The Legacy of the Obama Era

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Allen
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Executive Order ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt

This chapter argues that African Americans, despite being critical to Obama's election, will not get specific attention to issues of discrimination and equity unless they unite in a social movement that compels the president and Congress to take up these issues. Whether Obama is avoiding “race” issues from a desire not to alienate white voters or he is motivated by commitment to a “colorblind” approach to policy, African Americans will get the president's attention only to the extent that there is an independent social movement that can bring political pressure to bear. The chapter goes on to discuss three occasions in U.S. history that stand out as historical moments when African Americans, independently organized and mobilized and with militant, progressive leadership, made successful interventions with U.S. presidents that resulted in major civil rights gains, and sometimes economic and political gains: Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation; Franklin Roosevelt and Executive Order 8802; and the Kennedy–Johnson administration and civil rights legislation.

scholarly journals Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law

2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Socioeconomic Disparity ◽  
Antidiscrimination Law ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Martin Luther King

In 1984, President Reagan signed a bill that created the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. The Commission was charged with the responsibility of issuing guidelines for states and localities to follow in preparing their observances of Martin Luther King's birthday. The Commission's task would not be easy. Although King's birthday had come to symbolize the massive social movement that grew out of efforts of African-Americans to end the long history of racial oppression in America, the first official observance of the holiday would take place in the face of at least two disturbing obstacles: first, a constant, if not increasing, socioeconomic disparity between the races, and second, a hostile administration devoted to changing the path of civil rights reforms that some believe responsible for most of the movement's progress.

A Grand Opportunity

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
James G. Mendez
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Union Army ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Black Race ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, and provided a long awaited opportunity for northern African Americans to prove their loyalty and their worthiness for full citizenship. And for all African Americans, this was a chance to end slavery and the mark of inferiority it branded on the black race. However, the initial euphoria of these African Americans quickly evaporated when they were told this was not a war in which blacks were welcomed to participate. Their help was not requested and was outright rejected. Northern blacks (men and women) looked for and found other ways to contribute to the Union war effort. With the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln had decided to free all the slaves in rebel territory. The Union army now also became an army of liberation. The potential for Union forces to obtain desperately needed manpower, black troops, was another important factor for the decision.

Conditional Representation: Presidential Rhetoric, Public Opinion, and the Representation of African American Interests

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatishe M. Nteta ◽  
Jesse H. Rhodes ◽  
Melinda R. Tarsi
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Presidential Rhetoric ◽  
Quantitative Content Analysis ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
White Voters

AbstractConventional theories of presidential representation suggest that presidents avoid courting African Americans for fear of alienating white voters, leading to the underrepresentation of “black interests.” We argue that presidential representation of black interests is conditional: when (1) African Americans prioritize issues other than economic redistribution and civil rights and (2) when these priorities overlap with those of whites, presidents should provide considerable representation of those interests. We test our theory using two new sources of data: a dataset of black and white perceptions of the US's most important problem between 1968 and 2012; and a quantitative content analysis of over 200 major presidential speeches from 1969-2012. We find that presidents provide substantial representation of black interests, but only when these interests center on non-racialized concerns and overlap with the priorities of whites. We also find that presidential priorities are often independent of the chief concerns of both African Americans and whites.

scholarly journals “The Negro's Peculiar Work”: Jim Crow and Black Discourses on US Empire, Race, and the African Question, 1877–1900

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEANNETTE EILEEN JONES
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
West Indians ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
Take Back ◽  
The Us ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation ◽  
Keynote Speech

In 1887, T. Thomas Fortune published an editorial, “The Negro's Peculiar Work,” in the black newspaper theNew York Freeman, wherein he reflected on a recent keynote speech delivered by Reverend J. C. Price on 3 January in Columbia, South Carolina, to commemorate Emancipation Day. Price, a member of the Zion Wesley Institute of the AME Zion Church, hailed from North Carolina and his denomination considered him to be “the most popular and eloquent Negro of the present generation.” On the occasion meant to reflect on the meaning of the Emancipation Proclamation (which went into effect on 1 January 1863) for present-day African Americans, Price turned his gaze away from the US towards Africa. In his speech “The American Negro, His Future, and His Peculiar Work” Price declared that African Americans had a duty to redeem Africans and help them take back their continent from the Europeans who had partitioned it in 1884–85. He railed,The whites found gold, diamonds, and other riches in Africa. Why should not the Negro? Africa is their country. They should claim it: they should go to Africa, civilize those Negroes, raise them morally, and by education show them how to obtain wealth which is in their own country, and take the grand continent as their own.Price's “Black Man's Burden” projected American blacks as agents of capitalism, civilization, and Christianity in Africa. Moreover, Price suggested that African American suffering under slavery, failed Reconstruction, and Jim Crow placed them in a unique position to combat imperialism. He was not alone in seeing parallels between the conditions of “Negroes” on both sides of the Atlantic. Many African Americans, Afro-Canadians, and West Indians saw imperialism in Africa as operating according to Jim Crow logic: white Europeans would subordinate and segregate Africans, while economically exploiting their labor to bring wealth to Europe.

