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Blacks, Unions, & Organizing in the South,
1956-1996
A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
Compiled by Rudolph Lewis
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Marshal & The AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
Report of Convention Proceedings (1956)
Mr. Meany,
officers and friends:
On behalf of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and those we represent, I want to say that it is more than a
pleasure to be here this afternoon.
I have
condensed what I want to say on paper for a very simple reason:
that is the only way I know to get something over in short
fashion. I hope you will bear with me in reading, because I for
one consider this one of the most important periods of our lives
insofar as the actual practice of the survival of democracy is
concerned.
We in the
NAACP salute the merged AFL and CIO as an example of further
consolidation of forces seeking justice for all Americans. The
additional strength from this merger will most certainly be used
for the benefit of the country in general. A large measure of
the success in the fight for human dignity that has come about
has resulted from the recognition by organized labor of the need
of extending labor's fight from inside the plant to the
community in general. So, those of us in the fight for justice
for Negro Americans can now depend upon an even stronger support
from this new consolidated arm of organized labor.
While great
progress toward removing racial injustice from American life has
been made in the past two decades, we have found that the real
task is and will be the job of bringing established principles
of law into every day practice in local communities. Experience
during the past two years has made it clear to everyone
concerned that real opposition to law and order is being built
up in areas of the South. This opposition is being built up on
the local level.
In backward
areas of the South, the so-called 'good people' of these states
have banded themselves in organizations such as the White
Citizens Councils of Mississippi and other similar
organizations. These local groups have grown during the past six
months into state organizations and will, in short order cross
state lines. While these organizations are set up for the
ostensible purpose of 'using every lawful means' to preserve
racial segregation and other forms of discrimination including
the denial of the right to vote.
In truth and
in fact these organizations are creating the type of atmosphere
which now makes it possible to run Negroes out of business, to
discharge Negroes from employment and even to threaten and
murder poor defenseless Negroes in Mississippi. Of course, the
White Citizens Councils deny any responsibility for these
murders. However, they cannot deny that they created the
atmosphere of disregard for the established law of the land.
This atmosphere makes it possible for murderers to go free and
unpunished. This atmosphere of lawlessness must be changed.
The murder of
Rev. G.W. Lee in Belzoni, Miss., for insisting on his right to
vote, the murder of Lamar Smith for insisting on the right to
register and the unprovoked murder of little Emmett Till has
focused national and world wide attention on Mississippi. These
murders and other forms of intimidation point up but definitely
the complete absence of protection for groups in the South. Of
course, those of us who have been in this fight for any period
of time have known of this lack of protection for Negroes along
with similar lack of protection of the rights of organized labor
in many areas of the South. It is a sad commentary to realize
that many of us require cold-blooded murders in order to rally
us to action.
The whole
vicious program against Negroes in the South will without doubt
lead to further violence and pressures against organized labor.
One of the biggest jobs ahead for this consolidated bloc of
labor leaders is to organize the unorganized in the South.
Recent developments of lawlessness and opposition to voting and
desegregation of education makes it clear that organized labor
must insist that it be done throughout the South but must insist
that it be done on a completely integrated basis without any
compromise in the slightest detail to the segregated policies
prevalent in areas of the South.
The Negro in
the South has refused to compromise on the question of racial
segregation in public education and other public facilities.
Organized labor must refuse to compromise in its organizing even
in the South. Between the two, we can rally other good forces of
the South to the end that justice will prevail.
However, the
inability of the United States Department of Justice to bring to
justice those guilty of denying constitutional protected rights
to Negroes in the South points up the need for adequate Federal
legislation to protect all of us in the exercise of our rights
throughout the South. In other words, we must have Federal
protection of the right to live, to speak out, to organize and
to insist upon our constitutionally protected rights. States
such as Mississippi have demonstrated their unwillingness as
well to protect these rights.
Therefore, we
must use our combined strength to secure from Congress adequate
anti-lynching legislation, anti-poll tax legislation and a
strengthening of the federal Civil Rights Statutes as a bulwark
against unprovoked violence in our every day work. We must, in
addition, insist upon strong FEPC legislation and necessary
safeguards in Federal appropriations in schools, housing and
other facilities which will prevent Federal money from being
used to continue segregation in opposition to the law of the
land.
