Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

Title: Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Strugle for Equality

Author: Richard Kluger

Year of Publication: 2004 [1975]

Thesis:

Kluger's narrative history of Brown v. Board reaches all the way from slavery to the twentieth century, developing Charles Hamilton Houston's architecture around challenging the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy and culminating in the Brown decisions as a whole in 1954 and 1955. It ends with a look back in the newer edition. Kluger culminates in arguing that Brown was the Supreme Court's clear statement that segregation was inherently unequal. However, along the way, he dispells the myth that Thurgood Marshall was the architect of Brown, that the case stood on its own and that the Supreme Court was unanimous in its opinions, especially on the duration of implementation. He also showcases the effects of social psychology via Kenneth Clark's experiments. The Epilogue in 2004, Kluger posits Brown as the beginning of a "Second Reconstruction," (754) in which court-ordered desegregation moved rather quickly through courts on every issue except schooling, though ironically the South moved more quickly than the North or West (754-755, 763)). In fact, he shows that throught the Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush years how effectively Brown had been legally eviscerated, especially taxes, busing, housing disparities, and Affirmative Action.

Time: 18th-20th, but more focus on 19th-mid-20th

Geography: U.S.

Organization:

Foreword

- Equality as the ideal in the American Revolution

- Ironic that the Supreme Court stepped in as they are not a particulary democratic body (xi)

PART I / UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW

- Brown is five cases:

- Belton v. Gebhart

- Brown v. Board

- Bolling v. Sharp

- Briggs v. Elliot

- Davis. Prince Edward County School Board 

1. Together Let us Sweetly Live

- Opens with case study of Joseph Albert DeLaine - principal who was run out of town b/c he wouldnt cowtow to the white power structure 

- Little change since slavery in terms of conditions in South Carolina since slavery (describes them)

- White folks respond with paternalistic ideas

- Ex: Clarendon County spent $179 on white students and $43 on Black students (7)

- Paragraph explanation of African Americans' adoption of Christianity despite the obvious problems with it as embedded in a system of anti-Black oppression (11)

- Mentions irony of fighting abroad w/out freedom at home (12)

- Black people had to pay to build their own schools and come up with the funds to pay salaries (13)

- DeLaine politically active - writes everyone he can on disparities (15)

- Equal pay suits (16)

- NAACP leaders encounter retaliation - ex: no credit at the store (17)

2. Original Sin

- Through Civil War

-  Jefferson on equality & as a hypocrite (28)

- No language on equality gets into Constitution (30)

- 3/5ths meant enslaved people (and everybody knew it, regardless of not mentioning it explicitly (31)

- 1850 Compromise / Kansas Nebraska (36)

- In terms of power - Norht is as bad as the South (37)

- "Integrated" churches still segregated (37)

- Dred Scott (38)

- Environmental degradation/disaster (39)

- Capital investment for plantations huge/comes from North (39)

- Southern planters over-extended (40)

- Lincoln's reluctant actions/thoughts on slavery/union (41)

- 13th Amendment debate (41)

- Freedmen's Bureau (43)

- Andrew Johnson - hates slavery because of how it degraded poor white folk, not because it hurt Black people (43)

- Criminalization of blackness and the various tricks of Reconstruction - ex: forcing folks into contract labor (44-45)

- Voting for Black folk under Reconstruction the most critical aspect of Radical Reconstruction - 48-49 

3. The Special Favorite of the Laws

- $5 million spent on Reconstruction ($81 million in contemporary $) - 50

- North invests in land (51)

- Sharecropping & leasing (51-2)

- Supreme Court not at all politically independent or immune (Taney, Miller as examples)  (53-56)

- 14 Amendment interpreted by Miller to mean that citizen of a country & of a state are different matters; therefore the Federal Gov't's job is not to meddle in state affairs on 14th Amendment

- SC defintes specifically the rights conferred by the 14th Amendment (already covered elsewhere) in the Slaughterhouse cases (53-37)

- United States v. Reese & also Cruikshank - Onus now on Black people to prove discrimination (59) - renders 15th Amendment useless

- Also - Fed. gov't not responsible for intervening when a mob (not state action) interferes with voting rights (60, 63)

- Other state cases to show rhetorical, but not meaningful gains in enfranchisement (62-3)

- Panic of 1873 motivates populist whites in the South to court Black voters (66)

- Atlanta Compromise (69)

- Plessy - SC cherry picks irrelevant cases (73)

- On "established uses" - "Jim Crow transportation practices varied widely in the South and were by no means the universal practice. IN many places, second-class coaches had long been shared by white and colored passengers." (79)

4. Not like Bales of Hay

5. Coming of Age in N* Heaven

6. The Raw Deal

8. Uncle Fearless's Nephew

9. slaking the Law of the Jungle

10. One of the Gang

11. A Foot in the Door

12. The Spurs of Texas Are upon You

PART II / THE COURTS BELOW

13. On the Natural Inferiority of Bootblacks

14. The Doll Man and Otehr Experts

15. Charleston Detour

16. Prairie Fire

17. The Menninger Connection

18. Jim Crow, Inc.

19. "Stick with Us"