West of Jim Crow

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn M. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Freedom Fighters ◽  
White Schools ◽  
Black Bodies

This book follows California’s history of segregation from statehood to the beginning of the long civil rights movement, arguing that the state innovated methods to control and contain African Americans and other people of color. While celebrated in popular discourse for its forward-thinking culture, politics, and science, California also pioneered new ways to keep citizenship white. Schools, streetcars, restaurants, theaters, parks, beaches, and pools were places of contestation where the presence of black bodies elicited forceful responses from segregationists. Black Californians employed innovative measures to dismantle segregation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; they borrowed some tactics from race rebels in the South, others they improvised. West of Jim Crow uses California to highlight the significance of African American resistance to racial restrictions in places often deemed marginal to mainstream civil rights histories. Examining segregation in the state sheds light on the primacy of gender and sexuality in the minds of segregationists and the significance of black women, black bodies, and racial science, in the years preceding the modern civil rights struggle. California has much to teach us about the lives of African Americans who crossed the color line and the variety of tactics and strategies employed by freedom fighters across the United States.

Images of Race, Class, and Markets: Rethinking the Origin of U.S. Fair Housing Policy

2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara S. Sidney
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Executive Order ◽  
Fair Housing ◽  
Housing Discrimination ◽  
The North ◽  
American Values ◽  
Fair Housing Act ◽  
Housing Professionals ◽  
The 1960S

As the first national law to address racial discrimination in housing, the 1968 Fair Housing Act was truly a landmark piece of legislation. It prohibited homeowners, real-estate agents, lenders, and other housing professionals from engaging in a range of practices they had commonly used to keep neighborhoods racially segregated, such as refusing to sell or rent to a person because of his or her race, lying about the availability of a dwelling, or blockbusting (inducing white owners to sell by telling them that blacks were moving into the neighborhood). The last of the 1960s-era civil rights laws, the Fair Housing Act tackled the arena long felt to be the most sensitive to whites. Intense controversy, demonstrations, and violence over fair housing issues had occurred in many cities and states since at least the 1940s. Although John F. Kennedy promised during his presidential campaign to end housing discrimination “with the stroke of a pen,” once elected, he waited two years to sign a limited executive order. In 1966, a fair housing bill supported by President Johnson failed in Congress. Unlike other civil rights bills, the issue of housing evoked opposition not just from the South but also from the North. Opponents claimed that it challenged basic American values such as “a man's home is his castle”; to supporters, the symbolism of homeownership as “the American Dream” only underscored the importance of ensuring that housing was available to all Americans, regardless of race.

Access to justice as a human right, organizational entitlement and precursor to diversity and inclusion

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 787-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quinetta Roberson
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Organizational Policies ◽  
Corporate Leaders ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Policies And Practices

PurposeIn the wake of the death of George Floyd in the United States, many corporate leaders have released statements condemning racism and police brutality and committed their organizations to focus on diversity and inclusion. While such statements, intentions, and goals are laudable, they evade the phenomenon at the crux of the current social movement: access to justice.Design/methodology/approachThis essay draws upon theory and research across a variety of disciplines to examine the accessibility of justice for African Americans in society and in work organizations.FindingsAs corporate leaders have made statements decrying racism and police brutality and offered their support to civil rights groups and organizations fighting for racial justice, there is a need for that same level of scrutiny and support within their own organizations. As a precursor to diversity and inclusion initiatives, corporate leaders need to take actions to ensure the fairness of outcomes, policies and practices, and treatment by others for African Americans within their organizations.Practical implicationsStrategies for reviewing and revising organizational policies and practices to preserve fairness in the work experiences of African Americans and for creating and maintaining cultures of fairness are offered.Originality/valueThe author integrates historical documents, research, opinion, and literary devices to understand the meaning and practice of justice in society and organizations.

The Political Culture of Emancipation: Morality, Politics, and the State in Garrisonian Abolitionism, 1854–1863

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-184
Author(s):  
Mark Voss-Hubbard
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
National Government ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Purpose ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation

Historians have long recognized the unprecedented expansion of federal power during the Civil War. Moreover most scholars agree that the expansion of federal power manifested itself most immediately and profoundly in the abolition of slavery. In a sense, through the Emancipation Proclamation, the Republican administration injected the national government into the domain of civil rights, and by doing so imbued federal power with a distinct moral purpose. The passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments codified this expression of federal authority, rejecting the bedrock tenet in American republican thought that centralized power constituted the primary threat to individual liberty.

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