Civil Rights

1
Civil Rights

• POSC 121
• Braunwarth

2
Civil Rights

• Equal treatment by government of all citizens,
  and guarantees of equal citizenship for all
  Americans.
• Do you believe women have complete equality in
  society and in the workplace?
• African-Americans?
• Homosexuals?
• The struggle for Civil Rights is an ongoing
  struggle

3
Development of Civil Rights

• Lofty Ideals
• Declaration of independence all men created
  equal
• But early Failures
• Constitution failed to reform slavery

4
Reform laws came into line with our ideals

• The 'Civil War Amendments'
• 13th Outlawed Slavery
• The 15th Extended voting rights to the former
  slaves and all citizens
• What was the state of Civil Rights following the
  Civil War?
• Segregation, Jim Crow Laws, Denied the right to
  vote, etc.
• Plessey v. Ferguson (1896), can be separate as
  long as equal
• De Jure Segregation

5
Civil Rights Movement

• 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
• MLK using non-violent civil disobedience
• Influenced by Thoreau and Gandhi
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• No more segregation and discrimination
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• armed 15th amendment with real teeth

6
MLK Letters from the Birmingham City Jail

• Tradeoff between freedom and order
• Why Civil Disobedience, direct action, tension?
• Why not other forms of democratic participation?
• Why not violence?
• How does MLK justify breaking the laws of
  society?
• What about the moderate who prefers order to
  social tension?

7
Civil Rights Movement

• These laws were bitterly opposed
• outraged Southern Representatives
• Delayed by Filibusters
• Only passed because goals were clear

8
The Breadth and Depth of Equality

• Consider the civil rights or womens movements
• What changes and advances have resulted from
  these movements?
• Are these significant strides?
• Certainly, but the fight is not over yet

9
The Breadth and Depth of Equality

• What about the cultural backlash against
  affirmative action and feminism?
• Does this reveal the intractability of racial and
  sexual discrimination?
• These are continuing struggles

10
Civil Rights in Practice

• White flight to the suburbs
• Escape Busing laws designed to end school
  segregation
• encouraged by realtors and mortgage lenders
• De Facto Segregation
• Achieved in Practice what could not do legally
• We have, to a large degree, segregated ourselves

11
Contemporary Effects

• Disenfranchised inner cities
• Flight to suburbs was motivated by both race and
  class
• When middle and upper class left, they took their
  businesses with them
• Few Economic opportunities remain
• Especially in post-industrial global economy
• Individual choices occur in a context

12
U.S. Per Capita Income, by Race and Ethnicity
13
Structure of Society

• Differences are not simply a matter of individual
  choice but are affected by the structure of the
  system
• But it is very difficult to discuss larger social
  forces in our individualistic society
• Does not mean that these larger social forces do
  not exist or do not impinge upon individuals.

14
Contemporary Effects

• Exacerbated by War on Drugs which
  disproportionately punishes ghetto drugs
• What group in society uses illegal drugs at the
  highest rate (statistically)?
• Upper-middle-class White Males
• What group is more likely imprisoned?
• More Black males aged 18-28 in prison than in
  college

15
The Obama Presidency

• The election of Barak Obama has led to a marked
  improvement in the attitudes of many regarding
  race relations in the U.S.

16
Women in the workplace (thing 4)

• How has the relatively high price of labor
  relative to things affected the role of women in
  the workplace?
• To the extent the price of labor falls, how will
  this affect women positively and negatively?