20. The Pride of Virginia

21. The Best Place to Attack

PART III / ON APPEAL

22. Going for the Jugular

23. At Loggerheads

24. Arrival of the Superchief

26. Simple Justice

- Merges transportation and education

- Does this decision overturn the Slaughterhouse cases? (esp. dual citizenship state / national)

- Separation is inherently unequal

- Warren points out that a look at the present state of things vs. only at Plessy is necessary (seems like this appears as part of Kluger's argument that he was trying to avoid keeping his focus solely on the South)

- "Unanimous" was voiced, but not written, by Warren, as he read the majority decision (again this chapter shows how political a body the Supreme Court was)

- "To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone." Quote from Warren (708)

- Cites sociology (i.e. Kenneth Clark's research) as supportive, but not the most substantive aspect of the decision (709)

- Ultimately the decision appears weak, even to supporters, as the 14th Amendment & resulting cases are sidelined (714)

- The nebulous timeline allows the South to continue on segregating

- Reston's critiques (714-716):

- - Poor use of 14th 

- - Poor use of case law challenging/eliminating state-backed segregation (715)

- - Blatant results negative on African American community

- - Should have more firmly contested Plessy (716)

- - "The Court might have inquired rhetorically, for example, why segregation laws were in fact imposed in the first place if the white majority did not believe the black minority to be inferior." (716)

- Quality of schools a hot-button issue for all (720)

- On the gradualist approach (see, Ashmore, The Negro and the Schools) "...some school officials who have experineced it believe the reverse is true. A markedly gradual program, they contend, invites opposition and allows time for it to be organized." (721)

*Clark studies desegregation and determines people will go along with it if imposed vs. waiting for them to change their minds, which provides time to object (722)

- Clark's recommendations:

A. A clear and unequivocal statement of policy by leaders with prestige and other authorities

B. Firm enforcement of the changed policy by authorities and persistence in the execution of this policy in the face of initial resistance.

C. A willingness to deal with violations, attempted violations, and and incitement to violations by a resort to the law and strong enforcemnt action.

D. A refusal of the authorities to resort to, engage in or tolerage subterfuges, gerrymandering or other devices for evading the principles and the facts of desegregation.

E. An appeal to the individuals concerned in terms of their religious principles of brotherhood and their acceptance of the American traditions of fair play and justice. (723)

- Violence occurs because of poor law enforcement (723)

- Discussion of Clark emphasizes the question of speed of implementation

- State-directed implementation plans very slow- Florida as example (728)

- Gov't lawyers argue for immediate, but open-ended implementation (730)

- Rogers' remarks on disobeying the decree (736)

- Develops discussions between clerks on speed of implementation (obviously not all in agreement) (742)

- "Now the law says that, like them or not, white America may no humiliate African Americans by setting them apart. Now the law says that black Americans must not be degraded by the state and their degradation used as an excuse to drive them further down. That is what Brown. v. Board of Education accomplished. It took the better part of four centuries." (750)

27. Visible Man: Fifty years after Brown

Appendix: Text of the Decisions

- My own observation - this seems like a remarkably brief decision.

- Warren argues - discourse around 14th difficult to determine in this case (791)

- Then: that public education was different then (791)

- Then: "As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education." (791) - argument that this skirts around the history of attempts to use the 14th Amendment in this context.

- Additionally, "tangible" factors (conditions, etc.) can't alone determine the viablity of the Separate but Equal doctrine, but refers to sociology (Clark, Frazier, Myrdal, etc.)

 (792)

- "unanimously" indeed left out on p.793

Sources and Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

Interviews and Correspondence

Notes

Indexes

Principle Cases Cited

Subjects and Names

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

Oral histories, Supreme Court records, 

Historiography:

Keywords:

Sweatt v. Painter ruling - not just that there are unequal physical circumstances, but that the sociality of learning is denied Black students (792)

McLaurin v. Oklahoma ruling - also on the sociality of learning

See Swann v. Mecklenberg for ruling on busing in 1971 & see Potter Stewart on "purposeful" segregation (think this is Milliken v. Bradley. (764, 766)

See: San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez - this is a key case as it challenges public funding & distribution of benefits (naturally it loses) (764-765)

See: Bakke at UC Berkeley (774) - white man challenges quotas. Affirmative Action ruled constitutional, but quotas not. "The case for Bakke boiled down to a single compelling point: no applicant's race should ever be allowed to be the basis for preferential consideration, any more than it shoudl be the basis for denial of admission; individual merit alone should matter, not arbitrary quotas intended as group compensation." (775)

Themes:

Critiques:

- There is some voice creep using derogatory language (9)

