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In Pursuit of Desegregation by Timothy Lantin
A review of Robert Cottrol’s Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution
The landmark decision of the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka left an impact in the United States of America that resonated far beyond courtrooms and classrooms. Robert J. Cottrol’s work, Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution, explores the background of African-American segregation, reveals new insights into the case, and investigates the political and social repercussions of the verdict. A court case revolutionary in magnitude, Brown v. Board of Education turned cultural norms on their heads and transformed American society during the 1950s. It “touched on the core contradiction in American life”—that the United States was a land of equal opportunity but only for some.1
To begin the work, Cottrol examines the roots of segregation—the conflict in question. Segregation found its origins in slavery. The abolition of slavery with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States did not mark the end of prejudice and the “singling out of Negroes [for] separate treatment.”2 Cottrol dives back into the time of the Jim Crow South and questions how an institution as wicked as slavery came to be supported by the law. More than just law, however, the inferiority of nonwhite races was deeply rooted in American tradition. Backed by Social Darwinism, racism—or rather “scientific racism”—perpetuated anti-Negro sentiment in the United States from its founding through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Social Darwinism perpetuated the idea that “Afro-Americans were destined to lose in the competition between the races.”3 Segregation became law in decision of the court case Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. While the Plessy verdict ensured “separate but equal” facilities, deep disparities between the white and colored facilities of the United States of America still existed. At the time of World War I, Jim Crow discriminatory laws restricted blacks from entering the navy. Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States at the time, was a champion of segregation and supported the racist legislation. Many people supported segregation, since it held race riots at bay and other conflicts. Until it was recognized that separate facilities were in fact, unequal, most Americans viewed segregation as a viable solution to diversity. The problem, however, did not lay in diversity but in bigotry that took the form of Jim Crow Laws and other legislation that prevented African-Americans from advancing in society. In order to counter the Jim Crow laws, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed. The NAACP aimed to bring about equality between the races. Armed with their arsenal of lawyers, the NAACP elicited rulings from multiple Supreme Court cases that it used to support its revolutionary fight in Brown v. Board of Education.
In order to make a case, problems must first be identified. While the educational system was blatantly unfair socially, evidence must first be collected and minor cases won in order to support an argument in favor of integration. The NAACP’s first victory against educational segregation was the decision from Pearson v. Murray in 1936. Donald Murray, an African-American was refused admission into the University of Maryland’s law school. After deliberation, Murray—who could not receive an equal education at a Jim Crow school—was admitted. The case “set an important precedent” that “might persuade courts in other jurisdictions.”4 Other NAACP lawyers could use the victory in Pearson v. Murray to support their arguments in future cases. The decision also backed W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of the so-called “talented tenth.” By denying African-Americans an equal education, they would never be given a chance to contribute to society in the same way as their white counterparts. In a similar case, Lloyd Gaines was denied admission to law school at the University of Missouri. Initially, segregation prevailed at the state level, since faulty evidence was used to determine that the whites-only University of Missouri offered the same educational opportunity as an out-of-state Negro university. State ex rel. Gaines v. Canada was elevated to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Gaines was free to attend the University of Missouri. The cases proved to be the catalysts for other educational equality cases throughout the United States. While the Murray and Gaines cases only applied at a state level, they forced the nation to revisit its rather separate but unequal policy in Brown v. Board of Education. Hard sociological data supported the conclusion that separate facilities for different races could never be equal.
Fighters for educational equality wanted the end of the Plessy court case’s reign in America. In essence, Plessy was a paradox; it was an “impenetrable constitutional brick wall” that was illegal per se by the Constitution of the United States of America.5 In the court case Patton v. State of Mississippi, the Supreme Court ruled that a criminal court could not exclude African-Americans from juries. In doing so, juries presiding over criminal cases dealing with races became less biased. Brown v. Board of Education was the culmination of the struggle against educational inequality in the United States of America. The case itself was a collection of six different cases fought with the same goal in mind—the elimination of the Plessy doctrine. The NAACP provided different lawyers for each of the cases. Unlike most cases at the time, sociological evidence supported the NAACP lawyers’ argument. In their arguments, the NAACP lawyers used the Briggs case, which maintained that facilities for colored people were found to be unequal. Similar decisions were reached in the court cases Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma. To add more support to the claims that segregation was detrimental to African-American students, multiple studies conducted proved beyond a reasonable doubt that unequal physical and financial resources left the black students with an inferiority complex. Without an equal education, it was not possible for African-Americans to reach the same level as whites in society. The NAACP did not overlook an aspect of the case in order to maximize their chance of conquering segregation. Supreme Court justices were analyzed from their personal background to previous votes regarding desegregation. The court presiding over the case consisted of eight associate justices and two chief justices. Since Chief Justice Vinson died during the deliberation of the case, Earl Warren—the governor of California at the time—was appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower to assume his position.
After six months of deliberation, the court came to the unanimous decision to desegregate American schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren read the verdict on May 17, 1954: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The resolution of the case was groundbreaking for a number of reasons. De jure racial segregation of schools was deemed illegal in the United States, and thus the American educational system was restructured. There were no colored schools or white schools, but there were simply schools for children of all races. With a major victory in education, advocates for equality were bolstered to attack the injustices that plagued other aspects of the nation. The Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine was found to be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was thus overturned in Brown v. Board of Education. The political firestorm that followed the verdict rocked America for years. In particular, those who developed the Southern Manifesto demanded an immediate reversal of the verdict in Brown v. Board of Education. Authenticated by members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Southern Manifesto also criticized the verdict of Brown v. Board of Education as one that was forced upon the nation. Others expressed their discontent in much more violent ways, especially by targeting black youths who could not defend themselves. Southerners felt that their way of life—white supremacy—was being chipped away by the government. A defeat in education, they believed, could cascade into complete equality between races. The NAACP took into consideration the effects of the desegregation ruling. Following the decision, the justices appointed a committee to supervise the integration of public schools. Integration of American schools proved to be a slow process that required complete reorganization of school systems nationwide. NAACP success in Brown v. Board of Education inspired activists to bring the struggle against inequality past the classrooms. The landmark court case “leveled the playing field” and gave blacks in America—for the first time—access to equal education.6 To this day, more than sixty years after the decision was handed out, the school system remains integrated and diversity thrives.
In Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution, Robert J. Cottrol holds that Brown and the desegregation legislation that preceded it not only changed America into a more integrated nation that learned to celebrate diversity and equality, but also inspired activists like Rosa Parks to apply the educational equality to other aspects of society such as public transportation and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.7 The multitude of racial injustice cases prior to the Civil Rights Movement culminated in Brown v. Board of Education. The NAACP believed education was the first step in achieving equality both de jure and de facto. In the long run, desegregation legislation opened the door to a truly equal American society. While racism still exists today, constitutional law does not support it under the Plessy doctrine and Jim Crow Laws. Brown v. Board of Education, he believed, also proved the power of the Supreme Court and its ability to recognize faulty legislation. As vital as the verdict was for the NAACP and social equality, it was tantamount in effect in the judicial world. The Supreme Court proved its ability to change domestic policy accepted for almost half a century. In the future, Brown v. Board of Education would give the Supreme Court the credibility to enact more changes with shifting circumstances in the United States of America. Without Brown v. Board of Education, school systems and perhaps American society would appear drastically different.
Legal scholar and American historian Robert J. Cottrol is a history and sociology professor at Georgetown University law school, where he also holds a chair. Cottrol, an African-American, is passionate about the history of his race in American history. A seasoned historian and alumnus of Yale University, he has written multiple books on slavery, gun control, and race relations. Cottrol relates to the topic of the book on a personal level; much like black leaders Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, Cottrol owes his educational experience to the members of the NAACP and their efforts supporting educational equality in Brown v. Board of Education.8 He belongs to the Neo-Conservative school of historiography, which encompasses most historians from the 1980s to the present day and emphasizes traditional American values. In addition, Neo-Conservative historians tend to portray the United States of America under a gentle light, as a morally upright nation. Cottrol, like other Neo-Conservatives, shies away from “political correctness,” as demonstrated in his liberal use of the terms “Negro” and “black” as opposed to “colored” or “African-American.”
Book critic Terry Christner spoke highly of Robert J. Cottrol’s work, Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. He mentioned that despite being “filled with legalese, this book…makes for a good selection in academic libraries.”9 In Christner’s interpretation of the book, he believes that Cottrol explored the relationship between race relations and the law thoroughly and concisely. Christner, who considered Cottrol’s work factually accurate, agreed with author’s claim that the first fights for educational equality were “fought in the arena of higher education.”10 Brown v. Board of Education was about the lower caste in a society attempting to eradicate the caste system to bring about equality. Another critic, Angela Johnson, also had praise for Cottrol’s work: “Cottrol meshes the struggle for educational equality with the exercise of power in courts beautifully.”11 Johnson felt that the book was well organized and thoroughly elaborated on the topic (including the events leading up to the case, the case itself, and its aftermath.) Both critics had only praise for Cottrol’s work and recommended it as an easy yet detailed read.
Reading through Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution was a highly educational experience. It was an easy-to-read and well-organized book divided into chapters with titles that made keeping track of the events surrounding the court case a simple task. Albeit the book jumped dates a few times, it did not interfere with comprehension. The book investigated even the minutiae of the case, mentioning even the background on the justices of the Brown court. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution was very rich in relevant background. An absence of extraneous information made Cottrol’s work very clear and simple to follow. However, the author could have improved his book to be more engaging. Despite dull moments in the work, it made for an informative read. Despite minor drawbacks, Cottrol investigated the court case with its background and aftermath in great detail.
In retrospect, the 1950s were a time of compounding progress and liberalism toward educational equality. Prior to the verdict in Brown, the United States of America adhered to Plessy v. Ferguson’s “separate but equal doctrine” in order to avoid conflicts between race. However, in doing so, the United States chose to remain disunited in a racial aspect. The Unite States of America progressed during the 1950s in the sense that it became a land of equal opportunity, without regard to race. While complete equality between the races would not be established by the end of the 1950s, the events, including Brown v. Board of Education, serve as catalysts of rapid change in the right direction. Brown v. Board of Education ushered in an era of acceptance between races and equality, “establishing a new set of norms concerning law and race.”12 Cottrol did not characterize the 1950s as a static decade in American history. “People,” he maintained, “were becoming less and less comfortable with the manifestations of the nation’s historic caste system.”13 From slavery and segregation to educational equality and beyond, the United States of America has come a long way and reached a new threshold of change in the 1950s.
Robert J. Cottrol’s Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution reveals the sociopolitical impact of the controversial court case that began a movement to end discrimination. More than that, however, the court case eradicated the “system of caste and exclusion that had developed in American society.”14 Overturning unequal educational segregation, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka changed history and set the stage for future fights in the name of equality.
Footnotes:
1. Cottrol, Robert. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. Lawrence. University Press of Kansas, 2003. 1.
2. Cottrol, Robert. 1.
3. Cottrol, Robert. 38.
4. Cottrol, Robert. 63.
5. Cottrol, Robert. 101.
6. Cottrol, Robert. 243.
7. Cottrol, Robert. 186.
8. Christner, Terry. "A New View of the Role of Courts." Rev. of Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. n.d.: n. pag. ESBCO. Web. 5 June 2014. 2.
9. Christner, Terry. 1.
10. Johnson, Angela. "The Role of Courts." Rev. of Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. n.d.: n. pag. ESBCO. Web. 5 June 2014. 1.
11. Cottrol, Robert. 167.
12. Cottrol, Robert. 241.
13. Cottrol, Robert. 231.
14. Cottrol, Robert. 242.
Sitting Down For Her Rights by Virgil Hsu
A review of Douglas Brinkley’s Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Life of Rosa Parks
On December 1, 1995, Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her famous action triggered the famous Montgomery bus boycott and earned her the title as the “mother of the civil rights movement.”1 Rosa was viewed as the symbol of justice, civil liberty, and racial equality. However, a certain aspect of her life remained unclear until Douglas Brinkley began his dedicated research on her. Douglas Brinkley is Rosa’s first significant biographer, and for the first time, revealed her full story in Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Life of Rosa Parks.
