Clayborne Carson

African-American Leadership and Mass Mobilization

dozens of cities throughout the nation. The mass struggles of the early 1960s enhanced the impact of African Americans on national politics, prompting the passage of major civil rights and anti-poverty legislation. As these struggles became increasingly militant, they also provoked a white backlash against problack policies and a concerted campaign of repression by local police forces and federal agencies. In the years since 1968, mass mobilizations in African-American communities

Martin Luther King, Jr., as Scholar: A Reexamination of His Theological Writings

What is the historical and biographical significance of the papers Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote as a divinity student at Crozer Theological Seminary and as a doctoral student at Boston University? Judged retroactively by the standards of academic scholarship, they are tragically flawed by numerous instances of plagiarism. Moreover, even before the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Projects discovery of the citation deficiencies in the papers, only a few students of King had thought them deserving of the type of careful study that would have exposed those deficiencies. Scholars, seeing the papers through the distorting prism of Kings subsequent fame and martyrdom, usually considered them insignificant, except for the few clues they provide regarding the nonviolent protest strategies King later advocated., These papers disclose new meanings, however, when they are studied as evidence of Kings effort to construct an identity as a theologian and preacher rather than as undistinguished scholarship or as evidence of Kings adoption of ideas regarding nonviolent strategies of change. Kings appropriations of the words and ideas of others should certainly not be

Why the Poor Stay Poor

While he acknowledges the existence of an underclass, he sees it primarily as a product of bad social policy rather than of the attitudes of the poor. While he discounts the importance of civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation as a means of addressing ghetto problems, he nevertheless acknowledges that forceful federal action is needed to address those problems. Wilson demolishes the arguments of Charles Murray, author of Losing Ground, who concluded that Great Society programs not only failed to reduce poverty but actually exacerbated the plight of the poor. Rejecting the notion that the underclass is characterized by an economically dysfunctional culture of poverty, he prefers instead to emphasize the concept of social isolation, which he believes better expresses the source of distinctive attitudes that persist among the urban black poor. For example, rather than attributing the rise in the number of single mothers and femaleheaded households to a selfdestructive rejection of white middleclass values or to “permissive” liberal welfare policies, Wilson argues that economic trends have reduced job opportunities for black urban residents, which in turn reduces the number of employable and thus marriageable black males. Yet, while impressed by Wilson’s desire to provide a sound intellectual basis for a renewed assault on poverty, I remain troubled by what Wilson leaves out of his discussion of the causes of and strategies for combating the problem. Wilson tends to examine the black ghetto from the outside, as a problem to be solved through liberal social engineering, rather than as a complex community capable of being transformed from within as well as from without. ■

The Unfinished Dialogue of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X

lmost four decades after Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X offered sharply contrasting ideas regarding the future direction of black politics, they still symbolize opposing positions that divide African Americans. Their sometimes rancorous debate, carried on mainly through public statements rather than direct dialogue, set the tone for the disruptive, even deadly ideological and tactical conflicts within Black communities in the years since their deaths. Contemporary Black young people seeking social justice are still torn between racial integration and racial separation, between Martin’s call for nonviolent resistance and Malcolm’s insistence on “any means necessary.” But was the split between them inevitable? Were their ideas actually incompatible? Or were they in some ways complimentary? Must African Americans choose between their ideological legacies? Would Martin and Malcolm have resolved some of their differences, if they had not been assassinated? Was their inability to achieve such a resolution a missed opportunity that has hobbled subsequent African-American politics? Why, now, years after their deaths, are these questions relevant? Martin and Malcolm have become the two most recognizable African-American icons of the twentieth century, but popular understanding of the two men rarely extends beyond caricatures and sound bites. Martin has been honored with a national holiday that typically focuses on the “I have a dream” passage concluding his address at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet few Americans have listened to his entire speech at the march, and still fewer have heard his other remarkable speeches and sermons. Malcolm’s image has appeared on a U.S. postage stamp, and his life has been chronicled in Alex Haley’s best-selling Autobiography of Malcolm X and portrayed by Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s epic motion picture. 1 Yet Malcolm’s political evolution during his final years remains little understood—a source of unwanted human complexity for those who prefer simplistic heroes or villains.

Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940–1980

BEYOND ATLA NTA : THE STRUGGLE FOR RA CIA L EQUA LITY IN GEORGIA , 1940-1980 (NEW EDITION) To get Beyond A tlanta: The Strug g le for Racial Equality in Georg ia, 1940-1980 (New edit ion) eBook, you should click the link listed below and download the file or get access to additional information which might be have conjunction with Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Racial Equality in Georgia, 1940-1980 (New edition) book.

But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle.@@@The Civil Rights Movement: Struggle and Resistance.

Birmingham served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and important moments in the history of the civil rights struggle. In this vivid narrative account, Glenn Eskew traces the evolution of nonviolent protest in the city, focusing particularly on the sometimes problematic intersection of the local and national movements. Eskew describes the changing face of Birminghams civil rights campaign, from the politics of accommodation practiced by the citys black bourgeoisie in the 1950s to local pastor Fred L. Shuttlesworths groundbreaking use of nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, the national movement, in the person of Martin Luther King Jr., turned to Birmingham. The national uproar that followed on Police Commissioner Bull Connors use of dogs and fire hoses against the demonstrators provided the impetus behind passage of the watershed Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paradoxically, though, the larger victory won in the streets of Birmingham did little for many of the citys black citizens, argues Eskew. The cancellation of protest marches before any clear-cut gains had been made left Shuttlesworth feeling betrayed even as King claimed a personal victory. While African Americans were admitted to the leadership of the city, the way power was exercised--and for whom--remained fundamentally unchanged. |Birmingham served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and important moments in the history of the civil rights struggle. In this vivid narrative account, Glenn Eskew traces the evolution of nonviolent protest in the city, focusing particularly on the sometimes problematic intersection of the local and national movements.