Returning to this quote to analyze

- "Sadly the rewards of interracial and transcultural blending have been spurned by many younger African Americans in the nation's high schools and colleges, precisely where the future is taking shape. Mingling with white classmates is often taken--whether out of long-smoldering resentment, fear of being rejected or patronized, or for some other phobic cause--as a denial of one's African American roots, while white students, detecting only a large threatening chip on their black schoolmates' shoulders and failing to perceive it as an expression of natural cultural affinities or a confession of insecurity, have often responded inhospitably, adding to the rancorous standoff. Nor have adult overseers helped matters. Administrators at many white-majority universities, in the misguided belief they were insulating their campuses against racial tension, have accomplished the opposite by setting aside blacks-only dormitories, or parts thereof, to accommodate African American students who wish to segregate themselves. But what sort of lesson has been taught by such invitations to group avoidance in settings where young people migrate to be stimulated by new ideas and to gain understanding through exposure through fresh cultural influences?" (788)

Questions:

Quotes:

Notes:

Excerpt from Alexander Bickel on problems with Clark's data and the fallacy of not confronting Plessy head on (as well as generally language meant to avoid offending southerners) - "...No matter how it had been done, no doubt, the enemies of the opinion were certain to seize upon it and proclaim the ruling unjudicial and illegal. The opinion therefore should have said straightforwardly that Plessy was based on a self-invented philosophy, no less psychologically oriented than the Court was being now in citing these sources to justify the holding that segregation inflicted damage. It was clear, though, that Warren wanted to present as small a target as possible, and that was wi

The meat of the decision:

"We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education opportunities? We believe that it does." (792)

Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York: Nation Books, 2017.

Title: Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Author: Ibram X. Kendi

Year of Publication: 2016

Thesis:

Argues principally that leaders develop racist ideas to justify inequality; systems developed by those leaders further reinforce the racial ideas. Kendi reevaluates a number of historical figures (mainly Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, WEB DuBois, and Angela Davis) under a three-part rubric of segregationists, antiracists, and assimilationists. The former identify Black people as the problem, where the latter blame systemic racism as well as Black people. Antiracists, however, look specifically at racism as the root cause. He further proposes that policy change should form the anchor of the movement as education has not resulted in anything approaching adequate change. 

Time: 15th-21st centuries

Geography: U.S.

Organization:

Preface to the Paperback Edition

- Trump birther intro

"His election neither fit the Republicans' postracial narrative of the end of racial history nor the Democrats' narrative of the march of racial progress." (ix)

- Decides to skip over the typical narrative styles (covert, overt, progress, declension) (x)

- Instead sees a binary of dueling forces (racial progress/racism) vs. progress & backlash (x)

Prologue

- Writing under highly publicized murders of Black people (1-2)

- Identifies three groups:

--> Segregationists - describe Black people as "the problem"

--> Antiracists - blame police/racist system

--> Assimilationists - blame black people as well as racist system

Part I - Cotton Mather

1. Human Hierarchy

2. Origins of Racist Ideas

3. Coming to America

4. Saving Souls, Not Bodies

5. Black Hunts

6. Great Awakening


Part II - Thomas Jefferson

7. Enlightenment

8. Black Exhibits

9. Created Equal

10. Uplift Suasion 

11. Big Bottoms

12. Colonization


Part III - William Llloyd Garrison

13. Gradual Equality

14. Imbruted or Civilized

15. Soul

16. The Impending Crisis

17. History's Emancipator

18. Ready for Freedom?

19. Reconstructing Slavery

20. Reconstructing Blame


Part IV - W.E.B. Du Bois

21. Renewing the South

22. Southern Horrors

23. Black Judases

24. Great White Hopes

25. The Birth of a Nation

26. Media Suasion

27. Old Deal

28. Freedom Brand

29. Massive Resistance

Part V - Angela Davis

30. The Act of Civil Rights

31. Black Power

32. Law and Order

33. Reagan's Drugs

34. New Democrats

35. New Republicans

36. 99.9 Percent the Same

37. The Extraordinary Negro

Type:

Intellectual

Methods:

Sources:

Historiography:

Keywords:

Themes:

Critiques:

Questions:

Quotes:

Notes:

Joseph, Peniel E. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006.

Title: Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America

Author: Peniel Joseph

Year of Publication: 2006

Thesis:

If we only concentrate on the "heroic" period of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1965) bound within a provincial geography and temporality, it is easy to conclude the Black Power Movement was a period of violent eruption that ended in disaster. Joseph argues that we need to begin in the postwar period and even looking to where those early Black Power folks drew fromf: Garvey, Robeson, Hansberry (Raisin in the Sun), Malcom X, Robert F. Williams are a few of those he begins with who preceded Carmichael's call for using the term Black Power. With his analysis stretching backward and forward in history, Joseph demonstrates how lasting cultural forms, academic scholarship, and institutional changes were created through the Black Power Movement.

Time: 1940s-1970s (some before, some after)

Geography: U.S. (with much attention to pan-Africanism)

Organization:

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Epigraphs

Preface

Introduction: To Shape a New World

1. Forerunners

- Malcom X & famous scene with Johnson X

- Robert F. Williams & Cuban Revolution

- Elijah Muhammad / NOI

- * Reminds us that Harold Cruse & Amiri Baraka went Cuba as well; revived in Baraka a sense of commitment. He moves into politics, as well.