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913, Rosa Parks was raised up as a devoted member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. She found comfort in Christian hymns and teachings. Her mother, Leona Edwards McCauley, schooled her daughter on Booker T. Washington’s speeches and beliefs of “hard work and rigorous thrift.”2 Rosa’s first lesson in Southern racial segregation came when she was 10. With the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, her grandfather kept a shotgun close by, ready for the first hooded bigot to threaten his family. Despite what Parks learned of racism and color discrimination, she never fell to judging an entire group of people by the behavior of few of its members. Her Christian background, Booker T. Washington’s influence, and her grandfather’s behavior set the grounds for her reason to not surrender to whites. At age 11, Parks enrolled at Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a progressive institution located on Centennial Hill, Montgomery’s center of black intellectual life. Although the school was taught by white teacher, they always emphasized racial equality. Parks spent most of her teenage years taking care of her grandmother and mother, dropping out of school to take her first real job at a textile factory to provide for her family. The church was the center of her life, giving her spiritual joy. She eventually met Raymond Parks, her future husband, but was unimpressed until she discovered Raymond was a member of the National Committee to Defend the Scottsboro Boys, an extremely risky committee to be in. Parks admired his courage, and in December of 1932, they married. She received a job at Maxwell Field, a fully integrated school, and her time there opened her eyes to how fair American society could be. As an admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Parks wanted to vote for him in the 1940 presidential election. However, despite the Progressive Amendments, violence, frauds, and legal loopholes make it nearly impossible for blacks to meet the qualifications to vote. This outrageous injustice was a factor in prompting Parks to join the NAACP, where she became the local NAACP secretary, and began to work with Edgar Daniel Nixon, a “brave and uncompromising crusader for equal rights. He was a proud, dignified man who carried himself straight as an arrow.”3 Although she was unable to vote, Rosa’s inner resolve never wavered, and she always remembered to pray to God. One day, on her way to try to vote, Parks boarded a bus driven by James F. Blake. Blake, a bigot, told her to exit the bus and re-board it through the back door. She refused. This square-off is significant, as it would be the same James F. Blake who drives the bus 12 years later when Parks refused to budge again. Her response that time would lead to a far greater consequence: the start of the modern civil rights movement.
Encouraged by Ella Baker, national director of NAACP’s branch offices, Parks began grow in stature, becoming an adviser to the informal NAACP Youth Group, the group that was precursor to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A turning point for the civil rights struggle took place in Louisiana in June 1953. Baton Rouge’s black churches directed a citywide boycott of buses. The boycott was an immediate success an “invaluable case study for Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and other leaders who would launch their own bus boycott in Montgomery courtesy of Rosa Parks in 1955.”4 It was good fortune that Rosa Parks worked part time as a seamstress for Clifford and Virginia Foster Durr, for in a way, Virginia Durr became a mentor to her. The main topic of conversation of the Durrs, Parks, and Nixon was the possibility of a bus boycott, but another incident would jar them into action. Claudette Colvin, a junior in high school, had been arrested for refusing to move for whites boarding a bus and was arrested. This incident was the ideal legal test case Nixon was waiting for. Although no bus boycott materialized and the court found her guilty and issued a fine, it proved “a good dress rehearsal for the real drama shortly to come.”5 Meanwhile, Parks was given an opportunity by Virginia Durr to attend a training workshop at Highlander Folk School, the same school that had earned an exalted place in civil rights lore for having trained Martin Luther King Jr., Marion Barry Jr., James Bevel, and many other civil rights activists. She found a new sense of purpose from the workshop discussions. Although Highlander seems to be an example of an integrated society, the most important thing Parks learned during her stay there was from Septima Clark, a veteran of NAACP legal struggles who had worked with the legendary W.E.B. Du Bois. Both the Highlander Folk School and Septima Clark opened her eyes. During a particular NAACP meeting, she had her first encounter with Martin Luther King Jr. and was impressed by his upbeat lecture on civil rights progress. Yet, the brutal news of the abduction and murder of 14-year old Emmett Till, which had shocked the entire nation and ushered in a new era of civil rights, impacted Parks more than King’s eloquent speech did. On December 1, 1955, Rosa took the bus home after work, incidentally boarding the bus of James F. Blake, the same man who had kicked her off 12 years. He wanted her to sit in the back, instead of sitting in the middle. “‘Y’all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats,’ Blake sputtered.”6 Parks defiantly refused and Blake called the police and had her arrested. Rosa Parks had not plan for this to happen. She had not woken up prepared to do what she had done. It was a lifetime exposed to injustice, from her grandfather’s nightly patrols to Emmett Till that had strengthened her resolve to act as she did when the time came. Soon, Montgomery’s black community heard about her arrest, and Nixon and the Durrs bailed out their friend out of jail. Rosa Parks remained calm and tranquil throughout the whole ordeal, the epitome of grace under pressure. Soon after, Nixon and Parks would challenge the constitutionality of the ordinance under which she had been arrested. America was never the same after that fateful day.
Rosa Parks made the headlines of the Montgomery Advertiser on December 2. Jo Ann Robinson and Nixon would call for a boycott of city buses on December 5, and Robinson would organize the Montgomery bus boycott. They planned to distribute flyers around town to every black family. Nixon asked the city’s black ministers to mobilize support for the boycott. Reverend Abernathy, Nixon’s minister, was close friends with King, whose church basement they would need for meetings. Although cautious at first, King eventually joined others in supporting the city-wide boycott. Azbell, a white progressive reporter, agreed to help and spread the word among blacks. The flyer was printed in the Montgomery Advertiser, further spreading news of the boycott. On the following Monday, no blacks were on any buses. The black community’s collective action baffled the police and disturbed the city’s white elites. During Park’s trial at Montgomery’s city hall, her genuine dignity made her shine among even the likes of King, Nixon, and Abernathy. The whole judicial process was only a charade, a test case for the NAACP. Although Parks lost, the boycott still continued. The one-day boycott was a grand success, and she felt blessed at the end of the day. The majority of historians have attributed the success of the boycott to King’s extraordinary gift for leadership. However, King always kept Parks close to his heart. Many considered Parks to be “an angel walking – a heaven-sent messenger.”7 Learning from experience, King created complex systems of car pools and private taxis to help blacks travel safely to their jobs and homes. Yet, as Montgomery became known as the Walking City, tensions between races worsened. King’s main concern was police brutality. White elitists sent death threats to King, and a bomb exploded at his house on January 30. He and his family weren’t hurt, but the gavel of injustice fell on Parks, King, and 88 others. Parks was now unemployed, her marriage strained, and her quiet life gone, all because she had become an accidental martyr. However, she felt the strength of the support of her friends. While King was the only one placed on trial, mass indictment of black leaders brought more media attention. With MLK furthering his status as a civil rights martyr, this pushed Parks to only a secondary figure. The big decision came on June 5, when the judges ruled the Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation statutes unconstitutional. This stunning landmark decision led to the buses being fully integrated by law, and the boycott would finally end after 13 months. While violence toward blacks still continued, a way of life had ended and a new one had begun.
Because of all the death threats, Rosa and Raymond Parks had to leave Montgomery. The city’s white community had rendered the couple unemployable by labeling them as troublemakers. Bitter resentment from their supposed friends also wounded Rosa. She decided to move to Detroit, and it was not long before she found a job as a full-time seamstress at Stockton Sewing Company, where she met Elaine Eason Steele. Although they were generations apart, Parks embraced the young girl as if she were her daughter. Parks joined King on his March to Washington, and his “I Have a Dream” speech inspired her greatly. However, females were prohibited from marching alongside men, so Parks found the whole thing tainted by male chauvinism. Due to the assassination of Kennedy and the March on Washington, Parks was inspired to take a more active role in Detroit politics. She also remained active in St. Matthew AME Church. Parks was grouped with MLK and Gandhi as person of the century in Time magazine, both of whom she admired for civil rights leadership. Because of her reputation as a mild Christian woman, many people overlook her admiration for Malcolm X. Malcolm’s message of black self-sufficiency appealed to her more than King’s nonviolence did. Parks said that “Dr. King used to say that black people should receive brutality with love, and [she] believed that this was a goal to work for, but [she] couldn’t reach that point in [her] mind at all.”8 Unfortunately, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. A part of Parks died along with King that day. The entire civil rights movement was paralyzed, confused, and lost as what to do next. There was an overwhelming sense of emptiness with the realization that American civil rights era was over. MLK didn’t start American civil rights movement, but his brilliance made him the pole star. Soon many organizations became irrelevant, and Parks’s image became more symbolic and less activist. When Raymond Parks died at age 77, she was unable to pay for herself. Elaine Steele took care of Rosa and planned all her affairs. They created the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. Parks had a genuine passion to make young people interested in history. Soon, her deteriorating health made it difficult to leave home. After moving to a gated community, Parks began writing her autobiography, My Story.
Rosa Park’s bold act in Montgomery had become legendary, and “in the shadow of that legend, there is an unfortunate tendency to ignore the full story of her life as a civil rights activist, which began long before the day she just said no on the Cleveland Avenue bus and continued long after.”9 Douglas Brinkley believes that the fact that Rosa Parks deserves to be remembered as the mother of the civil rights movement is beyond dispute. While she wasn’t the first to take a stand against racism, a certain quality about her made her stand out above the rest.
The aim of the types of works Douglas Brinkley write is to produce books that airline passengers can read on a flight from New York to San Francisco and finish before they reach the Golden Gate Bridge. This explains why this book barely reached 250 pages. Douglas Brinkley covers a variety of topics, including presidents, military campaigns, and American leaders, in his works. A historian whose previous work have concentrated on Presidential politics and American foreign relations, Brinkley faced a difficult challenge in approaching the life of Parks as this was his first book on the struggle for racial justice. An American professor teaching history at Rice University, Brinkley is interested in civil rights. This combined with the fact that “no biography has been written about her until now” prompted him to write about Rosa Parks.10 Because Brinkley wrote this work from a New Left historian perspective, there was an emphasis on conflict that was fed by the civil rights struggle. The historians of the New Left included features of American history that explain how America came to be a violent, racist, and repressive society. Impatience with the pace of the progress of the civil rights was what New Leftists believe to have caused the violence during this time period.
“Tired of Giving In”, an article by Eric Foner, stated that while Parks is important to the civil rights movement, “the series format does not lend itself to a life-and-times approach. Brinkley is a skilled writer who has combed the archives for information about Parks and the society in which she lived, and he succeeds in placing her life before the bus boycott in its political and social context. But her subsequent career and the fate of the movement she helped to inspire are treated in cursory fashion.”11 Foner believes that the way Brinkley wrote this book had insufficient emphasis on Parks’s legacy and her influence on American social and cultural norms. While there was an abundance of information on the steps leading up to the boycott, Foner stated that the brevity of what occurred to Rosa afterwards was insufficient to fully grasp the amount of impact she had overall on the civil rights movement.
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is an interesting read. It was intriguing to see the fight for equal rights through the eyes of an African-American. Brinkley has done justice to his subject. Yet there is a minor flaw. Although he vividly describes well-known photographs of Parks, there are no illustrations. Despite Brinkley's effort to make the reader understand Parks as a seasoned activist and part of a popular movement, the older image remains the more familiar. Like King, frozen in memory on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, Parks is “forever the simple woman with tired feet who singlehandedly brought down segregation.”12
The book depicted the 1950s as a progressive era, with Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. defeating segregation. The segregation of blacks on buses was ruled unconstitutional as violation of the 14th amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court “upheld without dissent the federal district court’s Browder v. Gayle decision striking down Alabama’s segregation laws.”13 These changes helped shape America. Therefore, the 1950s were a time of reforms and liberalism.
