Graduate Center
City University of New York
Graduate History Program
Professor Clarence Taylor
History 75900-From Civil Rights to Black Power
Monday, 6:30:15-8:30 p.m. 3 credits
Required Texts: Aldon Morris, Origins of the Civil Rights Movement; Charles Payne, I’ve
got the Light of Freedom; Danielle McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black
Women, Rape, and Resistance_ A New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa
Parks to the Rise of Black Power; Duziak, Cold War Civil Rights; Biondi, Stand Up and
Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City; Podair, The Strike that
Changed New York: Blacks, Whites and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis; Clarence
Lang, Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics & Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis,
Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the
Mid-Twentieth-Century South;; Lucander, Winning the War for Democracy: The March
on Washington Movement, 1941-1946; Clarence Taylor, Reds at the Blackboard:
Communism, Civil Rights and the New York Teachers Union; Tim Tyson, Radio Free
Dixie; Lauren Azaria To March With Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the
United Farmworkers; Sonia Song-Ha Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement:
Puerto Ricans, African Americans and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City;
Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long?: African-American Women in the Struggle for
Civil Rights; Donna Murch, Living for the City: Migration, Education and the Rise of the
Black Panther Party
Course Description
The modern civil rights movement is the most important social protest movement of the
twentieth century. The movement helped cultivate national leaders such as Martin Luther
King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Fannie Lou Hamer. It was responsible for eradicating the
American Apartheid system known as Jim Crow and it was the major reason for the
passage of some of the most important laws in twentieth century America, including the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While prominent figures
were important in shaping the civil rights struggles, the movement was also influenced by
countless numbers of ordinary men and women who participated in civil rights
campaigns throughout the nation, many whose names shall never be recorded in history
books. Although some historians and others date the movement’s origin to the 1954
Brown decision, more recently, scholars in several disciplines contend that the civil rights
struggle began much earlier. More recently scholars have been examining black and
brown coalitions in the struggle for social and economic rights.
By the mid 1960s, the goals of the civil rights movement, including a fully integrated
society were questioned by several national and grassroots leaders and activists who
contended that empowering people of African origins in America should be the
paramount objective of the black freedom struggle. On college campuses, among sports
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figures, politicians, theologians, business owners, and union members, Black Power
became the major objective. This course examines the origins and the impact that the
Civil Rights and Black Power movements had on American society. The course
scrutinizes several theoretical explanations of these movements and the assigned books
and articles focus on the ongoing debate among scholars over periodization, geography,
conceptualization, and leadership of civil rights and Black Power movements in America.
Assignments;
Feb. 1
Introduction
September 6, Labor Day, No Class
Feb. 8
The discussion will focus on the historiography on the Civil Rights movement and the
debate among scholars over the “long civil rights movement”
Required Reading:
Lawson, “Freedom Then, Freedom Now: The Historiography of the Civil Rights
Movement in American Historical Review 96 (April 1991), pp. 456-71; Jacqueline Dowd
Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement” Journal of American History, Vo. 91, No. 4,
March 2004; Eric Arnesen, Reconsidering the Long Civil Rights Movement, Historically
Speaking, Vol. 10, No. 2, April 2009, p. 31-34; Sundiata Keita Cha Jua and Clarence
Lang, The Long Movement as Vampire: Temporal and Spatial Fallacies in Recent Black
Freedom Studies, Journal of African American History Vol. 92, No. 2, 2007, pp. 265288;
Suggested Readings:
Lawson, Payne, and Patterson, Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968
Introduction, in Taylor ed., Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the
Giuliani Era.
No Class Fe. 15
Feb. 22
We will begin examine the various theories of social protest movements by focusing on
resource mobilization Theory
Required Reading:
Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
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Suggested Readings: McAdam, Political Process and Black Insurgency; Garrow, Protest
at Selma, Cloward and Piven, Poor People’s Movements; Lawson and Payne, Debating
the Civil Rights Movement; Laue, Direct Action and Desegregation, 1960-1962: Toward
a Theory of the Rationalization of Protest; Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The
Second Reconstruction in Black America
Feb. 29
By the 1980s civil rights scholars turned their attention to local struggles as a means of
understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Local Protest struggles. This week we will
examine the most studied civil rights campaign in the 1960s and one of the most
important works on the Mississippi Freedom Struggle.