- Curtis Mayfield

2. At Home in the World

- Cuban Revolution

- Malcom X greets Castro in Harlem

- Patrice Lumumba killed; demonstrations - UN Security Council descended upon (Maya Angelou & others there)

- From "Negro" to "Afro-American" shift takes place here

3. Waging Wars Amid Shadows

- William Worthy - Journalist

- Goes to China & tried for it

- Interviews R.F. Williams

- Police brutality, death of Ronald Stokes

- Albert Cleage - (Shrine of the Black Madonna)

- Also GOAL (Group on Advanced Leadership)

- Donald Freeman - RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement)

"RAM’s ideology encompassed Cruse’s idiosyncratic internationalism, a nuts-and-bolts approach to class struggle, and a blueprint for political revolution drawn from Chinese Marxists, black radicals, and guerrilla struggles." (page # forthcoming)

- Describes the overlap/communication between leaders - check out Grace Lee Boggs

4. Liberators

- James Watts - The Liberator Magazine (Cruse on editorial board - Baldwin as a major contributor)

- Baldwin

- See: "Not 100 Years of Freedom" (16min on Emancipation Proclamation) - https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_28-vm42r3ph61

- Baldwin's thinking influenced by visit to NOI

- Baldwin as a broker between R. Kennedy & Black intellectuals

- Robert F. Williams (Crusader)

- "Sporadic episodes of black militancy, observed Malcolm, had, in fact, forced the White House to act after weeks of stalling." (page # to follow)

- Conflicts between Robinson and Malcom X / X and King

- Medgar Evars assassination

- Freedom Now & FBI tension

- Gloria Richardson

- Malcom X's House/Field speech (I use this to have Ss think about his call for unity among Black folk)

5. Political Kingdoms

6. "Black" Is a Country

7. "What We Gonna Start Sayin' Now Is Black Power!"

8. Storm Warnings

9. The Trial of Huey Percy Newton

10. Dark Days, Bright Nights

11. Dashikis and Democracy

Epilogue: Legacies, 1975-2005

Notes

Type:

Synthesis

Methods:

Sources:

Interviews, books, articles, newspapers, autobiographies, FBI records, 

Historiography:

I would group this with Long Black Freedom Struggle authors who see the movements overlapped and intertwined vs. consecutive.

Keywords:

Themes:

Critiques:

Questions:

Quotes:

Notes:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?201302-1/waiting-til-midnight-hour

Jackson, George. Blood in My Eye. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1990.

Title: Blood in My Eye

Author: George L. Jackson

Year of Publication: 1990 [1972]

Thesis:

Argues that crime and prisons developed from the economic and social order to protect the "privileges of a privileged few." His book is an attempt to raise prisoners' and others' consciousness that prison is the injustice and specifically for the purpose of creating a people's army. He cites the prison movement as a place where people from disparate backgrounds have coalesced in the struggle and therefore should be used as a model for the struggle.

Time:

Geography:

Organization: Letters

Amerikan Justice

- Describes prison conditions in his 11th year

- Mostly Black and poor folks in jail

- Strong Marxist influence (capitalism, lumpenproletariat as references)

Toward the United Front

- System kept in place by institutionalized racism and the prison system (7-8)

- Crime as "an assault upon the privilege of the privileged few" (9)

- Prisoners described as a class (9)

- Capitalism must be destroyed; violence can be limited by having more participants in the struggle, but he sees the conflict as inevitable (10)

- Prison movement best example of coalition building (12)

- Racism the most pernicious force in the left from aligning (12)

- No such thing as "Black racism" (12)

- The system must be crushed since it continues to replicate more racists (12)

- ALL people as victims of the system

After the Revolution has Failed

- Time to recognize that labor has failed in its efforts

- U.S. as a fascist state that continually pacifies the bottom layres through "reform," which is just enough to keep people from rebelling (16)

- Describes how the most downtrodden were first to be pacified (16)

- Points out the tension, especially on the issue of the scale of violence in the revolution among revolutionaries

- The vanguard revolutionaries can't win alone; yet, they can't wait for consensus

Fascism

- Reads Angela Davis's work on fascism

- See abundance of quotes below from this chapter

Classes at War: Mobilization and Contramobilization

- Intellectuals who supported fascism in Italy did so out of concern that system was breaking down entirely (if I'm understanding him correctly) (40)

- 3 phases of fascism:

-> "out of power" (appears revolutionary)

-> "in power but not secure" (period of repression)

-> "in power and securely so" (some dissent possible) (40)

- This seems to come out of his analysis of Italy under Mussolini (& Perón in Argentina, & Brazil) 

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

Historiography:

Keywords:

contra-positive mobilization (pacification/diffusion of working parties & also intent to mitigate the revolutionary vanguard's influence on working-class folk)

Themes:

Critiques:

Questions:

Quotes:

"I simply have never managed to develop a technique against nine armed men who are fascinated with damaging my private parts!! 

But, I’m still learning!" - Comes straight from the white male projection of insecurities over white women & the propaganda sold on Black rapists of white women

On the attempt free George J. by his brother, Jonathan.