Rosa Parks inspired a movement with her quiet courage. The world saw how “the undaunted afforded mankind rare proof of its own progress.”14 The story of Rosa Parks emphasized how far America has come since the days of the Jim Crow laws, and how far it still has to go.
Footnotes:
1. Brinkley, Douglas. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000. 5.
2. Brinkley, Douglas. 18.
3. Brinkley, Douglas. 51.
4. Brinkley, Douglas. 76.
5. Brinkley, Douglas. 90.
6. Brinkley, Douglas. 106.
7. Brinkley, Douglas. 144.
8. Brinkley, Douglas. 192.
9. Brinkley, Douglas. 9.
10. Brinkley, Douglas. 8.
11. "LRB · Eric Foner · Tired of Giving In: Rosa Parks." London Review of Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2014.
12. "OpEdNews Article: Nine Years Ago: Eric Foner Reviews a Biography of Rosa Parks." OpEdNews. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 June 2014.
13. Brinkley, Douglas. 167.
14. Brinkley, Douglas. 231.
Out of the Land of Slavery by Qoodseya Alfredi
A review of Robert Walker and Mary Whitt’s Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Dr. Robert J. Walker speaks about two paradigm shifts, September 11, 2001, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, that changed America and shifted its government. He wrote Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to “draw a comparison of the Children of Israel released from Egypt and African Americans released from slavery and Jim Crow.” Although Dr. Walker writes about the similarities between the situation of the Children of Israel and the African Americans, the “primary object of this book is to give glory to God for the miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Dr. Walker states throughout the book that God led the African-Americans to freedom because He felt they had suffered enough and it was time for His people to be free. Just like the Children of Israel were oppressed by the Egyptians, the African Americans were oppressed by whites and the American government. However, just as God protected and ultimately saved the Children of Israel, God did the same to the African Americans when He yelled, “Let my people go!”
In the first half of the book, Dr. Walker begins the journey of writing this book by moving to Montgomery, Alabama, to begin a new chapter in his life. During this time, two colleges, one named after an African-American and the other after a white general, were beginning to integrate. With the issue this integration caused, there was evidently still some discomfort between the African-American and the white communities. Dr. Walker talks about the Sections of the Montgomery City Code. Section 10 and 11 are about segregation and the bus rules that affected African Americans. He mentions the similarities between the Israelites and the African-Americans, such as how both groups had been enslaved. He goes back to the beginning of African American history to analyze how “African Americans have been in bondage in America for 346 years.” During the colonial period, African-Americans were kidnapped from Africa and brought to America as slaves. Captain John Newton “recorded in his journal about the danger of sailing a slave ship; ...the slaves regularly fought for their freedom.” The first slave revolt occurred on a Spanish slave ship called the Amistad. The whites thought God had planned for African-Americans to be slaves, justifying their belief with Bible verses. Their position was reinforced with the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Law. However, as time passed, blacks began to gain more rights. The Reconstruction period after the Civil War saw the passage of the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments and the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau. However, these advancements were undermined in what was known as the White backlash. African-Americans found their new freedom limited by the Jim Crow laws and faced rising opposition from the Ku Klux Klan. The court case Plessy vs. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” doctrine.
In the second section of this book, Dr. Robert J. Walker covers the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how the leaders of the boycott rose into power. With the growth of black colleges in the 1950s, many African Americans began to “realize the power of the press.” Dr. Robert J. Walker lists many individuals who had impacted the Montgomery Bus Boycott by either participating in the event or encouraging the boycott. Such people included Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Gray, A. Philip Randolph, and Dorie Miller. The injustice began in 1943 when African Americans were required to pay their bus fee in the front and then take a seat at the back of the bus. . Dr. Walker describes a young man named Fred Gray, who helped African-Americans acquire their freedom in Cleveland, Ohio. Another person who contributed to the driving force behind the boycott was Jo Ann Gibson Robinson of the Women’s Political Council. She, with the Council, wrote letters to the Mayor of Montgomery asking for basic rights that every human is entitled to. Many of the leaders of the boycott believed that the African-American community should be united to help one another through these tough times. However, in reality, because the whole community was too scared to do anything, this instead lead to “the division in the African American community.” Slowly, blacks began to feel the injustices of the bus system. 15-year old Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat despite the demands of the bus driver. The final spark was on Thursday, December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested for the same situation Claudette Colvin had been arrested for. As soon as Parks was arrested, a “fire” spread through the African-American community. As Dr. Walker put it, “all the pieces of God’s divine puzzle were now in place.” Jo Ann Robinson decided that the African-American community should stay off the buses on the day of Rosa Park’s trial to show support for Parks. This was just the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Dr. Walker talks about the boycott and how it began on the day of Rosa Park’s trial in the third section of the book. The entire African-American community united in boycott against the bus system. In defense, the white community formed their own group, the White Citizens Council, to discourage African-Americans from helping each other. The idea backfired, however, as the Council actually encouraged the African-American community to continue helping each other. The black community had reacted with such force because Rosa Parks was founded guilty and fined “ten dollars plus court cost … This was the first … case in which an African American had been convicted for disobeying the segregation laws in Montgomery.” An organization called the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was created to lead the first mass meeting of the African-American community where they spoke of the unfair treatment the Black community was faced with. At this meeting, Dr. King gave a speech that encouraged the community to stay united during this time of hardship. Dr. Robert J. Walker compares Dr. King’s message to what it would “have been like when Moses spoke to the Israelites while they were encamped” in their own problems. At this first mass meeting, they raised about two thousand dollars for their cause. Since the Blacks were going to continue the boycott, they needed to figure out how to travel from their homes to their jobs without taking the bus. A taxi company ended up helping them by offering rides, but many African Americans walked because they truly believed in the boycott. Their slogan during the boycott was, “My feet is tired, but my soul is rested!” As word of the boycott began to spread and gain support around the world, the boycott earned enough funds for the organizers to get station wagons to freely transport more supporters. The MIA met with the City Council three times to negotiate a compromise, but every meeting failed, and the white citizens began to harass the leaders of the boycott. Dr. King laid a foundation of “nonviolence … for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and later the entire Civil Rights Movement.” Many white communities outside of Montgomery mailed in letters of support and encouragement. The blacks continued to walk even when a heat wave hit Montgomery. As they lost their station wagons and continued to be persecuted, the African-American community began to lose hope in their goal, until “Tuesday, day 345 of the boycott, November 13, 1956,” the United States Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of the buses were unconstitutional. Although victorious, they continued to walk until the official paperwork reached the city of Montgomery. Finally, the day had arrived; on “Thursday, December 20, 1956, day 381 of the boycott,” the African-Americans had gained their freedom.
The fourth section of Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott focuses on the aftermath of the boycott and the responses of the white and African-American communities to the verdict. As soon as the blacks reached their wanted outcomes, the whites became very angry, and “on December 28, city buses were fired upon by a sniper.” After multiple attacks on the African-American community, the other white communities could not tolerate it any longer, when four African-American churches were bombed, white ministers stood up and spoke out against these horrible crimes. As the violence died down, Montgomery gradually began turning into a multiethnic city. Hispanics and Asians could be seen riding the city buses alongside whites and African-Americans. Dr. Walker states that there is still work to be done in the African American community. He calls the community to start using its mind to stop doing idiotic things to give the white community an excuse to criticize blacks. Dr. Walker ends his book by calling the youth of the African-American community to start acting like the “Joshua Generation.” These Joshua’s are the youth that need to take a stand and lead the whole community.
Dr. Robert J. Walker states in his book that the freedom of the African-Americans was achieved in the same way the Children of Israel achieved freedom: through God. Dr. Walker begins his book by letting readers know that God had compelled him to write this book and that his “soul could not rest until the last words [were] typed.” Dr. Walker truly believes that God had saved the African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama. Throughout his book he compares the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the story of the Children of Israel. He also compares Martin Luther King, Jr. to Moses as both were leaders in times of struggle.
Dr. Robert J. Walker is a religious professor, so he does not believe an event happens without being part of God’s decree. He had lived through 9/11, one of the paradigm shifts that he mentioned in his book, Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The main focus in this book, however, is the second paradigm shift, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Dr. Walker believes that one day the mindset of all American citizens will change and become more accepting of other ethnicities because he believes the “enemy that [people] must contend with … [is] the enemy within”(328). He had published this book in 2007, a year of turmoil and tragedy. Most tragic was the Virginia Tech Massacre in August, where a student shot and killed 32 people and wounded 23. The events of 2007, along with his religious beliefs, influenced Dr. Walker’s purpose in writing the book: to have readers understand the importance of using their minds to improve society.
Mark Newman views Dr. Walker’s book not as a work of history but as a work based on only religion, stating that “God is referred to on almost every page.” Newman also says that Dr. Walker “writes in a style intended to enable ready understanding by fifth graders.” Nevertheless, he admits that Dr. Walker does give credit to the African-American women who were also active in the boycott and recognizes “the complexity and diversity of Montgomery’s African American and white communities.” A review by Monique Moultrie states that even though Dr. Robert J. Walker gave “God credit as the ultimate outside agitator for justice … [he did] not diminish the importance of the strategizing by the leaders and participants of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” According to Moultrie, Dr. Walker got his point across through the use of history, analysis, and religion. Moultrie believed that Dr. Walker’s writing directly conveyed his opinion.
Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is interesting to read and easy to follow and understand. It contained some aspects that might make a reader feel uncomfortable, but it was straightforward also through providing historical background. Even though the author’s religious belief might differ with that of his readers, it can be agreed that the equality gained by the blacks in Montgomery, Alabama, had only happened because God is “still in control and He is still able to deliver His people.”
The 1950s were a time of progress and liberalism. It was progressive because African-Americans needed to have the strength to not be fearful and to combat any type of persecution directed their way. Dr. Walker states that the “Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement [was] led by young people.” These young people who lived in Montgomery during the 1950s had demonstrated true progressivism and liberalism. In addition, people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated their beliefs for the equality and freedom they believed they deserved.
God had decreed “Let my people go!” to free both the Israelites and the African-Americans of Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Robert J. Walker demonstrates to the reader his belief that nothing can be accomplished without God’s decree and blessings.
Footnotes:
1.Walker, Robert. Let My People Go! The Miracle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Hamilton Books, 2007. 6.
2.Walker, Robert. 130.
3.Walker, Robert. 153.
4.Walker, Robert. 130.
5.Walker, Robert. 153.
6.Walker, Robert. 130.
7.Walker, Robert. 153.
8.Walker, Robert. 268-269.
9.Walker, Robert. 274.
10.Walker, Robert. 278.
11.Walker, Robert. 331.
12.Walker, Robert. 268-269.
13.Walker, Robert. 274.
14.Walker, Robert. 278.
15.Walker, Robert. 331.
16.Walker, Robert. 15.
17.Newman, Mark. University of Edinburgh. 75.
18.Newman, Mark. 76.
19.Newman, Mark. 76.
20.Moultrie, Monique. 94.
21.Walker, Robert.16.
22.Walker, Robert. 333.