It should
also be noted that this vicious anti-Negro program extends to
white citizens who dare to speak out for justice for Negroes. It
is highly significant that in many areas of the deep South
organized labor is being bracketed in the same position as the
Negro.
In this great
expansion program of bringing great industries into the South,
organized labor has a more important task than ever before in
seeing to it that the plants involved are not only organized on
a completely non-racial basis but that the communities
surrounding these plants are run in a democratic fashion which
today means, according to the law of the land, the absence of
racial segregation. Anything short of this will merely mean that
the expansion program in the South will become a further example
of extended racial discrimination on an even larger scale. At
this late date, it goes without saying that organized labor has
a terrific stake in vigorously opposing racial segregation in
community life whether it be in the North or South.
Despite all
of the organized opposition to desegregation, it is important to
remember that the solid South is broken for the first time on
the question of race. As of today, twelve of the seventeen
Southern states are now admitting Negroes to graduate and
professional schools. Some thirty-odd private universities of
the South have opened their doors to Negroes and it is just a
short matter of time until all will be opened up.
It is also
worthy of note that on the elementary and high school levels
portions of either of the seventeen Southern states and the
District of Columbia have moved toward integration of public
schools and this has been accomplished in less then two years.
This is the type of progress that has solidified the
unreconstructed areas which are now more determined than ever to
do everything possible to prevent integration of public schools.
In the latest
drive toward desegregation as a result of recent Supreme Court
decisions we have found that the good people of the South are
either afraid or unwilling to oppose the pro-segregationist
groups. We find that most of the Southern press is against
integration of public schools. We find that church organizations
for the most part will go no further than to merely adopt
innocuous resolutions in favor of desegregation.
If the
desegregation job is to be done, it will have to be done on the
local level. If we are to be successful in this task we will
need more than ever before the support of organizations such as
those here represented who are in a position to transform
resolutions into action programs on the local level.
The type of
diehard opposition now being built up in the South will not
disappear overnight and we cannot blow it away. It will only be
removed by intelligent cooperative leadership of those Americans
who have more at stake than others. Together we can do the job.
Thurgood
Marshall, Special Counsel, National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
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Mary L. Dudziak.
Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey
(2008)
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Reviews
"Effectively sketches those events in the civil rights
movement... Dudziak's clarity and careful documentation make
her book accessible to the general reader and a valuable
tool for African and African-American studies."—Publishers
Weekly
"Dudziak brings out with impressive clarity how Thurgood
Marshall's greatness stemmed from his Whitman-esque ability
to contain multitudes: committed to the rule of law, he
could chide Kenya's new leadership for departing even
slightly from it, work for justice in segregated America,
and sustain a relationship with young civil rights activists
taking direct and 'illegal' action in the early 1960s."
—Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School and author
of Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the
Supreme Court, 1956-1961
"This book
on a less-studied part of Marshall's career is recommended for libraries
collecting in law, legal processes, and African and African American
history."—Library
Journal |
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"In this gem of a book, Mary Dudziak brings vividly to life the
important but little known history of Thurgood Marshall's intense
involvement with Kenya during its journey toward independence in the
1960s. This great champion of the American civil rights struggle never
relinquished his hope that democracy and equality would one day flourish
in Kenya, even as he became painfully aware of the obstacles that stood
in the path of this dream. A powerful and poignant story, beautifully
told."—Gary
Gerstle, Vanderbilt University and author of American Crucible: Race and
Nation in the Twentieth Century
"By dint of creative and exhaustive research, Mary Dudziak has written
an excellent book about a facet of Thurgood Marshall's career that has
never before received substantial attention. Who knew that 'Mr. Civil
Rights' contributed significantly to African as well as American legal
systems. All students of this great man's life owe a major debt to
Professor Dudziak's labors."—Randall
Kennedy, Harvard Law School and author of Sellout: The Politics of
Racial Betrayal
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Marshall, LBJ and the Court
LBJ Broke New Ground; Will the Next
President Have a Similar Opportunity?
When he tap Thurgood Marshall for the
U.S. Supreme Court in the summer of 1967, Lyndon Baines
Johnson made history: The great-grandson of an African
American slave was nominated to join the nation’s highest
court.
“Lyndon Johnson was tremendously proud of the nomination,”
says USC legal scholar
Mary L. Dudziak. “Johnson was focused on what the
achievement would say to all the African American children
in the land, what they could aspire to in their own lives.”