"Proof of the role of law within the totalitarian­ authoritarian relationship was also built into the action. In a fit of reckless, mindless gunfire, one hundred automated goons shot through the bodies of a judge, district attorney, and three female noncombatants to reestablish control over all activity. To prevent certain actions, no cost in blood is too high."

On Total Revolution:

"Total revolution must be aimed at the purposeful and. absolute destruction of the state and all. present institutions, the destruction carried out by the so- called psychopath, the outsider, whose only remedy is de­ struction of the system. This organized massive violence directed at the source of thought control is the only realistic therapy."

On rejection of hierarchy:

"Throughout the centralizing authoritarian process of Ameri- kan history, the ruling classes have found it necessary to discourage and punish any genuine opposition to hierarchy. But there have always been individuals and groups who rejected the ideal of two unequal societies, existing one on top of the other."

Prison as a manifestation of unequal distribution of wealth

"Prisons were not institutionalized on such a massive scale by the people. Most people realize that crime is simply the result of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege, a reflection of the present state of property relations. There are no wealthy men on death row, and so few in the general prison population that we can discount them altogether. Imprisonments an aspect jjfclass struggle from the outset. It is the creation of a closed society which at­ tempts to isolate those individuals who disregard the struc­tures of a hypocritical establishment as well as those who attempt to challenge it on a mass basis."

On Revolution:

"Each of us should understand that revolution is aggres­sive. The manipulators of the system cannot or will not meet our legitimate demands. Eventually this will move us all into a violent encounter with the system. These are the terminal years of capitalism, and as we move into more and more basic challenges to its rule, history clearly forewarns us that when the prestige of power fails a violent episode precedes its transformation." (9-10)

On not needing to have all the same ideological persuasion/methods (very cool)

"In order to create a united left, whose aim is the defense of political prisoners and prisoners in general, we must re­nounce the idea that all participants must be of one mind, and should work at the problem from a single party line or with a single party line or with a single method." (10)

On racism's destruction of the political left

"Racism is a matter of ingrained traditional attitudes conditioned through institutions. For some, it is as natural a reflex as breathing. The psycho-social effects of segregated environments compounded by bitter class repression have served in the past to render the progressive movement almost totally impotent." (11)

On the the idea that reform can work with the same leadership:

"The question I’ve asked myself over the years runs this way: Who has done most of the dying? Most of the work? Most of the time in prison (on Max Row)? Who is the hindmost in every aspect of social, political and economic life? Who has the least short-term interest—or no interest at all—in the survival of the present state? In this condition, how could we believe in the possibility of a new generation of enlightened fascists who would dismantle the basis of their hierarchy?" (page # forthcoming)

"My opinion is that we are at the historical climax (the flash point) of the totalitarian period."

This is is beautiful:

"It is not defeatist to acknowledge that we have lost a battle. How else can we “regroup” and even think of carrying on the fight. At the center of revolution is realism. To call one or two or a dozen setbacks defeat is to overlook the ebbing and flowing process of revolution, coining closer to our calculations and then receding, but never standing still. If a thing isn’t building, it must be decaying. As one force emerges, the opposite force must yield; as one advances, the other must retreat. There is a very significant difference be­tween retreat and defeat.”

"In my analysis, I'm simply taking into account the fact that the forces of reaction and counterrevolution were al­ lowed to localize themselves and radiate their energy here in the U.S. The process has created the economic, political and cultural vortex of capitalism’s last re-form. My views corre­ spond with those of all the Third World revolutionaries. And nate in the seizure of state power. Our real purpose is to redeem not merely ourselves but the whole nation and the whole community of nations from colonial-community eco­nomic repression." - By now I think I'm seeing that the counterrevolution/hegemonic powers are quite entrenched. Even revolutions that we can point to seem reformist.

On the historical necessity of armed struggle:

"Our insistence on military action, defensive and retalia­ tory, has nothing to do with romanticism or precipitous idealistic fervor. We want to be effective. We want to live. Our history teaches us that the successful liberation struggles require an armed people, a whole people, actively participat­ ing in the struggle for their liberty!" 

On the need to understand fascism's cover of democracy:

"One has to understand that the fascist arrangement tol­erates the existence of no valid revolutionary activity. It has programmed into its very nature a massive, complex and automatic defense mechanism for all our old methods for raising the consciousness of a potentially revolutionary class of people. The essence of a U.S.A, totalitarian socio-political capitalism is concealed behind the illusion of a mass par­ ticipatory society. We must rip away its mask. Then the debate can end, and we can enter a new phase of struggle based on the development of an armed revolutionary culture that will triumph."

On fascism and its need for expansion:

"Expansion, then, which often led unavoidably to war, was the traditional recourse in the solving of problems created by a vacuous, uncontrollable system, which never considered any changes in its arrange­ ment, its essential dynamics, until it came under a very real, directly threatening challenge from below to its very existence."