A Fading Resistance by Julia Lau
A Review of Francis Wilhoit’s The Politics of Massive Resistance
In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education case authorized the desegregation of schools and began black integration. It was during this period of time that the Brown decision inspired revolutionary and egalitarian ideas, provoking outrage within southern states. The Politics of Massive Resistance by Francis M. Wilhoit follows the southern resistance within the 50s and analyzes the politics, causes, and segregationist ideologies of the resistance movement after the Brown decision. White supremacy, a prevalent belief throughout history, was especially significant in the 1950s, as Southern politicians decided to retaliate against the Brown decision with Massive Resistance, “and the dreams of 1954 became the nightmares of the terrible decade that followed.” 1
The beginning of the southern resistance movement was characterized by mild opposition from state governments and private groups to the 1954 Brown decision. The southern reaction to the court ruling triggered a wave of resistance against the new egalitarian policies towards blacks, with many states passing legislature to uphold segregation. For example, the Louisiana legislature passed an amendment that deemed segregation necessary. Responses to the Brown decision were generally disgruntled and discontent; however, reactions were limited to discriminative legislation and campaigns and remained non-violent. One main controversy was the “battle of the courthouse” between NAACP’s lawyers and southern school district lawyers.2 Dozens of lawsuits were made regarding the problem of school segregation, signifying the magnitude of the issue. Several private groups vehemently against integration formed, including the White Brotherhood, the Patriots of North Carolina, and the Knights of the White Christians. In addition to private resistance groups, the Ku Klux Klan also gained a marked increase in its membership with the rise of southern resistance. Most importantly, the Southern Manifesto, which declared Southern antagonism towards Black integration, was passed in 1956, ultimately beginning Massive Resistance.
Ideology and leadership during Massive Resistance played an important role in the popularity of the movement. The aggressive reactions to school desegregation can be traced back to the origins of racism - the philosophy of white supremacy. A key driving force in the opposition to black integration in schools was the idea that white people were superior to blacks and as a result, the common traditions had to be kept in order to maintain equilibrium within society. Members of the resistance groups also believed in the theory of states’ rights, and that “state governments are closer to the people and thus they more accurately reflect the people’s wishes than does the national government”4 Many oppositionists qualified their beliefs with the idea of states’ rights and white superiority; however, their principles were based mainly on opinion and lacked scientific support. The spread of the resistance movement can be credited to the leadership of individuals and icons in southern history. John C. Calhoun was considered a saint among the Massive Resisters; as a supporter of states’ rights and the doctrine of nullification, he represented the main beliefs of Southern resistance. Southerners also worshipped Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis as iconic symbols of the movement. Similarly, one of the most influential figures during this period was Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia. A hostile and steadfast advocate of segregation, Byrd stated his organization would exercise all efforts possible to avoid integration, inspiring heightened racist attitudes and attacks throughout Virginia. With the rise of resistance also came the rise of anti-integration groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Citizens’ Council. The Ku Klux Klan was largely responsible for the violence aspect of Massive Resistance and was often considered too extreme by other resisters. Less brutal than the Ku Klux Klan, the Citizens’ Council was regarded as more civilized, and were given nicknames such as “white-collar Klan” or “country club Klan”4. Among the Citizens’ Council’s members were bankers, lawyers, congressmen, and other highly educated citizens. With the support of powerful leaders and resistance groups, the resistance movement began to broaden within the South.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Massive Resistance picked up its pace and reached its most critical period. In 1958, Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana legislatures passed school closing laws – the most popular actions taken against desegregation. Many acts attacking the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were adopted by Southern legislatures. During the 1960s, southern resisters used the tactic of allowing school integration, but “[punished] black teachers and principals by easing them out of their jobs in the integrated schools.”5 They were able to successfully remove several black teachers and principals, hampering the egalitarian revolution. Another popular tactic was the denunciation of busing, or desegregation of transportation to school systems. Busing created controversy amongst concerned parents, who felt that it was offensive for their children to be seated with black students. Resistance also heated up with more court cases and incidents within Southern cities; with the rise of Southern resistance came the rise of anti-segregation court rulings as well. The Little Rock Crisis provoked a Supreme Court announcement preserving the rights of Negro Children, a lethal blow to southern opposition efforts. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 marked the weakening of the movement, as Southerners failed in their efforts to overturn the egalitarian acts. With these continual setbacks, Massive Resistance finall passed its peak and was well into its decline.
The fall of Massive Resistance was attributed to a series of factors, the most powerful one being the obstinacy of the Supreme Court in opposing segregation In addition, the South was disorganized in its structure and disillusioned with the radical leadership of the movement. Many of the previously feared and powerful opposition groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, became insignificant as the years went on. Southern students adopted a more broad-minded attitude to school integration, and “nine out of ten white students interviewed saw no difference in their own learning progress since the advent of desegregation.”6 The progression of the egalitarian revolution also sped up the fall of southern resistance, and although it did not completely destroy the movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major blow to the Southern morale. Furthermore, mass media began covering stories on the accomplishments of blacks, a milestone in African American history. With this new positive light shed on black Americans, mass media served as an effective counter to white racism and Massive Resistance. Blacks also gained political power, with an increase in elected black officials and the black electorate. Southern sports became more racially mixed, especially in basketball and football. With the decline in southern resistance and with the advancement of egalitarianism, Massive Resistance became increasingly insignificant.
The Politics of Massive Resistance by Francis M. Wilhoit offers a critical analysis of the Southern reaction to the controversial 1954 Brown decision. Wilhoit’s central claim revolves around “the development stages through which Massive Resistance evolved and [analyzes] the interrelationships of mythic ideas and political action in each of the stages.”7 In this book, he traces the progression and decline of the resistance movement and interprets its ideology and politics, exploring the symbols, tactics, and theories of Massive Resistance. Wilhoit divides the development of Massive Resistance into three stages: the rise, the critical point, and the fall of the movement. As he describes the stages of Massive Resistance, Wilhoit analyzes southern attitudes and reasoning for supporting the movement. He provides information regarding important events and turning points of the movement through each stage. His interpretation of the development of southern resistance sheds light on the issue of racism and segregation during the 1950s, allowing him to deliver his own take on the development and culture of Massive Resistance.
Francis M. Wilhoit was a Southerner himself, and held felt an obligation to tell the history of such a significant movement. In explaining his purpose in writing the book, he claims, “My biggest debt of all is to those hundreds of southerners of both races who . . . helped shape my own ‘southern experience.’”8 Wilhoit stated that it was his duty to tell the events that shaped southern history, as his southern experience had played a significant role in shaping him. Although his book was a requirement to obtain his doctoral degree in political science, his southern origins and his interest in the “complexity of black-white relations” mainly prompted him to write The Politics of Massive Resistance.9 When Massive Resistance peaked, Wilhoit was living in Georgia, a state in the Deep South where resistance was strongest, and he was therefore able to witness the core of southern resistance. As a result, Wilhoit was influenced by the atmosphere and the tragedy of race consciousness in writing his book. His friends and relatives who were on both sides of the resistance swayed his opinions as well; he based his work on the tensions and issues he witnessed firsthand. Growing up in the same time period and living in one of the most radical states at that time, Wilhoit was largely influenced by his southern roots, direct interaction with Massive Resistance, and his obligation to tell its history.
Overall, Wilhoit’s book was not well accepted by critics. In his book, Wilhoit explains he had written it for the “general reader,” yet reviewers argued that those who would read his books would be scholars and experts and would not be newly exposed to any of the contained information. Because of this, historian Hugh Graham Davis of Oxford University claimed his “initial puzzlement to why the book was written and published at all.”10 Consequently, critics assumed many scholars and historians, the actual audience for his book despite the author’s intentions, would not have read anything they did not already know. Reviewers generally believed his book to be a dry and dull historical narrative and felt that Wilhoit could not maintain a historical objectivity throughout the book because he was a Southerner. However, he was applauded for his interpretation of the South’s traditional evangelical Christianity and its effect on southern conservatism. Wilhoit was also chided for his lack of primary resources from the plethora of openly available information on southern history he was able to choose from. In a review by Paul Gaston, a professor at the University of Virginia, he states that “[Wilhoit] denies himself use of the rich materials needed to deal adequately with the questions he raises.”11 In addition, Wilhoit was condemned for his factual errors, even though his mistakes were minor enough to be ignored. His tendency to ramble incessantly was reprimanded by reviewers; Gaston claimed that the book “will discourage all but the most persistent and curious.”11 All in all, Wilhoit’s book was mostly criticized and received little commendations or compliments.
In his book, Wilhoit offers long, detailed explanations of southern events and interprets their significance in history. As the critics had said, he provides plenty of new information to the “general reader,” but to a historical scholar, his book would seem average and plain. His outlines and lists focusing on different topics, such as the Southern Manifesto, supply a clear, logical account of the important events or documents discussed. Because he uses this method to explain the effects, causes, or reasoning behind incidents in history or essential documents, Wilhoit is able to simplify complex documents into facile, straightforward steps. Organized by the different stages of Massive Resistance, The Politics of Massive Resistance is divided into chapters and subchapters regarding the topics of each chapter. Wilhoit’s organized arrangement of the vast amount of information his book contains creates a more comprehensible and graspable text. However, his frequent digressions often add unnecessary sentences to every chapter, when they can be easily condensed to make more engaging chapters. Wilhoit skillfully elucidates which events were significant to the resistance movement, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which “both practically and symbolically . . . did signal the end of Massive Resistance as a respectable ideology and as an effective counterrevolutionary obstacle to the implementation of Brown in the South.”12 His ability to point out watershed events gives readers a better idea of the issues going on during that time period. Wilhoit also provided an immense amount of new information, and his interpretation of different events during the 1950s gives readers a new perspective on a significant portion of southern history. From the perspective of a non-professional interested in Massive Resistance, this book would be a good choice to read in order to gain a better understanding of the movement.
The 1950s can be characterized as a time of progress and liberalism, despite the South’s efforts to maintain conservatism. Although the South did everything in its power to stop the egalitarian revolution, ranging from court cases against the NAACP to new legislatures opposing the desegregation of schools, it was ultimately unsuccessful and could not prevent the egalitarian revolution from advancing. Because of the more liberal attitudes during the 1950s, the progression towards desegregated schools began to speed up, quickly leaving the southern resistance movement behind. The textile industry contributed to the development of the egalitarian movement and decline of Massive Resistance; the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated, “In 1970 . . . the number of blacks employed by the textile industry in that year was approximately 14.3 per cent of the textile work force, as compared with an average of about 10.1 per cent in all manufacturing firms.”13 The rest of the world had begun to cast aside the superficial idea of white supremacy and moved towards a new, broader perspective. As Southerners lost morale and faith in their cause, Massive Resistance was easily swept aside by the desegregationist movement. Wilhoit, who analyzed the downfall and causes for failure of Massive Resistance, stated that “a number of secondary and tertiary forces have been . . . at work assuring the continuation of the egalitarian revolution and preventing a full-scale rebirth of the southern backlash.”14 Organizations, such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, also aided in the progression of the equality movement. This progress was not just the work of liberal groups, as the decline of Massive Resistance also expedited the revolutionary ideas. Subsequently, Wilhoit’s interpretation of the progressivism that took place in the 1950s offered an explanation for the advancement of Black equality and ultimately supported the idea that the 1950s was a decade of liberalism.
The 1950s was a time of progressive and egalitarian ideals regarding the advancement of Blacks and its correlation to Massive Resistance. The Politics of Massive Resistance, by Francis M. Wilhoit, analyzes the development and ideologies of Massive Resistance during the 1950s. As Wilhoit said, “freedom for whites and freedom for blacks are not, and never have been, polar opposites,” – in the end, man are all the same.15
Footnotes:
Wilhoit, Francis M. The Politics of Massive Resistance. New York: G. Braziller, 1973. 25.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 45.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 65.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 111.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 151.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 221.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 9.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 10.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 11.
Graham, Hugh Davis. "Review: From Massive to Passive Resistance." Reviews in American History 2.2 (1974): 290-92. JSTOR. Web. 06 June 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2701670?ref=search-gateway:e720aab1182806be97e639cd7ff68c43>.
Gaston, Paul M. United States. Vol. 80. Paris: American Historical Reviews, 1971. 1415. Print. Ser. 5.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 214.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 219.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 218.
Wilhoit, Francis M. 283.
