Richard Nixon and the Desegregation of Southern Schools

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Davies
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Presidential Candidate ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
White House ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
The Supreme Court

Scholars assessing Richard Nixon's contribution to the desegregation of Southern schools have often been unimpressed. His biographer Stephen Ambrose concedes that there was some White House contribution, but observes that “Nixon had to be hauled kicking and screaming into desegregation on a meaningful scale, and he did what he did not because it was right but because he had no choice.” The political scientist Michael Genovese concurs, telling us that Nixon sought to “withdraw the federal government from its efforts at desegregation.” A recent civil rights dictionary concludes that this was “the first successful presidential candidate to be opposed to civil rights enforcement,” adding that “many of his tactics thwarted the furthering of school desegregation.” The noted civil rights historian, William Chafe, meanwhile, contends that “Nixon repeatedly demonstrated his commitment to the politics of polarization”; “continued to embrace” southern evasions that “had been invalidated by the Supreme Court”; and used “the power of the presidency to delay, if not halt completely, federally imposed school desegregation.” And Kevin O'Reilly, in an overview of presidential leadership on civil rights, finds the 37th president to have been essentially indistinguishable from the race-baiting George Wallace. Nixon resented the Alabamian, he reveals, because “he wanted the gutter all to himself.” Considering a number of contenders, he concludes that “school desegregation emerged as the administration's most important and enduring (anti)civil rights crusade.”

The Age of Segregation, 1900–1950

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-152
Author(s):  
Donald G. Nieman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
World War ◽  
Civil Rights Organizations ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The New Deal

This chapter argues that segregation generated organized opposition from African Americans and a small group of whites that challenged the system. Segregation was rigid, capricious, and designed to demonstrate white power. While it kept most blacks in menial positions, a small black middle class emerged that produced leaders who attacked Jim Crow. The organization leading the charge was the NAACP, which developed publicity, lobbying, and litigation campaigns. The effort gained steam in the 1930s, as a cadre of black lawyers challenged segregated education, the CIO and the Communist party championed civil rights, and the New Deal gave blacks a voice in federal policy. It further accelerated during World War II as the federal government challenged workplace discrimination, membership in civil rights organizations swelled, black veterans demanded their rights, and the Supreme Court became more aggressive on civil rights.

All the President’s Mendacity

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-130
Author(s):  
William P. Hustwit
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
The Supreme Court

The fifth chapter focuses on the effort by President Richard Nixon to fulfil the “Southern Strategy” and disrupt the pace of school desegregation. In the summer of 1969, Nixon attempted to delay school desegregation. The NAACP LDF urged the Supreme Court to insist on immediate school desegregation.

The Court Redeemed

1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Harvie Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The South ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
White House ◽  
True Story ◽  
Dred Scott ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation

Everyone understands that Brown v. Board of Education helped deliver the Negro from over three centuries of legal bondage. But Brown acted to emancipate the white South and the Supreme Court as well. Not that the South immediately recognized Brown as a deliverance from economic stagnation, moral debility, and sectional isolation, a deliverance that would end with the installment of one of its own in the White House by 1977. And the Court only barely acknowledged in Brown the full weight of history from which it was itself redeemed. Indeed, the true story of the Court’s own past attitude toward the black man remains one of the deafening silences of the Brown opinion. For half a century after the Civil War, the Supreme Court had, in effect, told the Negro to seek solace not in the law of the land but, like Stephen Foster’s Old Black Joe, in cotton fields, mournful song, darkey friends, and the hereafter. It was President Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and Congress that moved to secure Negro rights in the South with no fewer than three Constitutional amendments and four Civil Rights acts shortly after the Civil War. Throughout this period, the Court was eyed distrustfully. The Radical Republicans were “aware of the power the Court could exercise. They were for the most part bitterly aware of it, having long fought such decisions as the Dred Scott case.” Radicals such as Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania probably “had little hope that the Court would play a role in furthering their long range objectives.” What hopes they did have centered on those sections of the post-Civil War amendments permitting Congress to act through “appropriate legislation.” In 1865 the Radicals sensed a long-awaited opportunity. Many a proud southern planter was left to his ashes and rubble, to scorched earth and wistful dreams. “The Old South,” wrote one observer in 1870, “has gone ‘down among the dead men’. . . . For that vanished form of society there can be no resurrection. . . .”

The tenure of English judges

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. McIlwain
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Object ◽  
William Iii ◽  
Science Association

At the meeting of the Political Science Association last year, in the general discussion, on the subject of the recall, I was surprised and I must admit, a little shocked to hear our recall of judges compared to the English removal of judges on address of the houses of parliament.If we must compare unlike things, rather than place the recall beside the theory or the practice of the joint address, I should even prefer to compare it to a bill of attainder.In history, theory and practice the recall as we have it and the English removal by joint address have hardly anything in common, save the same general object.Though I may not (as I do not) believe in the recall of judges, this paper concerns itself not at all with that opinion, but only with the history and nature of the tenure of English judges, particularly as affected by the possibility of removal on address. I believe a study of that history will show that any attempt to force the address into a close resemblance to the recall, whether for the purpose of furthering or of discrediting the latter, is utterly misleading.In the history of the tenure of English judges the act of 12 and 13 William III, subsequently known as the Act of Settlement, is the greatest landmark. The history of the tenure naturally divides into two parts at the year 1711. In dealing with both parts, for the sake of brevity, I shall confine myself strictly to the judges who compose what since 1873 has been known as the supreme court of judicature.

The Spirit of Brown

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy L. Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Racial History ◽  
Black Equality ◽  
Racial Progress ◽  
Race Problem

This chapter lays the foundation for an understanding of the socio-legal race problem and possible solutions. It begins with the Supreme Court’s inglorious racial history in which the Court, from Dred Scott up to Brown v. Board of Education, engaged in a pattern and practice of sabotaging black equality granted by Congress. Racial oppression, including the torture and murder of blacks without trial, was part of a national narrative largely written by the Supreme Court. Brown was a conscious attempt by the Court to reverse its inglorious racial past. Brown had a profound effect on racial progress, changing the legal status of blacks which in turn greatly improved their socioeconomic and socio-cultural position in our society. But the Court, in the years following this landmark decision, did not remain faithful to the spirit of Brown. It began to impede black progress through its civil rights rulings by suppressing the black equality interest litigated in those cases. This is juridical subordination, which can be resolved if the Supreme Court remains faithful to the spirit of Brown. This is good social policy.

The Role of Courts in Rifted Democracies

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Gavison
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Harsh Criticism

A discussion of the role of courts in Israel today demands some introductory remarks. The Supreme Court and the President of the Supreme Court enjoy great acclaim and respect within Israel and abroad, but have recently come under attack from a variety of sources. These attacks are often confused, and many of them are clearly motivated by narrow partisan interests and an inherent objection to the rule of law and judicial review. But these motives do not necessarily weaken the dangers which the attacks pose to the legitimacy of the courts in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, in Israel's public life. The fact that in some sectors extremely harsh criticism of the court is seen to be an electoral boost, testifies to the serious and dangerous nature of the threat. This situation creates a dilemma for those who want a strong and independent judiciary, believing it is essential for freedom and democracy, but who also believe that, during the last two decades, the courts have transgressed limits they should respect. The dilemma becomes especially acute when the political echo sounds out in one's criticism, and when one is part of the group that believes that the legal and the judicial systems have made some contribution to the prevalence of these hyperbolic and dangerous attacks, as I am.

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