Required Reading: Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and
the Mississippi Freedom Struggle
Suggested Readings: Ditmer, Local People; Fairclough, Race & Democracy: The Civil
rights Struggle in Louisiana; Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National
Movement in the Civil Rights Struggle; Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil
Rights Movement in Tuskegee; Thornton, Dividing Lives: Municipal Politics and the
Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham and Selma; McWhorter, Carry Me
Home: Birmingham, Alabama
March 7
Recently, there have been a number of books and articles examining women in the civil
Rights Movement. Belinda Robnett’s book offers a model for studying grassroots
leadership. Danielle McGuire argues that black women launched the civil rights
movement.
Required Reading, McGuire, At the Dark Side of the Street; Robnett, How Long, How
Long
Suggested Readings: Jeanne Theoharis, Rosa Parks, A Rebellious Life; Crawford, Women
in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazer and Torchbearers; Evans, Personal Politics:
The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement & the New Left; Allen,
Black Women Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement; Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black
Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision; Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The
Life of Fannie Lou Hamer; Collier-Thomas and Franklin, Sisters in the Struggle: African
American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement
March 14
The most recent scholarship of the civil rights movement has placed that movement in a
transnational context. Mary Duziak is the leading figure in the transnationalizing of a
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movement that has been too long seen only in a national context. This week we will
examine Duziak’s Cold War Civil Rights thesis.
Required Reading, Duziak, Cold War Civil Rights; Hart, “Making Democracy Safe for
the World: Race, Propaganda and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy during
World War II in Pacific Historical Review 73:1 Fall, 2004;
Suggested Reading:Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism; Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the
Cold War; Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color line
March 21
Robert Korstad’s Civil Rights Unionism places a labor struggle in the South into a civil
rights context. Turning his attention to black tobacco workers and their struggle with the
Reynolds Tobacco Company in the 1940s, Korstad notes the pivotal role of the
Communist Party. Taylor turns to the Communist Teachers Union arguing that the TU
forged a form of social unionism and a civil rights agenda. We will also discuss the
debate among historians over the role of the Communist Party during World War II. Eric
Arnesen’s “No ‘Graver Danger’: Black Anticommunism, the Communist Party, and the
Race Question,” is a strong critic of recent “revisionist” literature on Communism and
civil rights Manfred Berg, Black Civil Rights and Liberal Anti-Communism: The
NAACP in the Early Cold War, The Journal of American History, June 2007, pp. 75-96.
.
Required Reading: Kortstad, Civil Rights Unionism
Suggested Readings: Kelley, Hammer and Hoe,: Alabama Communists during the
Depression; Storch, Red Chicago; Arnesen, “No ‘Graver Danger’: Black
Anticommunism, the Communist Party, and the Race Question,” Labor Studies in
Working-Class History of the Americas, Volume 3, Issue 4, 2006; Biondi, “Response to
Eric Arnesen,” Labor Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Volume 3, Issue
4, 2006, Arnesen, “The Red and the Black: Reflections on the Responses to No Graver
Danger,” Labor Studies in Working Class History of the Americas, Volume 3, Issue 4,
2006. Solomon, The Cry was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936;
Naison, Communists in Harlem During the Depression; Isserman, Which Side Were You
On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War; Mullen, Popular
Fronts: Chicago and African-American Cultural Politics, 1935-46
March 28
One of the major flaws of the civil rights literature is most of the books, articles,
commercials and documentary films, and commemorative celebrations examine the
South. Recently, historians have challenged the southern paradigm. This week we will
examine the battle for civil rights in New York City.
