Author Archives: mc2cj

Fighting an Uphill Battle: Combating Discrimination in Northern Cities

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The main focus of the beginning of chapter 10 in Sullivan’s Lift Every Voice concentrates predominantly on the events leading up the the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Today I felt as if we had a great discussion on Virginia’s role in lower-court cases fighting discrimination in education and I have a feeling we’ll be fully fleshing out the Brown decision during class discussion and therefore I’m focusing this blog post on what posed the most interesting leadership/social movement questions for me while reading.

During the 1950s it became exceedingly difficult for NAACP leaders to gain momentum and excitement for their movement in the North because-at least socially-it was becoming more and more uncouth to be racist. According to Sullivan, “Many states had civil rights laws; racial segregation had few prominent defenders” (388). And yet, in Northern areas like Stuyvesant Town the government sanctioned the condemning of black neighborhoods, thus evicting nearly 75% of the black population from their homes. Sullivan says, “Tens of thousands of Negro families, regardless of their economic status may be rendered homeless in the name of urban development” (387). In the case Dorsey vs. Stuyvesant Town, the NAACP argued that the separate housing area called Riverton House (the condemned area was converted into new housing that discriminated against black residents) was unconstitutional because separate is inherently unequal. The court decided. however, that the new complex had a right to choose their tenants because it was private property (387).

At this point Walter White calls attention to the importance of the federal government’s role in housing discrimination when he says, “Where do we go from here?” (392). It was, after all, the federal government’s fault that thousands of blacks had been displaced from their homes and therefore it was the government’s responsibility to make up for the slum housing they created. White responds by working with the Public Housing Authority and other government institutions in order to ensure that blacks would have available access to not just equal housing but the same housing accessible to whites.

It seems as if the very blatant and gruesome evidence of racism in the South would make a more compelling case for blacks and other activists to become involved in NAACP activities. The main question that I have been pondering is how NAACP leaders are able to galvanize Northern blacks to fight against (not necessarily racial violence that’s seen in the South) but more institutionalized discrimination as seen in the Dorsey case where the government supported the mass eviction of blacks for their own neighborhood.

So how do you provide momentum for NAACP activism in Northern cities? Were Marshall and White justified in their decision to go through the courts as they had in Virginia leading up to the Brown decision? Or would more grassroots organization within Northern communities have been a better route for the NAACP?

Politics of Protest Chapter Two

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Chapter Two of Meyer’s book focused on the cyclical nature of social movements and the commonalities shared between various movements (as well as the ways in which movements can differ). According to Meyer, organizations have in common a grievance to an existing policy or problem, a need to respond in accordance with American law and societal standards, political (and physical) space to organize, institutions that are either unresponsive or seem unresponsive to the cause at hand, and a tendency to “go public” with an expert from the field or an insider.

The Occupy Wall Street movement fits nicely into this definition because the activists have a clear grievance: the fact that 60% of our nation’s wealth belonging to the “1%”. Protesters also are responding to this grievance without stepping out of legal bounds or causing social upheaval: activists did their research and found a NYC park in which they could protest all night rather than a public park that would have to close. The organization has attempted to seek appropriate space for protest. They have been successful at organizing online but have run into trouble with the police in NYC. Do you think that NYC police and the government are fulfilling their constitutional duties to provide sufficient space for protest? I think the argument could be made that the police are infringing on activists’ First Amendment Right (specifically freedom of assembly) when they kick-out protesters for “sanitary reasons”. I think the case could be made that governmental institutions, and especially Congress have been unresponsive to their grievances because Congress has historically favored the 1% with tax breaks. Are there any other instances in which either Congress, the President, or other governmental institutions have appeared/been unresponsive to OWS grievances? The Occupy Wall Street movement, however, does not reflect the fifth and final aspect of Meyer’s definition of social movements because OWS has avoided elevating leaders and experts in the organization. OWS has adopted a more lateral organization in order to be more democratic and therefore it would be against their nature to choose one “insider” to represent their public interest. Do you think it is possible for social movements like OWS to fit some aspects of Meyer’s definition but not all?