The failure of the vanguard makes room for fascists to assume power:

"The point here is that fascism emerged out of weakness in the preexisting economic arrangement and in the old left. And the weakness must be assigned to the vanguard party, not the people. The People’s Party failed to direct the masses properly with positive suppression of their class enemies and their goons. Mussolini was able to proclaim that fascism held the only solution to the people’s problem—by default." 

On who participates in fascism:

"The shock troops of fascism on the mass political level are drawn from members of the lower-middle class who feel the upward thrust of the lower classes more acutely. These classes feel that any dislocation of the present economy re­sulting from the upward thrust of the masses would affect their status first."

Notes:

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/jackson-george-1941-1971/

p.16 - notes that compromises were made in the interest of reform; however, I would add that the compromises were to continue reinforcing racial caste by the principal negotiators.

Horne, Gerald. Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s. Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995.

Title: Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s

Author: Gerald Horne

Year of Publication: 1995

Thesis:

Argues that, similarly to what took place in Detroit, deindustrialization, high unemployment, low wages, high rents, and the weakening of the left by anti-Communist repression and prominent African Americans distancing themselves from it from it gave rise to Black Nationalism (focused in three areas - NOI, “Cultural Nationalism,” and the BPP. Police brutality was the immediate catalyst (rumors of a pregnant woman being attacked exacerbated local reactions, though police brutality was common) of an insurrection in Watts in 1965, but it cannot be understood without paying attention to global (Vietnam War recruiting young Black men, anti-Communism), national, and local politics leading up to it. Highlights the gendered components of the insurrection and the role of gangs. Results were mixed, with some concessions made and more accurate social science data on the Black experience in the U.S. in exchange for the rise of the conservative right.

Time: 1960s

Geography: U.S., primarily

Organization:

Abbreviations

PART ONE: CONTEXT

Introduction

- Watts - Most people killed were black; most property damaged was white owned (3)

- 3 major strands of Black nationalism after left collapses - NOI, "cultural nationalism," & BPP (5)

- Sammy Davis Jr. (7)

- Civil Rights Congress (CRC) (7)

-> integrated group, legal issues, police brutality, shut down by anti-Communist repression & FBI inflitration

- Black people also pushed out of Hollywood (9)

- Discussion of gangs feeding into the BPP/BN groups (11-12)

- History of Watts is also history of global political economy. (16)

- Ronald Reagan's antiracist radio show (18)

- Concerns by white elites about Asians and Mexicans seeing example of militant Black strategies working (19)

1. Toward Understanding

- Compounded racism

- Strong segregation; Watts annexed to pay for water, though lots small (27)

- Working-class folk live in suburbs (29)

- Lighter-skinned African Americans tend to get jobs (30)

- Interpeted as an insurrection, not a riot (37)

- Economic analyses point to lack of Black employment means lack of purchasing power/detriment to the economy (38)

- Argues social science research is a benefit (39)

PART TWO: UPRISING

2. Rising Up

- Parks a site of interracial conflict (46)

- Many people trying to figure out what precipitated the riot (heat, etc.) It seems beyond obvious it was police brutality in a larger context of racial caste repression and unlivable conditions (53)

- Traffic stop, police violence, altercation with people, insurrection

3. Death in the Afternoon, Evening, and Morning

- Killing as somehow stopping the violence - logic seems pretty problematic.

- Guerrilla tactics

4. Fire/Guns

5. "The Hearing Children of Deaf Parents"

PART THREE: CONFLICT

6. Black Scare

7. Iron Fist

PART FOUR: IMPACT

8. The Old Leadership

9. The New Leadership

10. The State and Civil Society

PART FIVE: CLASS VERSUS CLASS

11. A Class Divided by Race

12. Right, Left, and Center

13. Politics: Local and Beyond

14. Business

15. Representing Rebellion

PART SIX: MEANINGS

16. After the Fire

- Perceptions that concessions would be made b/c of militancy (339)

- Some people advocating that residents be forced to clean up city (340)

- Gun sales go up (340)

- Fearmongering grows about violencer leaving South L.A. amidst random & repressive crackdowns (339-340)

- Ford Foundation fronts the bulkof the money to study the riot under McCone, a former CIA director & appointed by Gov. Brown for appearances/political expediency (341-342)

- Commission report bland and incomplete. Blames "riffraff" for violence (343)

- "lure of welfare" is a myth (346)

- Interestingly, W.F. Buckley and R. Kennedy endorse the McCone report (347)

- "As it turned out, the weak recommendations did not forestall future eruptions but may have incited them." (347)

- Some new jobs and better job access opens up (350)

- Private business has no incentive to invest; public is dependent on shifting politics (350)

Epilogue: The 1990s

Notes

A Note on Sources

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

See: A note on sources: Governor's Commission report on LA Riots. LAPD, Thomas Rees / Yvonne Brathwaite papers, UCLA archives w/McCone panel. CSU papers for Mervyn Dymally / John Holland. Schomburg & NYPL - Pettis Perry, Civil Rights Congress. See more for details, but Commission Report is main piece.