After the Marshall appointment, it would be another 14 years
before another appointment of equal symbolism occurred: the
nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor by Ronald Reagan. |
In the past two decades, the
nomination and confirmation process has been more about the politics of
right vs. left than about reflecting the new diversity of America, says
Dudziak, who sees the upcoming centennial of Marshall’s birth on July 2
as an opportunity to reflect on the politics and symbolism of Supreme
Court nominees.
Dudziak’s new book,
Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey,
traces Marshall’s progression from civil rights attorney to a legal
figure of international prominence who, among other achievements,
crafted a draft bill of rights for Kenya, which in the early 1960s was
transitioning into statehood after years of British colonial rule.
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“Marshall had faith in law as a means of
social change,” says Dudziak. “It came out of his experience
trying to achieve social change in a context that was laced
with violence. He believed that law had historically played
a role in putting down African Americans through slavery and
disenfranchisement — and that it was in part through law
that equality would be achieved.”
Marshall’s faith was ultimately returned when he was
confirmed by the U.S. Senate, despite the long shadows of
prejudice and the social unrest of the period. Marshall said
of LBJ, “I don’t see how he got it through, but he did,”
notes Dudziak in her book. “This is a shining hour,” Sen.
Mike Mansfield said when announcing the news to Johnson. “We
have come a long, long way toward equal access to the
Constitution’s promise.” |
Will the next president of the
United States have a chance to make history with a Supreme Court
nomination? Dudziak says an obvious opportunity — the appointment of an
openly-gay jurist to the court — could become a political battleground,
as Marshall’s nomination was. But with more support for full inclusion
of gays and lesbians, this milestone will eventually be achieved, she
says.
Dudziak believes there is an opportunity for the next president to speak
directly to the American public through the nomination process. “Either
candidate might break barriers and make history with a court
appointment,” she concludes.
Source:
Exporting American Dreams Blog
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Thurgood Marshall
Speaks To Obama From Beyond the Grave
By Dan Froomkin
Barack Obama and I went to see
"Thurgood" at the Kennedy Center over the weekend. We didn't exactly go together. In fact we didn't even
go on the same night (he went Friday, I went Saturday). But if we had
anything like the same experience, the president emerged inspired and
emboldened. Then again, considering the timing, and his recent
choice of Supreme Court nominee, maybe he emerged abashed. "Thurgood" is the extraordinary one-man show in which
actor Laurence Fishburne completely transforms himself into Thurgood
Marshall, the civil rights hero who became the first African-American
Supreme Court Justice.
Fishburne's Thurgood is a compelling, funny,
ferociously independent-minded man, and as George Stevens Jr.'s
electrifying script reveals, his most dramatic moments actually came
before he donned judicial robes, during his 25 years as a lawyer for the
NAACP bravely using the law as a weapon to end legal segregation in this
country. His most celebrated victory was the 1954
Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme Court
declared an end to the "separate but equal" system of racial segregation
in public schools.
Watching Marshall's life unfold is exhilarating—a
moving testament to one principled man's ability to change a whole
society for the better. And watching it on Saturday night, I couldn't
help but feel like the night before, Fishburne must have been directing
his performance to one member of the audience in particular. The real message of "Thurgood" is a celebration of
courage—Marshall's, mostly, but also LBJ's, for nominating such a
controversial figure to the bench and then twisting the requisite arms
in the Senate to get him confirmed. And that's where it gets a bit double-edged. Because
the play reminds us that there was a time when courage was not
necessarily disqualifying from public service.
Marshall, in his time, was a radical—and I gather
there was some talk of his drinking and carousing, too, for good
measure. But Johnson picked him and stuck by him. By contrast, rather than nominate a modern-day
radical—say, an outspoken gay rights activist—or even someone
dramatically on the left side of the legal spectrum, Obama recently
picked
Elena Kagan, whose most significant qualification appears to have
been that she successfully avoided doing anything the least bit
controversial—or courageous— over the course of her long legal career.
Sure, the civil rights battles aren't as big as they
were anymore (thank goodness) but there's still a lot to be courageous
about. Maybe next time—assuming he gets a next time—Obama
will be bolder.
