Contending with Change and Challenges

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-81
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Local Schools ◽  
Tax Exempt ◽  
The Face

This chapter captures the development of Westminster in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By the late 1950s, Westminster’s student body had quadrupled, and the school was housed on the current West Paces Ferry Road campus. School leaders prepared for the possible closing of Atlanta Public Schools as black Atlantans called for desegregation in the face of oppositional state policies. As the civil rights movement increased in momentum, Westminster and other local schools, including Lovett and Trinity, received inquiries into their admissions policies from interracial organizations such as the Greater Atlanta Council on Human Relations and leading civil rights activists including the Kings, Abernathys, and Youngs, and black families such as the Rosses. Private school leaders worked to find a balance among multiple contexts and influences, including the enlarged federal presence in education and increased questions about federal tax-exempt status for private schools. Concurrently, a school culture at Westminster developed in ways that continued to reflect the “Old South” and included racist traditions while some white students earnestly debated and discussed the issues of the day.

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.

The White Man’s Tax Dollar

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private School ◽  
Massive Resistance ◽  
State Action ◽  
White Backlash ◽  
Legal Identity ◽  
Tax Exempt ◽  
To Come ◽  
Long Civil Rights Movement

Chapter Five examines how the responses to Brown in defense of segregation were consistently framed in terms of "taxpayer" citizenship and the rights of whites to unequal and better funded schooling. In addition, this chapter identifies the tax-centric debate in Virginia in the era of massive resistance, and the private school/state action questions raised in the wake of Brown v. Board, including its impact on tax exempt institutions like Girard College in Philadelphia. This chapter builds on and combines the recently expanded historiography of the white backlash to the "long civil rights movement" by tracing the continuous assertion by segregationists of a legal identity as "taxpaying citizens." This rights claim drew deeply on the debate over whether taxation and education should facilitate equity or facilitate privilege and the use of the claim to "taxpayer" identity by segregationists anticipated the justification for racially unequal schools in decades to come.

Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Deep South ◽  
The North ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Face ◽  
Big Events

Twenty-six contributors tell their stories about being civil rights lawyers in the Deep South. A thematic structure is employed to reflect these stories. Ten of the stories describe how children of the South and children of the North chose to become civil rights lawyers. The context of civil rights lawyering is explored from big events such as the 1965 Selma march to the everyday experiences of mass meetings and the recurring racism of Neshoba County. The misadventures of civil rights lawyers are described from arrests, to beatings, to a black lawyer being called by a racial epithet in court by a judge. The development of civil rights lawyer groups—the Legal Defense Fund, the LCDC (Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee), and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law—were crucial to the success of the civil rights movement. Voting rights dramatically spurred by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were crucial to the newly emerging status of blacks. The public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 broke barriers in hotels and eating places. School desegregation litigation changed the face of public schools forever. Employment discrimination litigation dramatically changed the workplace. The success of civil rights litigation led to using the federal courts to reform prisons and facilities for the mentally ill. Two authors discuss the contemporary language of race and the status of white supremacy.

Blurring Public and Private: The Pragmatic Desegregation Politics of an Elite Private School in Atlanta

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-89
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Historically White ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
White Elite

The school desegregation narrative often references historically white public schools as sites of massive resistance and historically white private schools as segregationist academies. Yet some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, such as The Westminster Schools (plural in name only), established in 1951 in Atlanta, Georgia, chose to desegregate. Such elite institutions, which have served as one catalyst for the creation and maintenance of social and cultural capital, became more accessible after Brown v. Board of Education through a combination of private and public decisions galvanized by larger social, political, and federal forces. Westminster's 1965 decision to consider all applicants regardless of race was emblematic of the pragmatic desegregation politics of Atlanta's city leaders during the civil rights movement and a national independent school agenda focused on recruiting black students. Drawing on institutional, local, regional, and national archival records and publications, this article examines the import of schools like Westminster to civic and business leaders, to the politics of race and desegregation occurring in large cities, and to the range of educational opportunities available in metropolitan areas. This examination yields an analysis of the leadership and politics of a southern historically white elite private school that black students desegregated in 1961.

Transforming the Elite

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle A. Purdy
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Social History ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Mixed Feelings

When traditionally white public schools in the South became sites of massive resistance in the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, numerous white students exited the public system altogether, with parents choosing homeschooling or private segregationist academies. But some historically white elite private schools or independent schools, the most prestigious of private schools, opted to desegregate. The black students that attended these schools courageously navigated institutional and interpersonal racism but ultimately emerged as upwardly mobile leaders. Transforming the Elite tells this story. Focusing on the experiences of the first black students to desegregate Atlanta's well-known The Westminster Schools and national efforts to diversify private schools, Michelle A. Purdy combines social history with policy analysis in a dynamic narrative that expertly re-creates this overlooked history. Through gripping oral histories and rich archival research, this book showcases educational changes for black southerners during the civil rights movement including the political tensions confronted, struggles faced, and school cultures transformed during private school desegregation. This history foreshadows contemporary complexities at the heart of the black community's mixed feelings about charter schools, school choice, and education reform.