Historiography:

"Thus far, those who have examined a question of similar epochal signifi- cance—the dismantling of legalized racial segregation—have avoided, for the most part, incorporating in their analysis broader questions of political econ- omy and the global correlation of forces, despite the fact that this dismantling took place as the Cold War began and as policy makers admitted freely that their actions were motivated by global developments." (16)

Keywords:

compounded racism - refers to anti-Black racism by non-Black POC

Themes:

Critiques:

Questions:

Quotes:

"Still, the Red Scare took its toll. It was well recognized that disaffected blacks were a prime recruiting target for Communists, and this realization led directly to anti-Jim Crow concessions; but the price paid for these conces- sions was the weakening of the left and strengthening of the ultraright, espe- cially within the Los Angeles Police Department, which proceeded to run rampant without fear of challenge. In South LA, the behavior of the LAPD was more closely akin to that of marines than of social workers." (9)

"Black nationalism, in part, represented an attempt to create a bond be- tween darker- and lighter-skinned blacks and to curb tensions that had devel- oped because, among other reasons, employers ofwhatever hue often favored the latter over the former. Similarly, societal norms infected by white suprem- acy dictated to darker women and men that through skin lighteners and hair straighteners they should mimic their lighter counterparts." (12)

"Unlike many in the middle class, they did not wear suits and ties daily because their employment did not require it or allow it. Unlike those bourgeois leaders at the apex of the NAACP leadership, they did not have deep roots in Southern California. Year-of-arrival consciousness became a substitute for class consciousness." (14)

"I have argued that just as the conflict between capitalism and slavery led to the abolition of bonded labor, the conflict between capitalism and the possibilities of socialism led to the abolition of formal Jim Crow. I am certain that at some point in the twenty-first century, historians will be obligated to tackle this important question—the dismantling of legalized segregation— by reference to the Cold War. Similarly, I am convinced that these future historians will be captivated by the apparent paradox that as Jim Crow sub- sided, black nationalism grew; and, concomitantly, that as the presumed liberalizing influence of anti-Jim Crow measures were exerted, conservatism be- gan to grow. My thesis is that the solution to these seeming conundrums can be found by examining the declining fortunes of the left." (16)

On the necessity for a global context:

"we must acknowledge that considering the African-American experience while ignoring the looming presence of the rest of the world does a disservice to all sides, including the U.S. experience as a whole."^® In the pages that fol- low I sketch the impact of race, region, class, gender, age, and the like on postwar Los Angeles; but all of these factors must be considered in the light of developments in Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, Africa, the world."

On the meaning of an insurrection:

"Uprisings like those in Watts in 1965 are akin to a toothache in that they alert the body politic that something is dangerously awry. Their dramatic nature grabs and holds attention and can motivate sweeping social reform and/or repression. Uprisings also can be inspirational. The character and tac- tics of the Jamaican slave rebels of 1831 were strikingly similar to those of the Swing Uprising just months earlier.^^ The character and tactics ofWatts 1965 were imitated in Newark, Detroit, and a host of other cities." (41-41) 

On efforts to pacify:

"Since youth were disproportionately involved in the revolt, many of the programs were aimed at them. The government was not unresponsive to the new spirit of militance; in fact, it tried to channel that spirit in a direction it found congenial. This was where the cultural nationalists were useful, for their growing ideological hegemony and their stress on African names and dress were not frowned upon. Many of them wound up being hired by the government and were paid to spread their ideas." (351-352)

On the potential for community policing:

"The Christopher Commission made a number of recommendations, most notably its call for “community policing.” If implemented, this model would do away with Chief Parker’s old idea of treating South LA as a community that needed to be subdued. Instead, community policing would focus on crime prevention, with officers becoming quasi-social workers, working closely with residents and merchants in solving problems rather than just ar- resting criminals.^ The local elite finally was determining that it might be better if the LAPD emulated social workers rather than Marines." (358)

Notes:

To pay attention to:

- Ronald Reagan

- Tom Bradley

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

- Edmund G. Brown

- NAACP

- BPP

- NOI

Proposition 14 - rolls back anti-discrimination in housing laws (Rumsford Act).

https://www.c-span.org/video/?327542-5/washington-journal-gerald-horne-50th-anniversary-watts-riots

Honey, Michael K. Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2007.

Title: Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign

Author: Michael K. Honey

Year of Publication: 2007

Thesis:

A local history of the Memphis Strike situated within the Poor People's Campaign. It emphasizes individual stories of many interviewees connected to the strike while examining King's rhetoric on the social gospel and his attempt to harmonize race and class issues together. It results in a more nuanced perspective on King (his work on the campaign seems more of a culmination than a huge shift for him) and an excellent explication of the chronological journey of a movement to gain practical concessions by Black sanitation workers. Ends by showing both how strikes continued after King's death and also the reactions by some corporations (moving their manufacturing was common). 

Time: 1960s

Geography: Mississippi Delta/Memphis TN

Organization:

A Personal Preface

- Author's history as an activist

- “Ultimately, you cannot save yourself without saving others. Other-preservation is the first law of life,” King Said (page # forthcoming)

Introduction: Two Lives Lost

- Begins with death of Cole & Walker, two sanitary workers who got mashed into the hydraulic trash compactor - faulty equipment (begins the strike of 1,300 Black sanitation workers)

- No insurance $ - hired hourly & could not afford premiums. Company doesn't even cover burial expenses.

