School Segregation and Its Discontents

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanda Rushing
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Shelby County ◽  
American Society ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Class Divisions

Few policies have affected American society as deeply as those related to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. Now, 60 years later, segregation persists along race and class divisions. This case study analysis of a merger that took place between 2010 and 2013 in Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, one of the most politically contentious ones undertaken in the post–civil rights era, reveals a great deal about processes that sustain patterns of inequality. A new generation of Memphis leaders gives its perspective on education, social equality, and the future.

scholarly journals W. E. B. Du Bois on Brown v. Board of Education

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Stanley O. Gaines
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Political Contributions ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The 1960S

The 1960s have been described as the “civil rights decade” in American history. Few scholar-activists have been identified as strongly with the legal, social, economic, and political changes culminating in the 1960s as has African American historian, sociologist, psychologist W. E. B. Du Bois. Inexplicably, in 2003, the 100-year anniversary of Du Bois' classic, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), came and went with little fanfare within or outside of academia. However, in 2004, the 50-year anniversary of the initial U. S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) presents an opportunity for ethnic studies in general, and Black studies in particular, to acknowledge the intellectual and political contributions of Du Bois to the civil rights movement in the United States. In the post-Civil Rights Era, some authors have suggested that Du Bois opposed the initial Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling. In contrast, I observe in the present paper that Du Bois (1957) opposed the U. S. Supreme Court's subsequent (1955) ruling that invoked the much-criticized term “with all deliberate speed,” rather than the initial (1954) ruling that rendered the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. Moreover, I contend that Du Bois' own values and attitudes were fully consistent with his position on the (1954, 1955) decisions.

“Peace at Home Is the Most Essential Thing”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent M. S. Campney
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
World War I ◽  
Kansas City ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
World War ◽  
Race Riots ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
Black Populations ◽  
New Generation

This chapter chronicles the long “Red Summer” and persistent racial violence throughout the 1920s. With America's entry into World War I, black populations swelled in response to labor shortages, thus precipitating racial conflict over jobs and housing between white residents of northern industrial cities and the black newcomers. These tensions would culminate in the “Red Summer,” a season of race riots, conflagrations, and other types of spectacular violence. Though the wartime surge in violence would subside after 1921, racial prejudice and violence continued on. Despite these setbacks, however, black resistance likewise persisted; and this period marks the ascent of a new generation of civil rights activists, as well as a few other notable milestones such as the Thurman-Watts v. Board of Education of Coffeyville and Brown v. Board of Education decisions and the establishment of the Kansas City branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The Upheaval: Interposition and Moderation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kyle Day
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Montgomery Bus Boycott ◽  
Socioeconomic Changes ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Bus Boycott

This chapter narrates the dramatic socioeconomic changes occurring in the former states of the Confederacy after World War II. The changes culminated with the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, as well as the early events in the American Civil Rights Movement, including the Emmitt Till Lynching and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The chapter then analyses the response of white southerners to these transformative events. The white South’s response channelled into two recognized programs. Southern leaders either outright refused to implement Brown, which became known as Interposition or, called for a gradual or piecemeal implementation, which became known as moderation.

scholarly journals Bodies on the Line: Contact Improvisation and Techniques of Nonviolent Protest

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Congress Of Racial Equality ◽  
Contact Improvisation ◽  
White Males ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face

On the morning of May 4, 1961, a brave and motley group of travelers—seven black males, three white males, and three white females, varying in age and professional standing but all trained in nonviolence—embarked on what they called the “Freedom Ride.” Designed by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the bus ride was meant to commemorate and further the organization's 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, a non-violent test of desegregation on interstate buses that quickly disintegrated in the face of staunch resistance. This time, riders would test the 1960 Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, which prohibited segregation in the waiting rooms and restaurants of bus terminals (Branch 1989, 390). Departing from Washington, D.C., the Freedom Ride aimed to arrive in New Orleans on May 17, the seventh anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Explaining that they were merely exercising rights granted by the Supreme Court but that they knew the dangers, CORE director James Farmer said, “We were prepared for the possibility of death” (Cozzens 1997). Riding the momentum of the student sit-ins, the civil rights movement had become for many a matter of “putting your body on the line” (Branch 1989, 392).

