Marching Across the Color Line

Marching Across the Color Line PDF

Author: David Welky

Publisher: Critical Historical Encounters

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199998302

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Once labeled the most dangerous black man in America, A. Philip Randolph was a tireless crusader for civil rights and economic justice. In Marching Across the Color Line: A. Philip Randolph and Civil Rights in the World War II Era, author David Welky examines Randolph's central role in the African American struggle for equality during the World War II era. Frustrated by unequal treatment in the military and civilian life, Randolph threatened to march 100,000 African Americans to Washington, DC, unless President Franklin Roosevelt expanded employment opportunities for blacks. Roosevelt backed down following a tense standoff, issuing an executive order guaranteeing equal opportunities for all Americans to get jobs in the growing defense industry. Armed with this victory, Randolph led wartime charges to integrate the military, further expand job opportunities, and end discrimination against minorities. He staged massive rallies, badgered political leaders, and pricked the conscience of a nation fighting for democracy overseas while reluctant to create it at home. A lively, engaging narrative set against a turbulent backdrop of political maneuvering, race riots, and the largest war in human history, Marching Across the Color Line exposes students to an array of fascinating characters who wrote the dramatic opening chapters in America's civil rights saga.

Half American

Half American PDF

Author: Matthew F. Delmont

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2024-01-09

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1984880411

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The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, by award-winning historian and civil rights expert Winner of the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 A 2022 Book of the Year from TIME, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and more More than one million Black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units while waging a dual battle against inequality in the very country for which they were laying down their lives. The stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” And yet without their sacrifices, the United States could not have won the war. Half American is World War II history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black military heroes and civil rights icons such as Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the leader of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, who fought to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; and James G. Thompson, the twenty-six-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. An essential and meticulously researched retelling of the war, Half American honors the men and women who dared to fight not just for democracy abroad but for their dreams of a freer and more equal America.

Making the Movement

Making the Movement PDF

Author: David L. Crane

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1648961908

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Packed with over 200 color photos, this visual journey through Black history and the Civil Rights Movement is told through the objects—buttons, badges, flyers, pennants, posters, and more—designed by activists as tools to advance the fight for justice and freedom, offering a unique perspective on the Civil Rights Movement from Emancipation through the present day. From Reconstruction through Jim Crow, through the protest era of the 1960s and '70s, to current-day resistance and activism such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the material culture of the Civil Rights Movement has been integral to its goals and tactics. During decades of sit-ins, marches, legal challenges, political campaigns, boycotts, and demonstrations, objects such as buttons, flyers, pins, and posters have been key in the fight against racism, oppression, and violence. Making the Movement presents more than 200 of these nonviolent weapons alongside the stories of the activists, organizations, and campaigns that defined and propelled the cause of civil rights. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to learn about Black and African American history in the United States and about strategies to combat racism and the structures that support it.

Across The Colour Line in an American City

Across The Colour Line in an American City PDF

Author: Godfrey Mwakikagile

Publisher: Kindle Digital Publishing

Published: 2020-07-18

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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A study of race relations in an American city, including personal experiences, and the status of blacks whose minority position has had a profound impact on their well-being. It also addresses issues of national relevance.

America Behind The Color Line

America Behind The Color Line PDF

Author: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2007-10-15

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0446533904

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The readable companion, in the oral-history tradition of Studs Terkel, to the PBS documentary series, peeking behind the veil "that still, far too often, separates black America from white." Renowned scholar and New York Times bestselling author Gates delivers a stirring and authoritative companion to the major new PBS documentary America Behind the Color Line. The book includes thought-provoking essays from Colin Powell, Morgan Freeman, Russell Simmons, Vernon Jordan, Alicia Keys, Bernie Mac, and Quincy Jones.

This Worldwide Struggle

This Worldwide Struggle PDF

Author: Sarah Azaransky

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-05-16

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0190262222

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This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement identifies a network of black Christian intellectuals and activists who looked abroad, even in other religious traditions, for ideas and practices that could transform American democracy. From the 1930s to the 1950s, they drew lessons from independence movements around for the world for an American racial justice campaign. Their religious perspectives and methods of moral reasoning developed theological blueprints for the classical phase of the Civil Rights Movement. The network included professors and public intellectuals Howard Thurman, Benjamin Mays, and William Stuart Nelson, each of whom met with Mohandas Gandhi in India; ecumenical movement leaders, notably YWCA women, Juliette Derricotte, Sue Bailey Thurman, and Celestine Smith; and pioneers of black Christian nonviolence James Farmer, Pauli Murray, and Bayard Rustin. People in this group became mentors and advisors to and coworkers with Martin Luther King and thus became links between Gandhi, who was killed in 1948, and King, who became a national figure in 1956. Azaransky's research reveals fertile intersections of worldwide resistance movements, American racial politics, and interreligious exchanges that crossed literal borders and disciplinary boundaries, and underscores the role of religion in justice movements. Shedding new light on how international and interreligious encounters were integral to the greatest American social movement of the last century, This Worldwide Struggle confirms the relationship between moral reflection and democratic practice, and it contains vital lessons for movement building today.