- African Americans roughly 200k of 500k total pop, 58% poverty rate (above average for the nation) & 80% men laborers / Black women working in domestic labor in white households / service economy

- Unions white & exclusive

I - Labor and Civil Rights

1. A Plantation in the City

- Segregation, disfranchisement, disease, anti-union, lynching, Klan activity, corporate & political corruption ot keep wages down (Black and white) vs. Black protest - newspapers, culture & music, labor organizing

- Shift in Cold War hobbles these movements (Anti-Communism as a front for labor repression & fomenting racial antagonism)

- Cold War setting, union failures to build coalitions

- Taft-Hartley Act weakens Wagner Act (anti-union legislation)

- Neither Truman & Dewey not behind unions (Truman seen as the lesser of two evils)

- ***Civil Rights as a union issue pushed out

- NAACP membership drops in mid-century, due to its anti-Communist stance alienating leftists (to what extent is this also due to outright violence?)

2. Dr. King, Labor, and the Civil Rights Movement

- Quote illustrating King's attempts to align movement for African American struggle and the labor struggle

- Draws a strong link between King & concerns with poverty early on (see quote from 1957 - "“I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic inequalities of an economic system which will take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.”)

- Highlander Folk School & etc. and related to communism

- King pickets at Scripto factory in 1964

3. Struggles of the Working Poor

- Segregation, busing (from closer neighborhoods to father away neighborhoods), FHA & other programmatic exclusion, low-wage jobs that kept the city afloat, santation workers among them (initially with mules, then to trucks), & the general invisibility to white people of African Americans, despite their intimate relations.

- Migration out of the South (cotton production requires less human labor now)

- White bosses ALSO come from plantations, so little has changed in the mentality

- Working conditions are horrible - dangerous, no breaks

- Interwoven with specific people's stories

- T.O. Jones as fundraiser & activist (also inexperienced)

- Evers - also an activist (sues to desegregate buses & case is tossed because he owns a car)

- Threat of strikes mitigated by some mild reforms and belief that mayor Henry Loeb was working toward integration.

4. Standing at the Crossroads

- *King commits to anti-poverty, anti-war, and anti-racial oppression in 1967 SCLC Convention as he sees lack of forward movement - Birth of Poor People's Campaign

5. On Strike for Respect

- Loeb re-elected in 1968 to chagrin of Black community.

- Loeb against strikers - midnight negotiations amountn to him getting thwacked upside the head by his own wife as Black negotiators explain the reasons for their strike. Threaten bringing in civil rights folks.

6. Hambone's Meditations: The Failure of Community

- Syndicated, racist caricatures of Black people

- City council meets in secret at Fred Davis's house in Black community & negotiate strike break for modest raise; Loeb gets wind of it & shuts it down.

7. Testing the Social Gospel

- King advocates social gospel; white churches had driven out abolitionists. Religion seen "as a salve to individuals locked in poverty but not a basis for social action to end that poverty." (page # forthcoming)

II - Fighting for the Working Poor

8. Minister to the Valley: The Poor People's Campaign

9. Baptism by Fire

10. Ministers and Manhood

11. Convergence

12. Escalation: The Youth Movement

13. "All Labor has Dignity"

14. "Something Deadful"

III - Jericho Road is a Dangerous Road

15. Chaos in the Bluff City

16. "The Movement Lives or Dies in Memphis"

17. State of Siege

18. Shattered Dreams and Promised Lands

19. "A Crucifixion Event"

20. Reckonings

21. "We have Got the Victory"

Epilogue: How We Remember King

- Notes subsequent strikes supported by SCLC

- Union work does yield higher wages

- St. Joseph's hospital strike (where King dies) fails

- Political repression is strong

- Corporations' response to strike is to close up shop & leave

Acknowledgments

A Note on Sources

Notes

Main Individuals and Organizations

Bibliography

Type:

Methods:

Sources:

Written interviews, newspapers, audio-video interviews, letters, newsletters, flyers, oral histories making up the larger part of this (see chapter: A Note on Sources), MLK FBI files while leaning on authoritative secondary sources - Garry, Branch, MkNight.

Historiography:

Keywords:

COME (Committee on the Move for Equality)

Invaders

AFSCME

CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) - strongest support from Black folk (See ch.1)

Themes:

Critiques:

Questions:

Quotes:

From Epilogue on Rustin:

"SCLC hired Bayard Rustin to pull the Movement together, then fired him for emphasizing building coalitions with unions and clergy for moderate demands."

Also:

"The shift to remembering King as a labor-rights and peace advocate began, even as corporate and political leaders continued to define him within a narrow framework as “civil rights leader.” Hearing, “I Have a Dream,” to the exclusion of everything else King had to say, must lead many schoolchildren to think King spent his life sleeping. But Memphis tells us another story. "

Notes: