Author Archives: Kate Fleischer

Fighting for Educational Equality through Law

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After reading the article Educational Inequalities Must Go! and the short film by Charles Houston, I find it interesting that in both accounts Houston uses the laws and constitution of the U.S. to show how much the American government on a local level, is ignoring its own laws and policies. The article in particular presents a new plan put on by the NAACP to figure out a way that can help to eliminate all inequalities for education of whites and blacks.

One of my critiques of the article is that it seems to be focusing on higher education as it mentions the two cases of black students and their admittance into graduate school. My only problem with this is that for these two students to make it to the graduate level, they must have been privileged in order to make it that far in their schooling. As shown in Sullivan’s book, Houston was interested in educating other black men to become lawyers. However, in order to raise the standards of education across the board, I believe it to be necessary to work at the local levels in elementary schools in order for all children to have an equal education. Houston certainly mentions this method as well in his articles and short film, but I think more could have been done right away with policy changes.

The plan that Houston and the N.A.A.C.P. laid out to equalize education was one that we have not seen a great deal of in our studies so far in this class. That is they sought to “insist that the U.S. respect its own Constitution and its own laws” (The Crisis). At a time when African-Americans were placed into categories based on their looks, this was an excellent way in which they could have legitimacy in the American legal system. There could not be any denial of the law and this was a beneficial method for the N.A.A.C.P. in order to reach their goal of educational equality.

Here are a few questions I have:

1. In what ways are W.E.B. DuBois and Houston’s goals relatable to one another?

2. Based on our discussions in class, what other ways could the N.A.A.C.P. and Houston approached educational inequality in America?

-Kate Fleischer

Does organization stifle a social movement?

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After reading Chapter 2 of David Meyer’s Politics of Protest, I found the five-step cycle of protests a unique way to look at previous social movements. In Molly’s post, she talks about how Occupy Wall Street could fit into this theory. I agree with her analysis, however to branch off of her idea, I have to disagree with the notion that OWS is an organization. After reading some of the articles from publications such as Vanity Fair and Time, what has been going on with OWS is more of a movement, than an organization. According to Meyer, “social movements are episodic” whereas the issues they deal with are much more persistent (23). This spontaneity that allowed for the OWS movement to begin and keep holding on without much organization shows that there are underlying, persistent issues of capitalism and a divide in social classes in the United States, and citizens are ready to take action.

One idea that I found interesting was what organizing would do for a social movement. In an October 2011 article by David Meyer, he talks about the Tea Party and how Occupy Wall Street could learn from that organization and use what they have done to help their own movement. (Read the article here) Although OWS is still young, there needs to be some organization within the movement in order for it to be successful. I don’t entirely agree with Meyer’s statement that social movements are episodic and the issues are persistent. In order for a movement to be successful and push the ideas to make a change, there needs to be organization within the episode of the movement to make a change.

In the beginning of the movement, protests were necessary to show solidarity within the nation and within the movement. However, now that the movement has been around for several months, it needs to move into the next stages of development: organization. Many involved directly with OWS say that they like that there is not a formal leadership aspect to the movement. Is there a way to have organization and demands of the protesters being met, without formal or hierarchical leadership?