God knows Republican presidents aren't bashful about who
they nominate. Indeed, the one downside to seeing "Thurgood" is that it
makes the first President Bush's decision to replace him with right-wing
puppet Clarence Thomas feel like a fresh wound. I wonder what Obama took away from his night at the
theater. I know he must have been impressed by Fishburne's tour-de-force
performance, if nothing else. Maybe he could take a lesson there: Even
if you're not Thurgood Marshall, act like you are.
14 June 2010
Source:
HuffingtonPost
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Thurgood
Laurence Fishburne
stars in Thurgood written by George Stevens Jr., the
dramatic retelling of the life of
Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to be
appointed to the Supreme Court.
Jun 1 - 20, 2010
Eisenhower Theater / 90 minutes $25.00
- $90.00
Laurence Fishburne in Thurgood, A play by George Stevens
Jr., Directed by Leonard Foglia |
Absorbing, at times even stirring—The
New York Times
"There ought to be a law--all bio-dramas should be as vivid and
entertaining as Thurgood.—New York Daily News
"Rich in history, humanity and humor—New
York Daily News
In Thurgood, Tony Award–winning actor Laurence Fishburne reprises
his Broadway role as Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to be
appointed to the Supreme Court. From his early days as the civil rights
lawyer who argued Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, a landmark
case which led to the end of institutionalized segregation, to his
appointment to the highest court in the land, Thurgood Marshall stood
for justice while lifting the standing of his race.
In a fictional lecture on his life given by Thurgood Marshall at his
alma mater, Howard University, Fishburne deftly shifts among characters,
moving from Thurgood as a young and spirited man to a pensive Justice
full of wisdom, and at times inhabiting the friends and foes that were
met along the way. "Fishburne is magnetic as Marshall," says the New
York Daily News. "He captures the justice's drive and everyday
essence as well as his wry—if sometimes crass—wit." In the end, Thurgood proves that it is possible to work within the rule of law while
remaining true to the rule of the heart. Performance
Timing: 90 minutes without intermission.
Source:
Kennedy Center
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A Defiant Life: Thurgood Marshall & The
Persistence of Racism in America
By Howard Ball
Thurgood Marshall's extraordinary contribution to civil rights and
overcoming racism is more topical than ever, as the national debate on
race and the overturning of affirmative action policies make headlines
nationwide. Howard Ball, author of eighteen books on the Supreme Court
and the federal judiciary, has done copious research for this incisive
biography to present an authoritative portrait of Marshall the jurist.
Born to a middle-class black family in "Jim Crow" Baltimore at the turn
of the century, Marshall's race informed his worldview from an early
age. He was rejected by the University of Maryland Law School because of
the color of his skin. He then attended Howard University's Law School,
where his racial consciousness was awakened by the brilliant lawyer and
activist Charlie Houston. Marshall suddenly knew what he wanted to be: a
civil rights lawyer, one of Houston's "social engineers." As the chief
attorney for the NAACP, he developed the strategy for the legal
challenge to racial discrimination. His soaring achievements and his
lasting impact on the nation's legal system--as the NAACP's advocate, as
a federal appeals court judge, as President Lyndon Johnson's solicitor
general, and finally as the first African American Supreme Court
Justice--are symbolized by Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark
case that ended legal segregation in public schools. Using race as the
defining theme, Ball spotlights Marshall's genius in working within the
legal system to further his lifelong commitment to racial equality. With
the help of numerous, previously unpublished sources, Ball presents a
lucid account of Marshall's illustrious career and his historic impact
on American civil rights. |
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Africa Makes
Some Noise—Documentary on
contemporary music from Africa
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Obama's America and the New
Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)
/ Michelle_Alexander Part
II Democracy Now
(Video)
Michelle Alexander Speaks At
Riverside Church
/
part
2 of 4 /
part 3 of 4 /
part 4 of 4
There are
more African Americans under
correctional control
today--in prison or jail, on
probation or parole—than
were enslaved in 1850, a
decade before the Civil War
began. If you take into
account prisoners, a large
majority of African American
men in some urban areas,
like Chicago, have been
labeled felons for life.
These men are part of a
growing undercaste, not
class, caste—a group of
people who are permanently
relegated, by law, to an
inferior second-class
status. They can be denied
the right to vote,
automatically excluded from
juries, and legally
discriminated against in
employment, housing, access
to education and public
benefits—much
as their grandparents and
great-grandparents once were
during the Jim Crow era.—Michelle
Alexander,
The New Jim Crow |
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update 24
July 2008
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