Required Reading: Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar
New York City
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Suggested Readings: Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the
Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools; Ralph, Northern Protest: Martin Luther
King Jr., Chicago and the Civil Rights Movement; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty;
Taylor, Civil Rights in New York City: From World War II to the Giuliani Era
April 4
David Lucander’s Winning the War for Democracy is part of the new focus on A. Philip
Randolph. Lucander’s focus is on the March on Washington Movement and how it
attempted to carve out a place in the early civil rights struggle.
Required Reading:
Lucander’s Winning the War for Democracy
Suggested Readings: Self, American Babylon; Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis;
Taylor, “Conservative and Liberal Opposition to the New York City School-Integration
Campaign, in Taylor, Civil rights in New York City; ; Gilman, Death Blow to
Democracy
April 11
Until recently, too many works on urban black communities have not examined the deep
class divisions or the leading role the working class played in shaping the black freedom
struggle. Historian Clarence Lang argues that it was the black working class agenda that
was prominent in St. Louis’ black freedom movement from the Depression to the 1970s.
Required Reading:
Lang, Grassroots at the Gateway
Suggested Readings:
Kelly, Race, Class and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-21; Bloom, Class, Race
and the Civil Rights Movement: The Changing Political Economy of Southern Racism
Honey, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers
April 18
The Black Power Movement
Recently there have been a number of books examining the Black Power movement of
the late 1960s and 1970s. Similarly to civil rights literature, black power scholars argue
over periodization, geography, conceptualization and meaning of the movement. t
Tim Tyson’s widely acclaimed book, Radio Free Dixie: Robert Williams and the Roots of
Black Power challenges works that argue that black power was the complete antithesis of
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the civil rights movement. Instead, Tyson contends that black power has its roots in the
civil rights movement, and had similar objectives.
Required Reading Radio Free Dixie; Murch, Living for the City
Suggested Readings:
Peniel Joseph, Waiting Til the Midnight Hour; Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar; Black Power, Radical
Politics and African American Identity; Komozi Woodard, A Nation Within a Nation:
Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics; Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad:
Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; Clegg, An Original Man: The Life and Times
of Elijah Muhammad; Newton Revolutionary Suicide; Cleaver and Katsiaficas,
Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party; Pearson, The Shadow of the
Panther: Huey Newton and the Price of Black Power in America; Jones, The Panther
Party Reconsidered; Horne, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s;
Carmichael and Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation; Joseph, ed., The
Black Power Movement; William Van Derburg, New Day in Babylon
April 25 Spring Break
May 2
The latest literature on civil rights examines the forging of black and brown coalitions for
civil rights. These works usually explore alliances between blacks and Latinos.
May 9
Required Reading: Lee, Building a Latino Civil Rights Movement
Suggested Readings: Cynthia Orazaco, No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed The Rise
of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement:
One black and brown coalition that is receiving some attention is the one between
Mexican farmworkers and African Americans. These works intertwine race and class
Lauren Azaria’s To March for Others details how the major civil rights organizations
worked with the United Farm Workers to build a social justice movement.
Required Reading: Azaria, To March for Others
Suggested Readings: Brian Behnken, The Struggle in Black and Brown: African
Americans and Mexican Americans during the Civil Rights Era; Gordon Mantler, Power
to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice
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May 16
The most heated battles in the fight for racial equality in the late 1960s and early 1970s
involved public schools. Recently a number of scholars argue that Black Power
advocates’ struggle for community control led to the deterioration between teachers and
the black community and Jews and black activists. While Podair argues that a clash of
cultures was at the heart of the school crisis in 1968, Taylor turns to an earlier period to
explain the confrontation of 1968 and the present crisis in public education.
Required Reading: Podair, The Strike That Changed New York, Taylor, Reds at the
Blackboard
Suggested Readings:
Dana Goldstein, Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession; John
Perrillo, Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and Race in the Battle for School Equity;
Steven Golin, The Newark Teachers Strike; Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal; Al Shanker and
the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy
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