RECONSIDERING KENNETH B. CLARK AND THE IDEA OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE, 1931–1945

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-283
Author(s):  
Damon Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Alfred Adler ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Howard University ◽  
Black Intellectual ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
American Society

AbstractOne of the most controversial figures in Black intellectual history is psychologist Kenneth B. Clark. Prominently identified as the main proponent of the idea that racial segregation led to psychological damage in Black children, Clark's work heavily influenced the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Almost immediately afterwards, his research methods and conclusions were challenged as incomplete and biased. Scholars now argue that Clark and other racial liberals became solely wedded to the idea of racial psychological damage in order to secure victory in Brown. Yet a closer analysis of his thought reveals a more complex picture. During the early 1940s, he developed a new psychological concept which he called the “zoot effect.” He defined the zoot effect as the attempt by a person to gain psychological security in a society which mandated that individual's inferiority. The zoot effect or zoot personality reflected the larger society's pathology, which manifested itself internally in individuals. This concept was heavily shaped by ideas about race, class, and in particular the work of Alfred Adler, which he first learned as a student at Howard University. Using archival and secondary sources, I argue for a reconceptualization of Clark within the broader context of his social thought, suggesting that the zoot-effect concept grounded his research on Black children and set the stage for his later views on desegregation, civil rights, and American society.

scholarly journals Disrupting the Big Lie: Higher Education and Whitelash in a Post/Colorblind Era

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 486
Author(s):  
Melvin A. Whitehead ◽  
Zak Foste ◽  
Antonio Duran ◽  
Tenisha Tevis ◽  
Nolan L. Cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
White People ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Racial Stratification ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Society ◽  
Post Civil Rights

James Baldwin (1998) described whiteness as “the big lie” of American society where the belief in the inherent superiority of white people allowed for, emboldened, and facilitated violence against People of Color. In the post-Civil Rights era, scholars reframed whiteness as an invisible, hegemonic social norm, and a great deal of education scholarship continues to be rooted in this metaphor of invisibility. However, Leonardo (2020) theorized that in a post-45 era of “whitelash” (Embrick et al., 2020), “post-colorblindness” is more accurate to describe contemporary racial stratification whereby whiteness is both (a) more visible and (b) increasingly appealing to perceived injuries of “reverse racism.” From this perspective, we offer three theoretical concepts to guide the future of whiteness in education scholarship. Specifically, we argue that scholars critically studying whiteness in education must explicitly: (1) address the historicity of whiteness, (2) analyze the public embrace of whiteness, and (3) emphasize the material consequences of whiteness on the lives of People of Color. By doing this, we argue that critical scholars of race in higher education will more clearly understand the changing nature of whiteness while avoiding the analytical trap of invisibility that is decreasingly relevant.

The 1970s

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Borstelmann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Retirement Plans ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
American Society

This book looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, this book creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. It demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. This book explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, this book shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.

Black Lives Matter and the revitalization of collective visionary leadership

Leadership ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 174271502097592
Author(s):  
Sarah J Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Visionary Leadership ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Black Queer

Herein, I share a conversation with Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, as context to detail the collective visionary leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. After highlighting how Garza enacts this tradition in the contemporary era, I revisit Ella Baker’s foundational model of collective visionary leadership from the civil rights era. Collective visionary leadership, embodied across these generations, is local and community-based, centers the power and knowledge of ordinary people, and prioritizes transformative accountability and liberatory visions of the future. Such leadership has been central to a range of transformational movements, and especially those anchored by Black women and Black queer folk. I also consider what critiques of traditional models of leadership collective visionary leadership levies both past and present. I call on all those concerned with the act of leading justly to take up this model.

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