History 6000-A90 Dr. D. Goldfield
Fall 2004
Civil Rights Era
The purpose of this seminar is twofold: to introduce the student to the literature of the civil rights era, and to write a research paper based on primary materials. The expectation is that the finished written project could be publishable and could result in a chapter in an M.A. thesis. The format of the class will follow the seminar style of introductory remarks by the instructor and a discussion of key questions and issues based on those remarks and the readings for that particular week. Selected students will present oral book reviews, and we will discuss those readings as well (see below for book review guidelines).
Text: David R. Goldfield, Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture (1990).
The text is designed to provide the student with an overview of the civil rights era. This background is essential for our discussions and provides context for our additional readings and research for the term project.
I. Years of Promise, 1940-1954, Aug. 23-Sept. 13
A. Judicial attacks on segregation
B. The high tide of Southern white liberalism
C. Federal policy during World War II
D. Truman, civil rights, and Dixiecrats
E. The new southern leadership
Readings: Goldfield, Chapters I-III
Oral Book Reviews begin, Aug. 30
First Written Book Review Due, Sept. 13
Presentation: “Library Research Aids and Sources,” Lois Stackell, Aug. 30
II. The Rise of Massive Resistance, 1954-1960, Sept. 20-Oct. 18
A. The Brown decision
B. Montgomery bus boycott and Martin Luther King, Jr.
C. Little Rock
D. The “Savage Ideal” and the end of liberalism
E. White Citizens’ Councils and subtle forms of resistance
F. The Virginia Plan as the Southern way
Readings: Goldfield, Chapters IV-V
Second Written Book Review Due, Oct. 4
Oral History Workshop, Sept. 20
Writing a Research Paper, a workshop, Oct. 25
A. Format
B. Style
C. Citations
D. Literary quality
E. Sources on the Internet
III. Days in the Sun, 1960-1965, Nov. 1-22
A. Greensboro
B. The schoolhouse doors
C. The crumbling of massive resistance
D. Federal legislation
E. Selma
Readings: Goldfield, Chapters VI-VII
Third Written Book Review Due, Nov. 1
Fourth Written Book Review Due, Nov. 22
IV. Promises on Hold, 1965 and after, Nov. 29 – Dec. 6
A. Divisions in black leadership
B. The search for issues
C. The return of white resistance
D. Charlotte
E. Black political power
F. Southern strategies
G. What remains to be done
Readings: Goldfield, Chapters VIII-XI
Discussion of Term Projects, Dec. 6
This reading list supplements the bibliography in Black, White, and Southern. The Roman numerals correspond to the topics covered in the first two pages of this syllabus. You may select your books review from the bibliography and/or this supplementary list.
I. Years of Promise, 1940-1954
Ronald H. Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta (1996).
Dominic J. Capeci Jr. The Lynching of Cleo Wright (1998).
Charles D. Chamberlain, Victory at Home: Manpower and Race in the American South during World War II (2003).
John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (1994).
Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (1996).
Dewey W. Grantham, The South in Modern America: A Region at Odds (1994).
Thomas Hanchett, Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975 (1998).
Harold P. Henderson, The Politics of Change in Georgia: A Political Biography of Ellis Arnall (1991).
John P. Jackson, Jr., Social Scientists for Social Justice: Making the Case Against Segregation (2001).
McKay Jenkins, The South in Black and White: Race, Sex, and Literature in the 1940s (1999).
Abraham Leidholdt, Editor for Justice: The Lfie of Louis I. Jaffe (2002).
Earl Lewis, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class, and Power in Twentieth-Century Norfolk, Virginia (1991).
Spencie Love, One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (1996).
Raymond A. Mohl, South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945-1960 (2004).
Ted Ownby, ed., The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights South (2002).
Linda Reed, Simple Decency and Common Sense: The Southern Conference Movement, 1938-1963 (1991).
Louis D. Rubin, Jr., My Father’s People: A Family of Southern Jews (2002).
Stephanie J. Shaw, What a Woman Ought to be and to do: Black Professional Women Workers during the Jim Crow Era (1996).
Richard B. Sherman, The Case of Odell Waller and Virginia Justice, 1940-1942 (1992).
Mark V. Tushnet, Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (1994).
II. The Rise of Massive Resistance, 1954-1960
Bruce Adelson, Brushing Back Jim Crow: The Integration of Minor-League Baseball in the American South (1999).
Sarah Hart Brown, Standing Against Dragons: Three Southern Lawyers in an Era of Fear (1998).
Will D. Campbell, The Stem of Jesse: The Costs of Community at a 1960s Southern School (1995).
Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (1995).
Donald E. Collins, When the Church Bell Rang Racist: The Methodist Church and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama (1998).
Alan Draper, Conflict of Interests: Organized Labor and the Civil Rights Movement in the South (1994).
Melissa Fay Freene, The Temple Bombing (1996).
Fred Hobson, But Now I See: The White Southern Racial Conversion Narrative (1999).
Sara Alderman Murphy, Breaking the Silence: Little Rock’s Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools, 1958-1963 (1997).
J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (2002).
Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (1998).
Mark Whitman, The Irony of Desegregation Law (1998).
III. Days in the Sun, 1960-1965
Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (2001).
Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988).
Clarice T. Campbell, Civil Rights Chronicle: Letters from the South (1997).