Breaking Barriers by Sarah Kessler
A review of Karen Anderson’s Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School
On September 4, 1957, after the Supreme Court rejected racial segregation in public schools, the governor of Arkansas at the time, Orval Faubus, ordered the National Guard to surround Little Rock Central High School and prevent black students from entering. Three weeks later, the “Little Rock Nine”, escorted by federal troops, gained entrance to Little Rock Central High School; these nine black students became the first to be integrated into a white school. In Karen Anderson’s Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School, Anderson “examines racial politics in relation to changes in youth culture, sexuality, gender relations, and economics, and she locates the conflicts of Little Rock within the larger political and historical context”.[1]
Anderson splits her work into six chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. In the introduction, she shares an anecdote about Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine. After federal troops came to escort Eckford, she was allowed to enter her school. A member of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter, Grace Lorch, a white woman, “stayed with [Eckford], fending off the crowd” when she was first blocked entry from school.[2] Eckford’s ordeal caused a national uproar, but “the justices unanimously held that segregated public schools were...unconstitutional”.[3]
The first two chapters of Anderson’s work, “Mapping Change” and “Occupied Arkansas”, discuss the stark contrast between white moderates who supported the idea of gradual integration and segregationists whose responses derived from the state sponsored “interposition” of federal mandates that advocated violence against black people. Anderson then goes on to relate this 1957 crisis with the 1954 decision of Brown v. Board of Education; both events had led to greater activism and sped along change. President Eisenhower was then forced to address the issue of race and implement the Fourteenth Amendment. Despite his personal opinion, Eisenhower could not allow such unjustified prejudices to interfere with public education. This led to the showdown between Governor Faubus and President Eisenhower,where Eisenhower sent in paratroopers to escort the black students into Central High School. Virgil Blossom, Superintendent of the Little Rock school board, crafted just one desegregation plan, planning for Central High to be the only integrated school. Anderson also mentions thathe Central high students predominantly consisted of youth from working class families. As a result, the mainly white parents were perturbed that the public schools where middle and upper class children attended were bypassed in Blossom’s desegregation plan.
In her work, Anderson shows the resentment of white supremacists toward black people. After the white population expressed their disappointment with Blossom’s plan, segregationist leaders mobilized the white working class into a political force that used propaganda, threats of violence, and public demonstrations to stunt public school integration. Eisenhower and Faubus did not have any issues until Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the enrollment of the Little Rock Nine. The issue for whites was the image Little Rock had received in the national and international media. Images of violence conducted by whites were shown in media coverage, as were the orderly black students’ lack of resistance.[4] The black students repeatedly showed calm and peaceful outlooks, while the white students were violent and aggressive. This contrast gave the black students a more sympathetic American audience, and people outside the South began to consider Little Rock’s plan as progressive and more fitting with modern times.
Anderson focuses a lot of her work on gender by including discussions of the segregationist Mother’s League and the moderate Women’s Emergency Committee (WEC). The Mother’s League continuously exemplified the stereotype of “white womanhood” as innocent and helpless and portrayed black men as violent and “sexually charged.”[5] Their greatest contribution, however, was orchestrating a student campaign of constant and often vicious harassment of the Little Rock Nine. “Uncivil Disobedience” briefly describes the ordeal of the African American students at the hands of their white classmates, ranging from name-calling to physical assaults. Despite the active role the Mother’s League played in the segregationist cause, Anderson commented on its shortcomings. “The league’s decision to focus more on mobilizing resentment than on mobilizing voters... limited its political reach, as did its inability to understand the importance of public schools to many Little Rock voters.”[6]
In contrast, the WEC portrayed itself as a group concerned about the welfare of Little Rock’s students. Adolphine Terry, the founder of the WEC, revealed the group’s hidden motivations when she stated that “when Little Rock became an evil word around the world, I felt my own world had collapsed.”[7] Wealthier citizens in support of segregation used the working class white population to control city and state politics; however, the working class members of the WEC only wanted “[to] force Faubus to reopen the public schools” so that their children could get an education.8
In “The Politics of Fear and Gridlock,” Anderson discusses the WEC’s activities and its support for various city school board candidates. The candidates’ efforts fell short as the segregationists countered the WEC’s plan and began to threaten and harass members of the WEC and their families. In fact, in May of 1959, the Little Rock school board voted to fire 45 teachers suspected of supporting integration. Following this blatant act of injustice, the WEC worked “behind the scenes...[gaining] the support of powerful organizations and [encouraging] moderate leaders to publicly challenge the segregationists.”[8] After the WEC members’ tremendous efforts, certain school board members were removed and the public schools were to reopen in the fall of 1959.
In Chapter Six, “Politics as Usual: Reviving the Politics of Tokenism”, Anderson discusses the summer of 1959 as “an anxious one”.[9] The Ku Klux Klan received incorporation papers from the state of Arkansas that concerned many citizens of the social discord bubbling beneath the surface. Anderson’s conclusion reiterates the fact that that southern whites might have had similar views on race; the gap between social classes “accentuated the dilemma that court-ordered desegregation posed not only to Little Rock, but the entire nation.”[10] Despite Anderson’s secondary focus on the Little Rock Nine, her work as a whole acutely examines the race and gender issues that affected the South in the 1950s.[11]
Anderson’s thesis focuses more on the “connections between social inequality and the culture wars of modern America.”[12] Throughout the work, Anderson juxtaposes the reactions of white men, middle class women, and the working class, to the integration of public schools. She breaks down the political machines that “retained power in the face of opposition” and illuminates mistakes by segregationists in order to cast a brighter light on the culture wars and social inequalities of American in the 1950s.[13]
Anderson is the author of numerous books and is professor of history at the University of Arizona; her most recent book is Changing Woman: A History of Racial Ethnic Women in Modern America.[14] She has also written Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During World War II. As her titles show, Anderson’s focus tends to be on women and their role during the earlier half of the 20th century. Although there are very few sources on Anderson’s background, she is evidently an avid feminist who focuses her works on the importance of women and their roles in society.
Little Rock was published in 2010, making it a relatively new book. Women in today’s society are continuing to push for their rights, a fact which explains Anderson’s stern tone when she discusses the importance of women in the 1957 Little Rock school integration crisis. President Obama, elected in 2008, was the United States’ first black president, a historic moment that inspired Anderson to educate people of the inequity that occurred in Little Rock in 1957.
Anderson smoothly avoids a “triumphalist narrative” by providing life-sized depth to this shameful cloud of United States history.[15] Little Rock, from the perspective of an instructor, offers a detailed portrait of this famous incident to gain black social rights. The work describes a “monolithic white community.”[16] Anderson reveals the tensions that were a result of the differences in social class, wealth, and often geography. In addition, she reveals that civil rights activists were not only blacks but also whites. The whites involved in the modern civil rights movement would not be considered particularly special. Civil rights are a given in today’s society. They were not “even the virtuous, as moderate and explicitly racist whites engaged in diverse forms of civic engagement.”[17] Also, even though the book focuses more on social patterns than on hard politics, it still shows the divide between state and national law. Most importantly, Anderson shows the “inadequacy of the simplistic heroic narrative of civil rights struggles that many students bring to the classroom.”[18]
Anderson’s purpose in Little Rock is to show the social discord created by the 1957 Little Rock school integration crisis. She uses a combination of colorful anecdotes, hard research, and creative titles for each chapter, which accomplish her goals of creating an entertaining yet informative book. About one-sixth of the book discusses the Little Rock Nine and their lives as individuals, creating a myriad of perspectives and juxtaposing multiple vantage points. Furthermore, Anderson thoroughly discusses the WEC and its intentions throughout the 1950s to 1960s, an expected act due to her extensive background in women’s rights and women’s roles in society.
The 1950s were neither a time of pure liberalism nor a time of pure conservatism and stasis. However, Anderson’s thesis focuses more on the stasis and rigidity of the 1950s. During the 1950s, religion made a big resurgence in the United States, a fact that explains southern fundamentalist views on civil rights, especially the views of Southerners in Arkansas. People often talk about the 1950s as a time of conformity in relation to black civil rights, but every society and every generation is full of conformity; “the Fifties had no monopoly on [anti-black sentiment].”[19] Anderson’s work supports the idea that the 1950s were a time of conformity; however, it also shows that anti-black sentiment is prevalent in every generation, differing onlyin the situations it appears in. When Anderson discusses how teachers and school board members were fired for their support of integration of public schools, she quotes Susie West, a teacher who was repeatedly harassed by white students for supporting desegregation; West stated that even though schools had reopened, “not much changed at school. Lockers [were still] tampered with, obscenities written, names called, and authority defied.”[20] She even had a rock thrown through her window with the words “nigger-loving bitch” written on it.[21] This anecdote shows Anderson’s understanding of the complex way history repeats itself. She asserts that racial tensions stemmed from southern radical behaviors in the 1950s. Anderson then reiterates that things do not really change. Names will continue to be called, the innocent will continue to be victimized, and the only characteristics that separate the 1950s from any other era are the time and place of the crimes against humanity and civil rights. Anderson’s omniscient portrayal of the ‘big picture’ illuminates both the new and the old, the wrong and the right, and the black and the white. Anderson upholds that hatred will be prevalent in every generation and that the harassment and unfair treatment of blacks during the 1950s parallels almost every generation preceding it. Considering the disproportionate ratio of issues to successful resolutions during the 1950s, Anderson reinforces that the 1950s were a time of conservatism rather than a time of progressive movements.
Anderson’s examination of the Little Rock school integration crisis reveals that although southern whites mostly agreed on their opinions regarding race, the distinct differences in classes were really what caused the tumult. Overall, Anderson’s Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School can be commended and recommended for its in-depth examination of racial, gender, class, and sexuality issues in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the 1950s.
Footnotes:
1. "Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High SchoolKaren Anderson."Anderson, K.: Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School. (eBook, Paperback and Hardcover). N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2014.
2. Anderson, Karen. Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 2010. 2.
3. Anderson, Karen. 4.
4. Williams, Oscar R. "Black Life, History, and Culture." Journal of African American History. Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc., n.d. Web.
5. Trinh, Jim. "Conservatism: Racism When You Need It." Political Research. Political Research Associates, 14 Dec. 2014. Web.
6. Williams, Oscar R. 269.
7. "Adolphine Fletcher Terry Branch Library." Adolphine Fletcher Terry Branch Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2014.
8. Anderson, Karen. 24.
9. Williams, Oscar R. 267.
10. Anderson, Karen. 190.
11. Williams, Oscar R. 269.
12. Williams, Oscar R. 268.
13. "Little Rock." OverDrive Inc. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2014. 3.
14. “Little Rock." OverDrive Inc. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2014. 7.
15. Taylor Allen, Ann. "Women and Social Movements, Notes on Contributors."Women and Social Movements, Notes on Contributors. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 June 2014.
16. Neumann, David. "Book Reviews." Physical Therapy Reviews (2010): n. pag. 2.
17. Neumann, David. 4.
18. Neumann, David. 5.
19. Neumann, David. 8.
20. Shmoop Editorial Team. "Society in The 1950s." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 05 June 2014.
21. Anderson, Karen. 113.
22. Anderson, Karen. 119
Ignorance and Innocence by Preston Fox
A review of Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson’s Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
“For an entire nation, the murder of Emmett Till marked the death of innocence.”1The murder of the young, promising Emmett Till served as a catalyst for a multitude of civil right movements as people began taking responsibility for the evil that American society had become. In Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, the life of Mamie Till is followed from her experiences as a young girl in a segregated world to the birth of her son Emmett and his murder and trial, ending with her life as a prominent black activist for civil rights until her death in 2003. Although the abduction and brutal murder of Emmett Till was a gruesome and dark part of American history, it brought about mass support for black equality and inspired many to join in the fight for civil rights.
