted to produce through direct action protests in places like Birmingham, Selma, and Chicago. It evaluates how hope, disappointment, indignation, and despair framed King’s direct action and the SCLC’s intimate relationship with the black middle class, the White House, and white liberals. After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, King’s faith and optimism were shaken and his language about emotion shifted as he was forced to reconsider and respond to the use of rage as a black political emotion because the decade gave way to a more militant black posture about the white political and emotional inadequacies. Corrigan argues that white failure to perform intimate citizenship limited the civil rights movement and fueled rhetorical expressions that engaged a very different emotional repertoire for both whites and blacks. Many of King’s discourses, especially in relation to Birmingham, focused on the relationship between hope and despair as he attempted to translate black feelings about civil rights to white publics as the crisis of hope deepened in 1963.

scholarly journals Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Long Social Gospel Movement

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaneesa Cook
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Social Mission ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Long Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther King

AbstractHistorians have posited several theories in an attempt to explain what many regard as Martin Luther King, Jr.'s radical departure, in the late 1960's, from his earlier, liberal framing of civil rights reform. Rather than view his increasingly critical statements against the Vietnam War and the liberal establishment as evidence of a fundamental change in his thinking, a number of scholars have braided the continuity of King's thought within frameworks of democratic socialism and the long civil rights movement, respectively. King's lifelong struggle for racial justice in America, they argue, was rife with broader and more radical implications than that of a national campaign for political inclusion. His message was global, and it was revolutionary. However, when depicting him exclusively in the context of black radicals during “the long civil rights movement,“ or the labor movement, these scholars have a tendency to downplay the most fundamental component of King's activism - his religion. More so than he referenced the brave black leaders of previous civil rights campaigns, King drew upon the writings and ideas of social gospel thinkers, such as Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr. By analyzing King within the context of “the long social gospel movement” in addition to “the long civil rights movement,” we can explain his radical social mission in terms of race and class, but without marginalizing the Christian values at the core of his calling.

Keeping the Dream Alive: Meridian as Alice Walker’s Homage to Martin Luther King and the Beloved Community

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 603-627
Author(s):  
Paul Tewkesbury
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Religious Philosophy ◽  
Redemptive Suffering ◽  
Beloved Community ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Martin Luther King

Abstract This essay examines the ways in which Alice Walker’s 1976 novel Meridian is shaped by Martin Luther King Jr.’s notion of the Beloved Community, a religious and social ideal that epitomized the goals of the 1960s civil rights movement. Previous studies of Meridian focus on connections between the novel and the movement, but they do not explore the connections between the novel’s spiritual dimensions and King’s religious philosophy. As Walker pays tribute to King and his religious philosophy throughout Meridian, she also fleshes out her own womanist philosophy. Indeed, Walker’s womanist philosophy as revealed in Meridian is more congruent with King’s Christian theology than one might expect, for the values of redemptive suffering, nonviolence, love, and community are as central to the novel as they are to King’s thought.

Civil Rights and the Private School Movement in Mississippi, 1964–1971

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Fuquay
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
Housing Discrimination ◽  
Civil Rights Act

The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was heralded as a tremendous victory for the civil rights movement, the fulfillment of a decade-long struggle to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Along with measures against job and housing discrimination, the Civil Rights Act included provisions specifically designed to overcome the white South's massive resistance campaign and enforce school desegregation. Despite the continued intransigence of segregationists, these measures proved successful and white public schools across the South opened their doors to black children. With segregationists in retreat and the Voting Rights Act on the horizon, this was a time of celebration for civil rights activists. But this was not the end of the story.

Introduction

Troublemakers ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kathryn Schumaker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The introductionexplains how and why student protest became common in the United States in the late 1960s and places these protests in the context of shifts in the history of education and in broader social movements, including the civil rights movement, the Chicano Movement, and black power activism. The introduction also situates students’ rights within the context of children’s rights more broadly, explaining the legal principles that justified age discrimination and excluded children and students from the basic protections of American constitutional law. The introduction identifies the two decades between the 1960s and 1980s as a constitutional moment that revolutionized the relationship of students to the state. It also connects students’ rights litigation to the issue of school desegregation and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.

„I Have a Dream“

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Werner
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The Political ◽  
Church Staff ◽  
Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King and East Germany are connected both directly and indirectly. The Communist Party had the power to make public decisions on agenda-setting topics related to Martin Luther King. The Christian Bloc Party mostly represented the state and published books by Martin Luther King, which churches and the civil rights movement liked to use. Moreover, pacifists and civil rights activists used these books to undermine the political system in East Germany. Church institutions reported by far the most on Martin Luther King. This empirical study, which can also act as a basis for further research on Martin Luther King and East Germany, will appeal to both church staff and admirers of Martin Luther King.

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