scholarly journals The Great Debate

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-27
Author(s):  
Linfield University
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
Great Debate

Born in New York City only fifteen months apart, the Harlem-raised James Baldwin and the privileged William F. Buckley, Jr. could not have been more different, but they both rose to the height of American intellectual life during the civil rights movement. By the time they met in February 1965 to debate race and the American Dream at the Cambridge Union, Buckley—a founding father of the American conservative movement—was determined to sound the alarm about a man he considered an “eloquent menace.” For his part, Baldwin viewed Buckley as a deluded reactionary whose popularity revealed the sickness of the American soul. The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy. In this article I introduce readers to the story at the heart of my new book about Baldwin and Buckley, The Fire Is Upon Us.

Daughter of the Empire State

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline A. McLeod
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Service System ◽  
African American Woman ◽  
American Woman ◽  
Domestic Relations ◽  
Colored People ◽  
Social Service System

This long overdue biography elevates Jane Matilda Bolin to her rightful place in American history as an activist, integrationist, jurist, and outspoken public figure in the political and professional milieu of New York City before the onset of the modern Civil Rights movement. When Bolin was appointed to New York City's domestic relations court in 1939 for the first of four 10-year terms, she became the nation's first African American woman judge. Drawing on archival materials as well as a meeting with Bolin in 2002, the author reveals how Bolin parlayed her judicial position to impact significant reforms of the legal and social service system in New York. Beginning with Bolin's childhood and educational experiences at Wellesley and Yale, the book chronicles Bolin's relatively quick rise through the ranks of a profession that routinely excluded both women and African Americans. The book links Bolin's activist leanings and integrationist zeal to her involvement in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and details her work as a critic and reformer of domestic relations courts and juvenile placement facilities.

Creative Chaos

2018 ◽  
pp. 145-170
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Northern Cities

This chapter chronicles Richardson’s travels to northern cities to aid local activists who were building freedom movements based on the same issues addressed in Cambridge: jobs, housing, health care, and education. As such, the Cambridge movement was a model for the northern activists who developed Black Power, and they looked to Richardson as a leader they could emulate—notably, her counterprotest during George Wallace’s visit to Cambridge in May 1964. Through her use of “creative chaos”—a strategy that confused the Cambridge movement’s opponents—Richardson solidified her reputation for effective human rights leadership. Gendered interpretations of her leadership and activism, as well as the role of gender in the civil rights movement more generally, are also covered, as is her relocation to New York City in 1964 when she married photojournalist Frank Dandridge.

“Cosa Nuestra”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Njoroge Njoroge
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Puerto Rican ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
Puerto Rican Diaspora ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Voice

This chapter explores the history of Salsa in New York City. In the late 1960’s Salsa became the vehicle for the cultural expressions of community, aesthetics, and identity for the Puerto Ricans, Nuyoricans, and other Latinos. Salsa was a musical celebration and valorization of Nuyorican identity and became the voice of the alienated and disenfranchised barrio youth in New York City and beyond. Though in the main, its practitioners heralded from the Puerto Rican diaspora: from its very inception “salsa” has been a pan-Caribbean creation. With the Cuban Revolution, the subsequent recording ban of 1961 and the embargo of 1962, New York City displaced Havana as the center of Latin music. After the brief but rich Boogaloo explosion of the mid-Sixties, salsa took over the airwaves and dance-floors. If Boogaloo can be seen as an anticipation of and response to the Civil Rights movement, salsa was “Black Power.”

“Out of These Ghettos, People Who Would Fight”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Gold
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Rent Control ◽  
Community Power ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines the rent strikes that erupted in Harlem and other ghettos in the 1960s. Ideologically, the rent strikes blur the line between civil rights liberalism and Black Power. Rent strikers renounced the liberal integrationist vision—moving out of the ghetto—that had animated the previous decade's black housing struggles. Instead they sought to improve conditions and build power within the segregated neighborhoods where they, like most African Americans, actually lived. This chapter considers the rent rebellion launched by ghetto residents, drawing inspiration from the burgeoning civil rights movement and support from New York's longtime tenant advocates. It shows that this rent rebellion won modest material improvements and contributed to a growing movement for community power in the ghettos. One of the strikes' main achievements was to galvanize tenants throughout New York City at a critical moment in the long-term fight over rent control. The chapter also discusses issues of gender and race in the Harlem rent strikes.

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