The Heart of the Movement

2018 ◽  
pp. 54-88
Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
White People ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
The Face ◽  
Taxi Service ◽  
Martin Luther King

The chapter reveals the violence associated with the Civil Rights Movement, the courage of African American activists (Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers) and the small minority of southern white ministers who joined them. In Montgomery, Alabama, Robert Graetz provided taxi service for demonstrators. Andrew Turnipseed paid the salary of James Love, who signed the Mobile bus petition, when his parishioners would not. No southern white minister would participate in freedom rides, but John Morris organized a Freedom Ride after the violence subsided. The group was arrested. Joseph Ellwanger was harassed in Birmingham. Hundreds of black protestors were arrested and tortured. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Edwin King was arrested and tortured. The Klan and other white supremacist groups flourished. Black activists and some whites were murdered in Mississippi. As Edwin King commented, “Good white people could do nothing in the face of madness.”

scholarly journals Oratio: Address to Commemorate the 2013 Martin Luther King Day at the Law Faculty, University of Michigan

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Karthy Govender
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Nelson Mandela ◽  
Private Power ◽  
The Usa

The paper commences by considering the similarity between Dr King, MK Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and argues that they are high mimetic figures who inspire us to be better. Their legacy and memory operate as a yardstick by which we can evaluate the conduct of those exercising public and private power over us. Each remains dominant in his respective society decades after passing on or leaving public life, and the paper suggests that very little societal value is had by deconstructing their lives and judging facets of their lives through the prism of latter day morality. We gain more by leaving their high mimetic status undisturbed.  There is a clear link between their various struggles with King being heavily influenced by the writings and thinking of Gandhi, who commenced his career as a liberation activist in South Africa. King was instrumental in commencing the discourse on economic sanctions to force the Apartheid government to change and the Indian government had a long and committed relationship with the ANC. The second half of the paper turns to an analysis of how Dr King's legacy impacted directly and indirectly on developments in South Africa.  One of the key objectives of the Civil Rights movement in the USA was to attain substantive equality and to improve the quality of life of all. The paper then turns to assessing the extent to which democratic South Africa has achieved these objectives and concludes that the picture is mixed. Important pioneering changes such as enabling gays and lesbians to marry have taught important lessons about taking rights seriously. However, despite important advancements, neither poverty nor inequality has been appreciably reduced. One of the major failures has been the inability to provide appropriate, effective and relevant education to African children in public schools. Effectively educating previously disadvantaged persons represents one of the few means at our disposal of reducing inequality and breaking the cycle of poverty.  Fortunately, there is a general awareness in the country that something needs to be done about this crisis urgently. The paper notes comments by President Zuma that the level of wealth in white households is six times that of black households. The critique is that comments of this nature do not demonstrate an acknowledgment by the ANC that, after 19 years in power, they must also accept responsibility for statistics such as this. 

scholarly journals Understanding Universal Vouchers and Urban Public Schools in Santiago de Chile: Educational Administrators’ Responses to Choice

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Jaime Portales ◽  
Julian Vasquez Heilig
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Public School ◽  
Private School ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Officials ◽  
Voucher Schools ◽  
Municipal Schools ◽  
Cream Skimming ◽  
Voucher System ◽  
The City

<p>In this study we examine how school leaders in urban districts have responded to the Chilean universal school voucher system. We conducted interviews with public district school officials and principals in Santiago, Chile. We found that school leaders in the wealthy public schools have confronted the market policy by implementing similar cream-skimming measures as private-voucher schools. In comparison, the poorer public-municipal schools are not able to select their students. The respondents in our study elucidated that parent and student choice is limited because specific family and student characteristics (i.e. SES background, test scores), as well as the family/student residence within the city (in a relatively wealthy or poor section of the city) influence the spectrum of opportunities a student will have and the school he/she will enter. As a result, the voucher system introduces educational opportunities for students who have the capital (pecuniary and non-pecuniary) to enable a move from one public school to another within an area, from a public school to private-voucher school within an area, from one district to another, or from a public school within an area to a private school within another district.</p>

Families, Fathers, and the Black Community, 1950–2010

2019 ◽  
pp. 200-223
Author(s):  
Jürgen Martschukat
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Black Family ◽  
Black Families ◽  
American Family ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Main Character ◽  
The 1960S

Chapter 11 looks at an African American family in 1970s Watts after the civil rights movement and the Watts riots. Its main character is the slaughterhouse worker Stan from Charles Burnett’s independent film Killer of Sheep (1977). In this film, Burnett makes a powerful counterargument in the debate on the “dysfunctional black family,” which a decade earlier was described by Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Johnson administration as being mired in a “tangle of pathology.” Stan is neither shiftless nor lazy but tries to get ahead and secure a decent living for his family. He endlessly struggles for the survival of his nuclear family but is constrained in his efforts and their success by the racist conditions of his life in 1970s America. The chapter approaches the massive debate on the black family and fatherhood in contemporary America through the film and its public reception, both in the 1970s and 1980s and after its re-release in 2007. Thus, the author uses the film to explore this discourse from the 1960s to today, from Patrick Moynihan to Barack Obama, and analyzes their comments on black families and fatherhood as well as those by their critics.

Feminist Psychology in North America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Sheese
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Feminist Psychology ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Gender

Feminist psychology as an institutionalized field in North America has a relatively recent history. Its formalization remains geographically uneven and its institutionalization remains a contested endeavor. Women’s liberation movements, anticolonial struggles, and the civil rights movement acted as galvanizing forces in bringing feminism formally into psychology, transforming not only its sexist institutional practices but also its theories, and radically challenging its epistemological and methodological commitments and constraints. Since the late 1960s, feminists in psychology have produced radically new understandings of sex and gender, have recovered women’s history in psychology, have developed new historiographical methods, have engaged with and developed innovative approaches to theory and research, and have rendered previously invisibilized issues and experiences central to women’s lives intelligible and worthy of scholarly inquiry. Heated debates about the potential of feminist psychology to bring about radical social and political change are ongoing as feminists in the discipline negotiate threats and dilemmas related to collusion, colonialism, and co-optation in the face of ongoing commitments to positivism and individualism in psychology and as the theory and practice of psychology remains embedded within broader structures of neoliberalism and global capitalism.

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