Was the Civil Rights Movement Successful? Tracking and Understanding Black Views

When and how do movements influence policy change? We examine the dynamics leading up to Kennedy's decision to pursue major civil rights legislation in 1963. This marked a key turning point in shifting the executive branch from a timid and gradualist approach. Although it is widely taken for granted that the civil rights movement propelled this shift, how the movement mattered is less clear. While most protest targeted local economic actors, movement influence was exerted at the national level on political actors. Thus, movement influence was indirect. We focus on the relationship between local movement efforts to desegregate public accommodations (restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, etc.) and federal responses to movement demands. Although exchanges between movement actors and the federal government took place throughout the period, the logic of federal response evolved as political actors sought strategies to minimize racial conflict. Specifically, the Kennedy administration shifted to a dual strategy. First, the Department of Justice attempted to promote "voluntary" desegregation by working with executives of national companies and civic groups. Second, administration officials worked with these same groups to build support for major legislation among key interest groups. This shift toward a more assertive and proactive intervention in civil rights stands in contrast to the pessimism regarding the prospects for federal policy only a few months earlier. We examine the logic of this response including the impact of civil rights protest on the administration's policy proposals. 4

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article is part of a special issue entitled “Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1960s Civil Rights Laws.” Other authors include Bonastia (), C. Lee (), Massey (), McAdam (), Pettit and Sykes (), Santoro (), Valdez (), and Whitlinger ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Protest and Federal Policy: The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement on the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Andrews¹,

Gaby²

2015

“…It worked. Nixon carried every Southern state in 1972. Reagan's two‐term presidency moved the party even further to the right on racial and economic matters and extended the regional realignment of American politics to Congress as well as the White House (Santoro ; Valdez ). The completion of this realignment came in the midterm elections of 1994, when for the first time in history, the majority of Southern House seats were claimed by the GOP. The rise of a disproportionately Southern, racially inflected Tea Party movement and its growing influence within the GOP only highlights and strengthens the party's increasingly narrow racial and geographic base.…”

Section: White Resistance Spreads Northwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article is part of a special issue entitled “Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1960s Civil Rights Laws.” Other authors include Andrews and Gaby (), Bonastia (), Lee (), Massey (), Pettit and Sykes (), Santoro (), Valdez (), and Whitlinger ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Be Careful What You Wish For: The Ironic Connection Between the Civil Rights Struggle and Today's Divided America

McAdam

2015

The deep political and economic divisions that characterize the contemporary United States have been the subject of much discussion and analysis. However, most of the accounts of these divisions have tended to emphasize relatively recent events or trends, such as the Tea Party movement or the extreme partisanship that has marked the last three presidential administrations (e.g., Obama, George Bush Jr., Clinton). The origins of today's divisions, however, have much older roots. They date to the heyday of the Civil Rights struggle and ironically to the seminal achievements of the movement. More accurately, it is the story of not one, but two parallel movements, the revitalized civil rights movement of the early to mid‐1960s and the powerful segregationist countermovement, that quickly developed in response to the African‐American freedom struggle. The argument is that over the course of the decade of the 1960s, these two linked struggles decisively altered the partisan geography of the United States, and in the process pushed the national Democratic and Republican parties sharply to the left and right, respectively, undermining the centrist policy convergence of the postwar period and setting the parties on the divisive course they remain on today.

“…Other authors include Andrews and Gaby (), Bonastia (), Lee (2015), Massey (), McAdam (), Pettit and Sykes (), Santoro (), Valdez (), and Whitlinger ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Civil Rights Laws

Lee

2015