Winning the War for Democracy

Winning the War for Democracy PDF

Author: David Lucander

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2014-09-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 025209655X

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Scholars regard the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) as a forerunner of the postwar Civil Rights movement. Led by the charismatic A. Philip Randolph, MOWM scored an early victory when it forced the Roosevelt administration to issue a landmark executive order that prohibited defense contractors from practicing racial discrimination. Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941-1946 recalls that triumph, but also looks beyond Randolph and the MOWM's national leadership to focus on the organization's evolution and actions at the local level. Using the personal papers of previously unheralded MOWM members such as T.D. McNeal, internal government documents from the Roosevelt administration, and other primary sources, David Lucander highlights how local affiliates fighting for a double victory against fascism and racism helped the national MOWM accrue the political capital it needed to effect change. Lucander details the efforts of grassroots organizers to implement MOWM's program of empowering African Americans via meetings and marches at defense plants and government buildings and, in particular, focuses on the contributions of women activists like Layle Lane, E. Pauline Myers, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman. Throughout he shows how local activities often diverged from policies laid out at MOWM's national office, and how grassroots participants on both sides ignored the rivalry between Randolph and the leadership of the NAACP to align with one another on the ground.

History Teaches Us to Resist

History Teaches Us to Resist PDF

Author: Mary Frances Berry

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2018-03-13

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0807005703

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Historian and civil rights activist proves how progressive movements can flourish even in conservative times. Despair and mourning after the election of an antagonistic or polarizing president, such as Donald Trump, is part of the push-pull of American politics. But in this incisive book, historian Mary Frances Berry shows that resistance to presidential administrations has led to positive change and the defeat of outrageous proposals, even in challenging times. Noting that all presidents, including ones considered progressive, sometimes require massive organization to affect policy decisions, Berry cites Indigenous peoples' protests against the Dakota pipeline during Barack Obama's administration as a modern example of successful resistance built on earlier actions. Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Berry discusses that president's refusal to prevent race discrimination in the defense industry during World War II and the subsequent March on Washington movement. She analyzes Lyndon Johnson, the war in Vietnam, and the antiwar movement and then examines Ronald Reagan's two terms, which offer stories of opposition to reactionary policies, such as ignoring the AIDS crisis and retreating on racial progress, to show how resistance can succeed. The prochoice protests during the George H. W. Bush administration and the opposition to Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, as well as his budget cuts and welfare reform, are also discussed, as are protests against the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act during George W. Bush's presidency. Throughout these varied examples, Berry underscores that even when resistance doesn't achieve all the goals of a particular movement, it often plants a seed that comes to fruition later. Berry also shares experiences from her six decades as an activist in various movements, including protesting the Vietnam War and advocating for the Free South Africa and civil rights movements, which provides an additional layer of insight from someone who was there. And as a result of having served in five presidential administrations, Berry brings an insider's knowledge of government. History Teaches Us to Resist is an essential book for our times which attests to the power of resistance. It proves to us through myriad historical examples that protest is an essential ingredient of politics, and that progressive movements can and will flourish, even in perilous times.

Barred by Congress

Barred by Congress PDF

Author: Robert M. Lichtman

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2022-01-27

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0700632727

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In Barred by Congress: How a Mormon, a Socialist, and an African American Elected by the People Were Excluded from Office Robert M. Lichtman provides a definitive history of congressional exclusion and expulsion cases. Lichtman offers a timely investigation of the vital constitutional issues, debated since the nation’s founding, concerning permissible and impermissible grounds for excluding a member-elect or expelling a member from Congress. Barred by Congress begins with an exhaustive review of the numerous congressional exclusion and expulsion cases in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before focusing on the stories of the last three members-elect to be excluded from Congress: a Mormon, a Socialist, and an African American—each an outsider in American politics—excluded notwithstanding election by the voters. Lichtman illuminates each of these three remarkable individuals with a detailed biographical sketch. Brigham H. Roberts was a Utah Mormon whose exclusion from the House of Representatives in 1900 was fueled by a nationwide anti-Mormon campaign waged by William Randolph Hearst and his newspaper empire, a controversy centered on the issue of polygamy. Victor L. Berger, a Socialist Party leader and editor of an antiwar Milwaukee newspaper during World War I, was elected to the House despite the efforts of the Wilson administration to derail his campaign by indicting him under the Espionage Act; he was excluded in 1919 and again in 1920. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was a Baptist minister and civil rights advocate who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the House of Representatives from 1945 until his exclusion in 1967. In Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court ruled that Powell’s exclusion by the House violated the Constitution, a decision that, a half century later, remains established law but still does not provide complete assurance that the people will be able to (in Alexander Hamilton’s words) “choose whom they please to govern them.”

Tripping on the Color Line

Tripping on the Color Line PDF

Author: Heather M. Dalmage

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

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Through interviews with individuals from black-white multiracial families, together with sociological analysis, this study examines the challenges faced by people living in such families, and explores how their experiences demonstrate the need for rethinking race in America.