Chapters One through Nine of Death of Innocence begin with the birth of Emmett Till and continues through his young life under the guidance of his mother, Mamie, and his grandmother. In 1941, at the age of 19, Mamie Till’s mother rushed Mamie to the hospital to give birth to her son Emmett. Because she was African American, Mamie was placed in the waiting room for several days as she suffered unmonitored contractions, leading to complications during her son’s birth. After Emmett’s birth, Mamie “couldn’t imagine then how much more pain a mother might have to endure.”2This statement, combined with the already prevalent sense of racism and segregation in the book, foreshadows the troubles the two will face in the years to come. Emmett’s father, Louis Till, was an abusive husband and a poor father figure. After the first time Louis attacked Mamie, she fought back by throwing him out of the house and divorcing him. Louis Till joined the army shortly after but was killed in Italy. Mamie would learn later that Louis had presumably raped an Italian woman and killed another and was lynched for “willful misconduct” by General Dwight Eisenhower. Mamie and her mother raised Emmett in a strong Christian household where he was taught to keep family close and friends forever. She worried for her son’s future in a world that offers no opportunity for blacks, recalling an experience from her childhood where she learned that there “were certain things that black people were denied by white people. The freedom of movement. The luxury of choice. And a roll of toilet paper.”3Emmett’s first word was “Jell-O” and almost immediately his grandmother began teaching him the alphabet and how to spell. At the age of six, Emmett was diagnosed with polio, but he recovered with only a slight stutter and speech impediment. As Emmett, or “Bo” as people called him, grew older he started to take on many responsibilities such as shopping and cleaning to help his mother, Mamie, out around the house. Mamie then meets Pink who begins living with them, but he is caught in the middle of an affair and Mamie threatens to throw him out. However, Pink does not listen to Mamie, so as he is about to sit down Emmett comes around with a kitchen knife and says, “’Pink, Mama wants you to go and I think you should go.’”4Emmett was growing into an intelligent and hard-working young man who would be there to support and protect his mother. Years later, Mamie met Gene who falls instantly in love with her. Gene was a great influence on Emmett and was sincere and loving towards Mamie; he would be there to support Mamie through her sorrow over her son’s death and through the rest of his life.
In chapters Ten through Fifteen, Emmett’s vacation in Mississippi with some of his extended family quickly escalates to his abduction and brutal murder, and Mamie is left to deal with the aftermath. When he was fourteen, Emmett was invited by Uncle Mose and his family to go down to their house in Mississippi for the summer. After much prayer and anxiety, Mamie eventually allowed her son to go. Once Emmett reached Mississippi he was fully subjected to the evils of discrimination and segregation. After a few weeks, Mamie received a call from Mississippi. Emmett had been abducted from the family’s house by two white men who claimed that Emmett had “whistled” at a white woman. With overwhelming support from friends and family, the police finally found the abductors, Roy Bryan and J.W. Milam, but the men said they had released Emmett not long after grabbing him. Sadly, this was not true. Emmett’s body was found in the Tallahatchie River and was almost completely unrecognizable except for the ring he was wearing that once belonged to his father Louis Till. When Emmett’s body arrived in Chicago, Mississippi officials had covered it in lime in the hopes of further deteriorating the body so that no case could be filed against the abductors. Emmett was horribly disfigured. He had a bullet hole in his head, his tongue was missing, one eye was gouged out, his nose and half of his ears were cut off, and he was bloated from being in the water for several days. Mamie gave her son an open casket funeral so that the world would see the evil it had created and more than 100,000 people paraded by to view his body. “Emmett’s murderers had devised a form of brutality that not only was beyond measure, it was beyond words.”5 With so much unconditional support, Mamie moved forward in bringing justice to her son’s murderers and hoped that her son’s death would bring about the end to civil injustices.
Chapters Sixteen through Nineteen describe the events of the Emmett Till Trial and how it unfolded. Mamie relays how she told reporters she “was ready to give [her] life to make sure that what happened to Emmett would never happen to anyone else.”6 Henry Huff was Mamie’s NAACP attorney and shared Mamie’s goal of making a statement for black equality. The first day of the trial began on Monday, September 19, as the town of Sumner was filled with “hot-white hatred.” Papa Mose crossed the social barrier by testifying for Emmett’s murder; when asked to identify the abductors, he stood and pointed at Mr. Bryan and Milam with confidence, a dangerous act that was unheard of at the time. Surprise witness, Willie Reed, was brought to the stand but was almost forgotten after Carolyn Bryant, the woman Emmett supposedly whistled at, completely slandered Emmett by exaggerating what had happened and making Emmett appear as a hormonal, sensual boy. The defense then continued to question Mamie’s identification of her son because of his horribly disfigured appearance, hoping to cast some doubt on the case for the jury. It worked. After two and a half hours of discussion, the jury returned with the verdict of “Not Guilty”, marking the end of the trial.
Despite the upsetting outcome of the trial, chapters Twenty through Twenty-Eight account for Mamie’s activist life after her son’s death to her last days. Mamie was asked on several occasions to travel across the nation to speak at civil rights events, and hundreds of thousands of people joined the cause. Not long after, Mamie was accepted into the Chicago Teacher’s College where she graduated fifth in her class, and she and Gene were married on Sunday, June 24, 1957. As a teacher, Mamie formed the Emmett Till Players, which was a group of young children who travelled across the country performing speeches and poems in support of black equality. The Players reminded Mamie of a dream she had where God had said, “’I have taken one from you, but I will give you thousands.’”7This would help Mamie through the rest of her life as she dealt with the sorrowful loss of her son. In 1991, the Emmett Till Road in Chicago was dedicated to Mamie’s son and the play “The State of Mississippi vs. Emmett Till” was created and performed in Chicago, bringing even more awareness to the evils of black inequality. Mamie remained a strong civil rights activist up to her death in 2003 but her spirit lives on through those who dedicate their lives to bringing about positive change to this ever-changing world.
Throughout Death of Innocence, Mamie Till-Mobley describes the inequality African Americans faced in America and assert that a change for the better needed to occur. Even before Emmett’s death, Mamie focused on the malevolent existence of segregation and racism in society, and it was not until after her son’s death does Mamie realize that there needs to be an end to racial injustices. At a young age, Mamie realized that there were three things whites denied to blacks: “The freedom of movement. The luxury of choice. And a roll of toilet paper.”8 An air of ignorance hung over the country as white people continued to treat blacks as racial inferiors and as the government still refused to grant African Americans, U.S. citizens, basic civil liberties. Sadly, this attitude towards blacks continued through the decades and had played a major factor in Emmett Till’s death. Emmett’s murderers said that since “Emmett had whistled at a white woman”, his abduction and gruesome murder was equal compensation for doing so.9This highlights how ridiculous and idiotic the social boundaries were in this time period by juxtaposing these two events. There is no correlation between whistling at someone and receiving the death penalty, but because a black boy whistled at a white woman, a socially unacceptable act, Emmett’s death was justified. A change needed to occur; society could not continue to act this way toward its own people.
Mamie Till-Mobley’s perspective in her book is influenced by many aspects of her career and life. Being African American herself, Mamie is subjected to the prejudice of a white-dominated society so she is able to describe in perfect detail the injustices of racial segregation. Mamie is also influenced by her strong Christian lifestyle and beliefs. Upon beholding her son’s disfigured body, Mamie cries, “’Lord take my soul . . . show me what you want me to do, and make me able to do.’”10 Mamie sees everyone as God’s children and equal in His eyes, so she is horrified and compelled to begin a life of civil rights activism for black equality after seeing what white men had done to her son. Both of these characteristics influence Mamie’s point of view and how she portrays such grotesque events in her book.
Death of Innocence was written and published in 2002 by Mamie Till-Mobley with some assistance from journalist Christopher Benson. By 2002, the Civil Rights era had ended and blacks had received equal political rights. However, racism still persisted in American society and African Americans, despite what some may say, did not receive equal economic opportunity. For example, to help solve this problem, President W. Bush signed the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act in 2002 to change the racial economic inequality still prevalent in the workforce. Although blacks had received what they had fought for centuries to accomplish, there were many things that still needed to be achieved before there would be complete equality for all people of all races. There is still injustice towards blacks in the 21st century and this was Mamie’s “cautionary tale.”11 She was likely influenced to write this book during this timeto finally tell her story to the world and to warn people of continuing racial injustices and to not repeat the past.
“Kirkus Review” discusses the overview of Death of Innocence and gives a quick background on the book. The book is divided into three sections. The first third deals with the Emmett Till’s birth and childhood, the story behind Louis Till’s absence and death, and Emmett’s contraction of polio in Chicago. The gripping middle section deals with Emmett’s abduction and death at the age of 14 and the trial that followed. The third and final portion chronicles Mamie’s life after her son’s death as a supporter of black rights. It also states that Mamie Till recognized “the historical importance” of Emmett’s death, as “many Americans [were awakened] to the racist horrors” suffered by blacks at the time.12 Although there are no notes or index in the book except for a perfunctory bibliography, Death of Innocence is an accurate portrayal of black injustices. Emmett Till’s murder brought about a grand change to the horrors of racial segregation and proves to be an important part of American history.
Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson’s Death of Innocence is a truly remarkable work of literature. From the very beginning to the very end, Mamie captures the reader with her first-person point of view, allowing her to connect with the reader on an emotional level: “I looked up, saw that box, and I just screamed, ‘Oh, God. Oh, God. My only boy.’”13 Upon seeing the disfigured body of her only son, Mamie relays such powerful emotion and empathy through her words that the reader can feel all the sorrow she felt decades ago. Every account of her life is expertly detailed, giving the reader important background information on what is being explained or discussed. Although some parts of the story seem redundant or unnecessary to the plot of the book, everything that is included relates to some other aspect of the work and ties the entire story together. As a whole, Death of Innocence accurately portrays the injustices blacks were subjected to during the Civil Right era and leaves the reader with a better understanding of how it affected all corners of the American population.
Based on Death of Innocence, the 1950s was not a time of progress and liberalism. If it were a period of progress and liberalism, Emmett Till would not have been murdered and this book would have never been written. Before he is sent off to Mississippi, Mamie tell Emmett that if he sees a white person walk toward him he must “step off the sidewalk, lower [his] head . . . and get on [his] knees, if [he] has to.”14 This quote within itself proves that the 50s was characterized by conservatism and stasis. Black people were still seen as inferior and unworthy of even walking on the same street as white people. This truth is further justified by the Emmett Till trial. Headed by an all-white jury, the trial was doomed from the start. Because of the false and exaggerated accounts of Carolyn Bryant and the defense, the jury had already decided not to convict Milam and Bryant simply due to the differentiation of race. On a more primal note, Uncle Mose, who testified in the trial, made a living by picking cotton for a white master. Even though they were no longer slaves, blacks were still stuck working in the same position their ancestors had a century earlier. Fortunately, these injustices would spur a great change from stasis to progression through the civil rights movement and shape a better world.
Despite the brutality of Emmett Till’s murder, a more equal and opportunistic society resulted from such a horrifying event. As the book follows the early life of Mamie Till-Mobley through her son’s death and trial to her life after the murder, the evils of racism and segregation are seen as a prominent characteristic of American society during the time and affect both whites and blacks. A drastic change needed to be made, people had to be ready to support it “and, Bo, I do think we’re ready now.”15
Footnotes:
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. Death of Innocence. New York, NY: Random House, 2003. 200.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 5.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 21.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 59.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 142.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 149.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 231.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 21.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 118.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 132.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 100.
Kirkus. Kirkus Review. May 20th, 2010.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 132.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson. 101.
Till-Mobley, Mamie, C Benson.283.
