civil rights

Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" 

This collection of writings offers a glimpse into the minds of three N.A.A.C.P. leaders who occupied the center of black thought and action during some of the most troublesome and pivotal times of the civil rights movement. The volume delineates fifty-seven years of the N.A.A.C.P.'s program under the successive direction of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins.

From the Montgomery bus boycott to the Little Rock Nine to the Selma–Montgomery march, thousands of ordinary people who participated in the American civil rights movement; their stories are told in Eyes on the Prize. From leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., to lesser-known figures such as Barbara Rose John and Jim Zwerg, each man and woman made the decision that somethinghad to be done to stop discrimination.

By reassessing the history of the civil rights movement and examining questions and areas of research that need to be addressed by future studies, New Directions in Civil Rights Studies challenges students of the civil rights movement to broaden their vision and, at the same time, to look more closely at the people, the communities, and the networks that provide the rich texture of the movement's history.

In this monumental volume, Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer draw upon nearly one thousand interviews with civil rights activists, politicians, reporters, Justice Department officials, and hundreds of ordinary people who took part in the struggle, weaving a fascinating narrative of the civil rights movement told by the people who lived it.

While usually seen in positive terms, transnational mobilization can sometimes hurt movements as well as help them. An examination of the transnational network of organizations supporting civil rights demands in Northern Ireland between 1967 and 1972 suggests that international involvement, not only can exacerbate problems encountered by domestic coalitions, but can also introduce additional obstacles to the effective pursuit of social change.

The social movement for African-American civil rights is one of most studied and celebrated social phenomena of the twentieth century. One factor in explaining the movement's successes, however, is usually given little if any explicit attention by civil rights scholars, and has not been explained adequately. This is the impact of the Cold on domestic United States race politics, and the process through the Cold War lessened resistance to civil rights movement demands.

This study of the Mississippi civil rights movement and the War on Poverty examines the relationship between social movements and policy implementation. A "movement infrastructure" model is developed that focuses on organizational structure, resources, and leadership to account for the impact of social movements on policy implementation.

By the time Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, many employers had created maternity leave programs. Analysts argue that they did so in response to the feminization of the workforce. This study charts the spread of maternity leave policies between 1955 and 1985 in a sample of 279 organizations. Sex discrimination law played a key role in the rise of maternity leave policies. Building on neoinstitutional theory, this article explores how the separation of powers shapes employer response to law.

We argue that analyses of civil religious ideologies in civil rights contention must include the interplay of both movement and countermovement ideologies and must recognize the ways in which such discourse amplifies conflict as well as serves as a basis for unity.