Guy Carawan and Candie Carawan, eds., Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through its Songs (1990).
Osha Gray Davidson, The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South (1996).
John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (1994).
Alan Draper, Conflict of Interests: Organized Labor and the Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1954-1968 (1994).
Glenn T. Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (1997).
Cynthia Griggs Fleming, Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson (1998).
Michael B. Friedland, Lift Up Your Voice Like a Trumpet: White Clergy and the Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements, 1954-1973 (1998).
Merrill M. Hawkins Jr., Will Campbell: Radical Prophet of the South (1997).
John Lewis, Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998).
Richard Lischer, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Word That Moved America (1995).
Andrew M. Manis, A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (1999).
Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001).
Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (1993).
Mark Newman, Getting Right with God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation, 1945-1995 (2001).
Lynn Olson, Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1870 (2001).
Gary M. Pomerantz, Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: The Saga of Two Families and the Making of Atlanta (1996).
Glenda Alice Rabby, The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida (1999).
Leonard Rogoff, Homelands: Southern Jewish Identity in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina (2001).
Clive Webb, Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights (2001).
IV. Promises on Hold, 1965 and after
David J. Armor, Forced Justice: School Desegregation and the Law (1995).
Numan V. Bartley, The New South, 1945-1980 (1995).
Herman Belz, Equality Transformed: A Quarter-Century of Affirmative Action (1991).
Earl and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (2002).
Dan T. Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994 (1996).
Stephen L. Carter, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991).
David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (1994).
Colin Crawford, Uproar at Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling Over Race, Class, and the Environment (1996).
Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman, eds., Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990 (1994).
Tom Dent, Southern Journey: A Return to the Civil Rights Movement (1997).
Davison M. Douglas, Reading, Writing & Race: The Desegregation of Charlotte Schools (1995).
Guillermo J. Grenier and Alex Stepick III, ed., Miami Now! Immigration, Ethnicity, and Social Change (1992).
Elizabeth Higginbotham, Too Much to Ask: Black Women in the Era of Integration (2001).
Carl L. Kell and L. Raymond Camp, In the Name of the Father: The Rhetoric of the New Southern Baptist Convention (1999).
J. Morgan Kousser, Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction (1999).
Lawrence N. Powell, Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana (2000).
Robert A. Pratt, The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia, 1954-1989 (1992).
Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston (2001).
Carol Stack, Call to Home: African-Americans Reclaim the Rural South (1996).
Anthony Walton, Mississippi: An American Journey (1996).
Amy Stuart Wells and Robert L. Crain, Stopping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools (1997).
Frederick M. Wirt, “We Ain’t What We Was”: Civil Rights in the New South (1997).
Raymond Wolters, Right Turn: William Bradford Reynolds, the Reagan Administration, and Black Civil Rights (1996).
Written Book Reviews
A purpose of the seminar is to familiarize the student with the key literature in the field. Accordingly, each student will read six books taken from either the list in this syllabus or from the bibliography in the text. Each student will be responsible for four written book reviews. The reviews, from three to five double-spaced typewritten pages, will include a clear statement of the author's thesis, a summary of the book, and an evaluation. The evaluation portion of the review will be informed by book reviews consulted by the student in the appropriate historical journals, particularly the Journal of Southern History, Journal of American History, Reviews in American History, and the various state historical journals especially North Carolina and Georgia. Journals such as Choice, Library Review, or reviews in popular magazines or press (except for the New York Times) are not acceptable. The student will not only make note of these professional reviews, but engage them as well.
Each student will select one book in chronological order from each the four sections listed in the bibliography or accompanying this syllabus. In addition, students will choose two additional books from any of the sections. If a student wishes to select a book not on either list, the student must clear the choice with the instructor first.
Students will also be required to present two of their reviews orally during the course of the term. These books will not be the same books that the student has chosen for his/her written reviews.
Term Project
The main objective of this seminar is for each student to write a research paper based on primary sources. These sources include newspapers, local, state, and federal government documents, interviews conducted by the student and/or by others, personal papers, and autobiographies. Secondary material, typically published books and articles, will provide background for your topic. When you make your book review selections you should keep your term project topic in mind. The paper will be 15-25 pages in length (doubled-spaced) and will be due on Dec. 6.
The general subject areas of the paper will be the era prior to the key events of the civil rights movement (1940-1954) and the post-civil rights era (1965 to the present). Depending on which time period you select, the paper will indicate either the antecedents to civil rights or the status of race relations from the 1970s onward. Specific areas of research include: public education, religion, inter-ethnic relations, employment, health care, housing, neighborhoods, culture (both “high” and “popular”), electoral politics, race-based violence, sports (amateur and professional), and gender in North and South Carolina. You will select one of these topic areas and a town, city, or county (Charlotte and Mecklenburg included) in the two states. Once you have made these selections, I will meet with you individually to discuss how you might define and refine your topic and what possible sources you might use. You may also select a topic area not on the list I mentioned above. All topics, including those noted here, must be cleared with me in advance. Please select your topic as early in the term as possible, but no later than mid-October.
Grading
Your grade will be based primarily on written work: the three book reviews and the term project. The oral reports and class discussion will also be considered in your final grade as follows:
Class discussion: 10%
Oral book reviews: 15%
Written book reviews: 35%
Term project: 40%
Total: 100%