No Eres Bienvenido by Hannah Dadah
A review of Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol
In Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s work, Migra! – A History of the U.S. Border Patrol, the author’s goal throughout the book was to concentrate on the “lesser – known history of Border Patrol officers struggling to translate the mandates and abstractions of U.S. immigration law into everyday law – enforcement practices.”1 Established in 1924, border control has progressively focused more and more on the southern border. Hernandez makes the effort to not only look at the practices of U.S. Border Patrol, but also Mexico’s, and explains how the practices have evolved according to economic demands, nativists anxieties, and individual and communal interests of the men who served as officers. She breaks her book down into different decades, beginning with the 1920s, when Border Patrol started, and ending with the 1950s and 1960s, when the government implemented Operation Wetback. In the 1920s, many people were unsure of how to treat Mexicans, believing that they were a temporary workforce. However, as the 1930s approached and the Latinos were still around, Border Patrol became more organized and united. In the 1940s, the U.S. brought a shift to immigration with the Bracero Program, which contracted Mexican laborers to work in the United States, resulting in the 1950s and 1960s with Operation Wetback, a so – called “mass deportation” of Mexican nationals.
In 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Act of 1924 and subsequently establishing the U.S. Border Patrol. Some believe that the Origins Act affected only those of European and Asian descent, but the law set a quota for every nationality, including Mexicans. Originally having little to no power and only receiving $1,000,000 to work with compared to the $12,000,000 other programs received, Border Patrol tried its best to present an authority in the U.S. – Mexican borderland. However, in 1925, the program emerged as a serious police force, and with the help of the Lew Moy decision, Congress passed the 1925 Act, giving Border Patrol the broad authority to detain and arrest. With the Border Patrol becoming a vital force, more men applied to become officers. During the 1920s, most of the men who worked for Border Patrol came from lower – middle class borderland families, and found that they could have a secure, well – paid job if they joined the guard. Since these men were lower on the economic ladder, it was easier for them to “serve the interests of agribusiness in capitalist economic development.”2 This meant that the officers policed the Mexicans based on the demands of the farmers and ranchers, allowing the Border Patrolmen to gain a higher social status. As Border Patrol developed, the violence and discrimination increased. The men started to use the “Mexican appearance” to decide whether or not to question a suspicious person. Such a tactic displayed great racism because they defined a Mexican male as a man that was “about 5’5” to 5’8”; dark brown hair; brown eyes; dark complexion; wearing huaraches.”3 They also found that if there were broken twigs, human litter, and footprints, then a border crosser was near, and used this technique to track suspicious people. With men knowing what they were looking for on the job, Border Patrol reverted to a more violent approach to policing illegals, believing that anyone fitting the “Mexican appearance” must have done something wrong and deserved to be beaten. This new violence continued into the next decade and defined Border Patrol throughout the 1930s.
The 1930s demonstrated how Border Patrol’s work introduced a new zone of violence and marginalization to the region. Hernandez gives examples of this violence through various stories of Mexicans being targeted and hurt because they looked “Mexican”. In 1936, two border patrol officers began tracking a José Hernandez. They eventually found him, but when the boy gave the officers a certificate of citizenship, they refused to believe him and took him to an empty shack, where they beat the believed illegal. While such a scene appeared as pointless violence, the officers of the time believed they were helping protect the U.S. against smugglers. As time passed, technology advanced and the violence changed from hand – to – hand combat to gunfire. These new tactics caused a higher mortality rate among both the patrolmen and the migrants. In many cases an officer would be killed in a gunfight, and this caused other officers to violently retaliate to seek revenge for their loss partner instead of just policing illegals. In order to get reins back on the program, older officers believed the force needed to be more organized. The Border Patrol operations believed they needed to bring more professionalism to their police practice, prompting “the establishment of the Border Patrol Training School (BPTS) in 1937, which brought a new level of uniform training into the Border Patrol project.”4 Before the training school was established, tactics varied based on location on the border, meaning officers of the Los Angeles border region fought differently than those of the El Paso area. However, the BPTS sparked a change by training all the officers the same way, ridding the system of disorder and regionalism. Another controversy that occurred during the 1930s came from the Chinese Exclusion Act. Since the act stated that the Chinese had to leave the United States, many Chinese moved south into Mexico instead of returning back to their homeland. Once this mass migration occurred, Mexico also wanted to rid their country of Asians, forcing them out as well, and causing a struggle between the U.S. and Mexico as the Chinese kept going back and forth between the countries. The Great Depression also weighed its toll on the relationship between the two nations because the fiscal squeeze reduced the dependence on the agribusiness – needing Mexicans to work their fields. Eventually Mexico aided the U.S. by helping control immigration on their side of the border, allowing border control to be a bi – national effort. As World War II arrived in the early 1940s, the need for labor reopened the door for Mexican immigration, and during the period both nations worked together to maintain immigration.
The 1940s brought a shift to immigration especially with the newly implemented Bracero Program – a practice to control Mexican laborers to work in the U.S. With the demand for workers during WWII, Border Patrol’s job became even more vital, and the force received more government funding. World War II also changed the men of Border Patrol. Since many men went off to fight in the war, Border Patrol was forced to hire new officers. Initially, the men that worked the force were from borderlands, but during the 1940s, they came from all around the United States. These new recruits changed the old policy with their refusal to use the violence of the 1920s and 1930s, and once Congress asked farmers to increase production, the Mexicans were called back to work and the new Border Patrol displayed their more modern practices. The first approach to controlling immigration was for the U.S. to ask Mexico to, “establish a bilateral labor program that would facilitate the short – term labor migration of Mexican workers.”5 In order to create better relations, the U.S. provided technical assistance and goods to improve Mexico’s railroads. Eventually Mexico agreed to such a program, and in 1942, the Bracero Program was established. The program set high standards for the migrants, by stating that only healthy, landless, and surplus male agricultural workers from regions not experiencing a labor shortage within Mexico could enter into the U.S. With such standards, many Mexicans looking for work were not allowed to come to America, and this caused a greater increase of undocumented migration rather than documented ones. In order to control Mexican nationals, the U.S. created special Mexican Deportation Parties to expel illegals, but too many were still arriving, as a result, a new system of deportation was launched. The mass deportation once again strained the U.S. – Mexico relationship by causing Mexico to end the program until a workable agreement was made to send in their military to protect the border. Domestic relationships also became an issue because the farmers were unhappy that their cheap labor was being deported back to Mexico, thus causing a standoff between defiant farm families and the U.S. Border Patrol. Even with all the setbacks, Border Patrol still created “task forces” to apprehend migrants and such an approach became known as Operation Wetback. This new program of blending aggressive targeting of persons of Mexican origin and mass deportation into the interior of Mexico defined U.S. Border Patrol throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The United States entered the 1950s in a border control crisis, causing Operation Wetback to take off in 1954. While it is typically interpreted as a mass deportation campaign targeting Mexican nationals, Hernandez wanted to tell how the movement “sought an end to the crises of consent and control along the U.S. – Mexico border…and mass deportation was [just] a means to reaching the ends.”6 While some believe that the program was a huge effort throughout the United States, in truth, only 750 officers were actually assigned to take part in the venture. However, these officers did work with Special Mexican Deportation to conduct coordinated raids on areas where there was a believed mass amount of illegals. In many cases, the officers believed they were helping the nation by removing undocumented Mexicans because it allowed the legal Mexican Americans to earn more jobs. By 1955, immigration control had improved and drug control became the greater issue coming from Mexico. With the “day of the wetback over,” Border Patrol practices began to change.7 One of the main differences was that border control changed their target of arrest. They started hunting “criminal aliens” and “border violators,” instead of just “wetbacks,” an older term referring to only workers. Eventually, Border Patrol became deeply affected by the rise of drug control as a federal law – enforcement initiative. This new issue took dominance over immigration, causing the Bracero Program to be terminated on December 31, 1964, and the creation of the Immigration Reform Act to cap the number of Mexican immigrants to only 120,000 a year. While the relationship between Mexican nationals and border control is still tense, it has greatly improved from the violent days of the 1920s and 1930s.
The idea of border control might be seen as a one – sided effort, but one of Hernandez’s main goals was to address the fact that both American and Mexican governments cooperated to control migration. She tries to prove the concept that the agency grew based on the rise of the immigration issue, not just to spite Mexico and its people. In fact, there are many examples of how Mexican – Americans even helped with the effort; she states how even today, “Mexican authority encourages the Border Patrol’s national turn toward the U.S. – Mexico border.”8 Issues that occurred outside the United States, such as World War II, also contributed more to immigration than just creating a racist society. Since the issue was more than just racism and prejudice, U.S. immigration law enforcement was much more complicated, as the constant struggle also included American farmers, bureaucrats, nativists, and politicians.
Being an associate professor at UCLA Department of History, Hernandez researched and focused on 20th century American ethnic history. For this particular work, she dug through various abandoned files to discover the entire story of border control. Unlike other authors that had written about this topic, Hernandez wanted to focus on the daily lives of the officers who worked on the border, not just those of the farmers who worked with the immigrants or the Mexicans that crossed over. This book is claimed to be “the first book dedicated to the history of the U.S. Border Patrol.”9 She shows how Border Patrol did not expand based on the need for agricultural production, but that many other factors contributed to border control’s origin. Overall, she prides herself on discovering the whole story to a particular topic and describing each side that participated.
Written in 2010, Migra! - A History of U.S. Border Patrol, might have been brought about by the recent immigration issues. Many people today find that Border Patrol is not doing enough to control the Mexican cartels and drug trafficking, while others believe more Mexicans should be granted citizenship. Hernandez’s work tells the entire story of border control and demonstrates the extent its practices have evolved over the years. People cannot judge the work of Border Patrol without the whole story in mind, so she shows how the entire account, “defined the rise of the U.S. Border Patrol in the U.S. – Mexico borderlands.”10
With Hernandez’s work being so highly acclaimed, many have reviewed her work and come to the consensus that it is thorough in its documentation and employment of a myriad of sources. Most of the reviews refer to it as being, “meticulously researched, interesting, and an enjoyable book.”11 The reviewers also noticed how Hernandez “persuasively shows that Mexico collaborated with U.S. policing effort.”12 They understood that she wanted to demonstrate how Border Patrol was a bi – national effort. Some found her great efforts in “recounting institutional history” to be a great benefit and makes the story a must – read; however, others disagreed with her “methodological techniques.”13, 14 Even with a couple of negative comments, the reviewers found the book to be successful in informing readers about the U.S. Border Patrol.
The book did fulfill its goal of persuading the reader that border control was a bi – national effort through its various examples and sources. However, at times the author appears to tell too many anecdotes instead of describing how various events shaped Border Control. Hernandez’s technique of breaking her book into subsections kept the story well organized and allowed the reader to see all aspects of the history. For example, the first paragraph is about the early years of border control, so she breaks the chapter into “U.S. – Mexico Borderlands,” “The Nativists Crusade,” and “The Establishment of the U.S. Border Patrol.” 15, 16, 17 The first subsection shows the U.S. – Mexico relationship, the next one tells of the people of the United States and how they felt about immigration, and the last section elaborates on why Border Patrol was created. Hernandez’s writing style allows for a smooth read that describes the whole topic.
The part of the book that focuses on the 1950s revolved around Operation Wetback. The conservatism of the 1950s is demonstrated by the nativist act of reducing immigration into the U.S. While the author tries to explain that Operation Wetback was just a means of helping the legal Mexican – Americans, the reader realizes that there was some racism involved when Border Patrol deported the citizens. With the fear and rise of communism, it was difficult for people to approve immigration into the United States. It might be viewed as a “containment operation.”18 With even people of Mexican ancestry disapproving of immigration, this proves that the fear that followed WWII caused an era of conservatism in America.
This work not only demonstrates intensive research, but also successfully tells the history of a relatively unknown subject. The reader learns of the origins of Border Patrol and how it advanced into a serious police force. Even with many setbacks, border control united the U.S. and Mexico in their effort to maintain immigration. Although Operation Wetback ended years ago, Border Patrol is still prevalent in today’s society; however, in this new era “Border Patrol has failed to stop or significantly curtail unsanctioned immigration.”19
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle, Migra! – A History of U.S. Border Patrol. The Regents of the University of California, 2010. 2.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 4.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 49.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 65.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 109.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 169.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 196.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 218.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 3.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 234.
Magana, Lisa. Arizona State University. 821.
Vaughn Meeks, Eric. Northern Arizona University. 231.
Torpey, John. City University of New York. 1512.
Rosales, F. Arturo. Arizona State University. 587.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 21.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 27.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 32.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 182.
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. 232.
A Flawed Policy by Jeffrey Blaschko
A review of Donald Fixico’s Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960
“Termination and relocation was a failed policy to try to assimilate Native Americans with US culture,” recounts Donald Fixico in his book Termination and Relocation - Federal Indian Policy 1945-1960.1 Indian termination was based on the belief that Native Americans would be better off if they were treated as Americans rather than a sovereign species living on American soil. In practice, these regulations terminated the trusteeship of Indian reservations, ended the U.S. government’s recognition of the sovereignty of tribes, terminated the exclusion of Indians from state laws, and forced the Natives to pay state and federal taxes which they were previously exempt from. Due to the sudden nature of these changes, Native Americans were unable to adapt in time to the growing changes.
At the start of the book, Fixico introduces the House Concurrent Resolution 108 of 1953, the sole policy announcing the federal policy of termination and the immediate termination of federal relationship with the Menominee and Klamath tribes. Such termination resolutions were passed on a tribe-to-tribe basis, with the final aim to terminate recognition and aid of all federally-recognized tribes. From 1953 to 1964, the U.S. government terminated its support of 109 Indian tribes. 3% of Native Americans, or 12,000 Native Americans, gave up tribal affiliation during this time. In addition, “2,500,000 acres of Native American land was protected status during these years.”2 The majority of this land was sold to the non-native US population, mostly for the profit of the federal government. This policy, in addition to aiding federal forfeiture of land, enabled the U.S. government to cease providing federal health care and education programs as well as police and fire fighting support for Indians living on reservation land. Few tribes were able to fight legal battles against the US government to keep their protected status due to a lack of funding and a limited understanding of the technicalities of US law. The tribes initially considered for termination were the tribes considered most prosperous in the United States, while others were chosen because of the natural resources present on their tribal lands.
To justify federal termination, the United States Senate commissioned a survey in 1943 to study Indian living conditions. The survey indicated that the average living condition on reservations was extremely poor, holding the Bureau of Indian Affairs responsible for the troubling problems due to negligence and mismanagement. Congress concluded from this study that some tribes would be better off with more independence, rather than having to depend on the poorly run and supervised Bureau of Indian Affairs for support. It also believed that the tribes should integrate with mainstream American society and be subject to the same laws, regulations, and taxes that the American public had to abide by. Indian termination also centered on the focus of repealing discriminatory laws against Indians, ending federal control over Indians, and freeing the Indians from the grips of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah compared the Termination with the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that it “freed the Indians as the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the Confederate States of America.”3 While these rulings were guided to make the Native Americans equal in both the legal and the public eyes, they also came with unforeseeable consequences at the time of passing as Fixico describes later in his book.
Fixico then describes the various legislations the U.S. government passed and the effects of such laws on Native Americans. He first elaborates on the House Concurrent Resolution 108, announcing the immediate termination of the Flathead, Klamath, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa, as well as of all tribes in the states of California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Termination ended federal aid, services, and protection to these tribes, and it also called for the Interior Department to find more tribes that appeared ready for termination. Passed in 1953, Public Law 280 gave state governments the power to assume jurisdiction over Indian reservations, which had previously been excluded from state control. The declaration also allowed any state to assume jurisdiction over Indian lands simply by passing a statute or adding an amendment to the state constitution. This law infuriated the Indians because it subjected them to new laws that they previously did not have to follow and to an increased amount of control by the federal government. In 1954, Congress passed the Menominee Termination Act, which ended the federal recognition of the Menominee tribe of Wisconsin. This act stood out from the rest because it did not terminate Menominee hunting and fishing rights. Refusing to accept complete termination, the tribe was able to appeal to the Supreme Court in the 1968 case Menominee Tribe v. United States, with the jury ruling that the Menominee were still entitled to their traditional hunting and fishing rights free of state control. It also ruled that their initial treaty rights and announcing that their federal existence had not been abrogated. The proceedings of the court case showed that while “the abrogation of federal treaties is legal, Congressional intent to abrogate these treaties cannot be inferred.4 Unless the treaty rights were specifically removed by Congress, the treaty rights remained in effect whether the tribe was terminated or not. In addition, in the Klamath Termination Act of 1954, issues arose when individual Klamath Indians struggled to preserve treaty hunting and fishing rights. Five Klamath Indians who had withdrawn from the tribe after Public Law 587 terminated their federal existence as part of the tribe, claiming that they still maintained fishing and hunting rights guaranteed to them in the Treaty of October 16th, 1854. After being denied their rights in court, they appealed to the U.S. District Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit which ruled that, since the Klamath Termination Act did not specifically abrogate Klamath hunting and fishing rights, these rights remained. It also stipulated that no state could deprive an Indian tribe of hunting and fishing rights guaranteed to them by federal treaty. While these rulings played an essential role in preserving the rights of the tribes who brought the Public Laws to court, they were inconsequential in the widespread institution of Indian termination as a whole, due to the case-by-case basis of the court and the lack of any cases that were judged with prejudice.
In the final section of the book, Fixico describes the major legislative figures who were involved in the Indian Termination Act. Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, Assistant Interior Secretary Orme Lewis, as well as Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons played major roles by lobbying for congressional termination statutes to advance the progress of Indian termination. Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah was the chief proponent of continuing Indian termination. Watkins had very few real relationships with Native Americans, basing his main ideas mostly on cognitive reasoning rather than firsthand experience. It was not until 1954 that Watkins had his first hearing with the Native American people. When Arthur Watkins traveled to the Menominee reservation to get the tribe’s consent for termination, “the tribe members believed that they had no choice but to accept, and voted in overwhelming consent.”5 Due to his persuasive ability and his failure to mention caveats of termination to the Indian tribe, the Menominees were unable to form an unbiased perspective of their respective termination, leading to a lack of a proper schooling, economy, and health care when the tribe was terminated.
Fixico believes that Indian termination and relocation took place too rapidly, resulting in tribes having little time and/or resources to adjust to federal changes. He cites that in 1972, after federal termination of the Menominee tribe in 1954, “there was a 75% drop out rate [from school] in the Menominee Tribe, resulting in a generation of Menominee children who had only a ninth grade education.”6 Because of the snap-of-the-fingers approach the federal government took to termination, federal aid shut off much too quickly rather than tapering down, forcing the tribes into adopting a much more rudimentary public service systems until they could recover to federal standards again. In addition, federal withdrawing from state health care caused many tribes to have lost access to proper hospitals and clinics. The Menominee people had no tribal hospitals, and the tribal hospital of Keshena was forced to close because it did not adhere to state standards, leaving the Indians with no health care whatsoever. This proved devastating in the tuberculosis epidemic, which resulted in 25% of people having no means to get treatment.
Fixico’s bias plays from his belief that the U.S. government, with Watkins specifically, did not specifically question the Indians about what they thought of the policy before Indian Termination was instated. As a teacher of Native American history, he harbors respect for the tribes and is more critical of the policies that hurt the natives. While in hindsight the actions of the Federal Government in terminating Indian relations seem foolish, actions at the time would have been construed from a more reactionary perspective without being able to see all the possible flaws of the termination policy. “The Natives were forced to accept a policy of termination and were given a biased view that claimed the termination would come with few downsides,” states Fixico.7
The professional reviews of this book by reviewers are widely varied due to not only a lack of prominent literature in the subject of Indian termination and relocation but also a lack of many reviews from a multitude of different perspectives. On one hand, one reviewer by the name of Cortez claims that Fixico rightly took the side of the Indians by showing how the federal government tried to integrate the Indian population with mainstream America, it instead caused great rifts of dissonance between its theory and the implementation. Because of this lack of understanding of the effects of its actions, the U.S. government caused the Native Americans to suffer in the fields of education, health care, and economy. In just economy, he claims, unemployment rose from 18% to 28% in the Menominee tribe, resulting from the tribe’s mill becoming a public business, and caused 80% of the tribe’s population to fall below the poverty line. On the other hand, reviewer Andrew Chance claims that “while Professor Fixico rightfully denounces the U.S. government policy of tribal termination during the 1950s, his treatment of the government’s relocation program was misguided.”8 He claims that the relocation program, officially known as the Employment Assistance Program, was implemented because there was an extremely high unemployment rate on most reservations and within Native American communities. Even with the advent of tribal community colleges on reservation, educational and employment opportunities were limited. The trend of Native Americans leaving tribal land stems from the presence of greater economic opportunity elsewhere, rather than from the faults of the U.S. government. Much of the limited industry developed on reservations has been due to tribal contracting with the U.S. Defense Department for the manufacture of military equipment. Within the context of developments over the past few decades, any efforts to demonize the U.S. government’s relocation policies of the 1950s and the 1960s only distort history.
This book plays an accurate role in assessing the faults of Indian termination and relocation from the Indian standpoint. It demonstrates how the rapid removal of federal goods and services only resulted in further impoverishing the Native Americans, as the services offered were core to their modern way of life. This negligence by the federal government resulted in a multitude of Indian deaths due to improper health care as well as a lack of proper education for Native Americans. Because Senator Watkins distanced himself from the Native Americans, “he was unable to comprehend the true effects of his measures for Indian termination,” and was unable to foresee future complications and problems.”9 This proved true in his claim to Native Americans that termination would not come with any foreseeable negative consequences. Instead of spending more time first-handedly evaluating the possible effects of termination, he and his negligence only served to further impoverish the Native Americans than they would have been if they had just stayed under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This consequence teaches the importance of joining with the common people in implementing public policy, rather than blindly implementing laws that, while from a politician’s perspective, sound righteous, but in the eyes of the common people, are misguided. Fixico’s critical analysis of the actions of the federal government in this time period prove well-founded as a better understanding of the Indian people, leading to a more effective termination policy for both the United States government as well as the Native American people.
As a whole, the period of the 1950s represented a surge of classical liberalism, with the federal government pushing towards the ideals of the American populace - that every man should have the equal opportunity to work to improve his life and to sustain himself. The Indian Termination policy followed this liberal perspective by stating that Native Americans were fully fledged American citizens, and because of that, they were also subject to the laws of the United States. This classical liberal ideology aligns more with the libertarian perspective of modern times than with the modern liberal perspective based on the precautionary principle. Fixico states that while this classical liberal perspective was founded in good thought, it was misguided because the consequences were never considered. Because of the sudden withdrawal of federal services, many Indians were unable to find proper health care in the tuberculosis epidemic as well as a “lack of formal education when publicly funded schools were no longer made available.”10
The main problems of Indian termination and relocation stem not from the methods themselves, but rather from how quickly the plans were executed as it left no room for the Indians to adjust and get ready to life without federal aid. This disillusionment with the effects of such actions caused “great consequences in Native American culture and wellbeing.”11 Because of the sudden federal policy, Native Americans were left without proper healthcare, schooling, and a good economy. As a result, Native Americans were left to fend for themselves as the government would not only restrict federal aid but also close down their own tribal clinics and schools when they failed to meet federal standards.
Footnotes:
1. Fixico, Donald. Termination and Relocation: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. 71
2. Fixico, Donald. 43
3. Fixico, Donald. 97
4. Fixico, Donald. 142
5. Fixico, Donald. 221
6. Fixico, Donald. 157
7. Fixico, Donald. 98
8. Chance, Andrew. Termination and Relocation: Amazon.
9. Fixico, Donald.117
10. Fixico, Donald.78
11. Fixico, Donald. 153