Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role, Accomplishments, And Challenges Of The Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust, Ron E. Armstead

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

In 1971, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) began its seminal investigation of racism in the military. A year into the investigation, the caucus reported the military had done little, if anything, to address racism in the ranks (188 Cong. Rec., 6739-6744, 1972). The problem continued as one of the most critical issues for the CBC during the latter years of the Vietnam War (188 Cong. Rec. pp. E8674-8688).

Concurrently, in 1971, the CBC held its first annual dinner, which some 500 people attended, including the late actor Ozzie Davis. Over the years, this dinner has grown into a five-day legislative …

Blacks In Massachusetts: Comparative Demographic, Social And Economic Experiences With Whites, Latinos, And Asians, James Jennings, Barbara Lewis, Richard O’Bryant, Rachel Bernard, Linda Sprague Martinez, Russell Williams

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This report describes the social and economic, and education status of Blacks in Massachusetts, within a comparative framework with Whites, Asians, and Latino/as. A range of population, household, and economic variables are highlighted under the following categories: Population Characteristics; Families and Households; Education and Schooling; Housing; Health Characteristics; Labor Force, Occupations and Employment; and Income and Poverty. The information presented in this report is based on data from the 2010 Decennial Census; the American Community Survey 2009 – 2013 5 Year Estimates; the American Community Survey 2009-2013 5-Year Estimates Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) as well as PUMS for the …

The State Of Black Boston: A Select Demographic And Community Profile, James Jennings

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This research report provides an overview of select social, demographic, and economic characteristics and trends associated with Boston’s Black population. It presents a snapshot of population characteristics associated with Blacks residing in Boston. While policy or programmatic recommendations does not represent the intent of this report, it is hoped that the information and data included can serve as a basis for such dialogues.

The racial categories used in this report include Black, Latino/a, White, and Asian persons. It should be emphasized, however, that these racial categories can include a range of ethnicity and ancestry. There may be differences among ethnic …

Crime In The African-American Neighborhood, Alix Cantave Ph.D.

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

On March 28, 2007, the William Monroe Trotter Institute held a roundtable on crime in predominantly black neighborhoods. More than fifty individuals who represented a broad array of perspectives and experiences took part in the roundtable. Participants included religious leaders, elected officials, educators, academics, law enforcement officials, social services providers, youth workers and youths, and community activists. Participants were eager to examine, discuss, and contribute to the understanding of: What accounts for the high rate of violent crime in Boston’s predominantly black neighborhoods? Is there adequate parent, youth, adult, and institutional accountability? Are there sufficient resources allocated to crime prevention …

Transformation And Taking Stock: A Summary Of Selected Findings From The Mccormack Graduate School Diversity Survey, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Paul Watanabe

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This report summarizes some of the major findings of a survey of 749 Massachusetts adults which focuses on matters related to race, public policy, confidence in public institutions, and political behavior. Since a principal objective of the poll is to elicit views from diverse perspectives, the respondents include significant numbers from all major racial groups: Whites (N=100), Latinos (N=113), Asian Americans (N=103), and Blacks and African Americans (N=100). The data was collected in October and November 2006. On some items, there are comparisons with data derived from a similar poll conducted in 1998.

The poll was undertaken during a time …

Nigerians In The United States: Potentialities And Crises, Paul E. Udofia

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This Research Report examines the various waves of Nigerian immigration, community and leadership development, as well as crises in the United States.

This study is divided into three parts. Part I begins with a brief historical overview of the Nigerian background and crises, thereafter showing the patterns of Nigerian immigration to the U.S. and their varying characteristics from 1970 to 1995. Part II analyzes the many ways in which Nigerians have attempted to adjust into the American mosaic, resulting in the emergence of a Nigerian community. Part III focuses on the three types of Nigerian leadership systems that have largely …

Human Rights And Community Development Through Low-Income Women's Leadership: The Voice Of An African-American Organizer, Claudine Michel

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

In this essay, I argue that grassroots organizing appears as one of the most viable option worldwide until women are better protected through legislation and public policy. I also posit that it is important to learn from divergent leadership philosophies, from the different values, roles and styles that women adopt in various parts of the world in the course of their day-to-day activities and in their efforts to organize, to support current community programs, and to train future community leaders. This essay relates the experiences of a grassroots organizer and presents what I believe to be a successful model of …

Missing Links In The Study Of Puerto Rican Poverty In The United States, James Jennings

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This Occasional Paper, based on a presentation to the National Puerto Rican Coalition in Washington, DC, in 1992, proposes some limitations in "quantitative-only" research focusing on Puerto Rican poverty in the United States. An overreliance on quantitative-based analysis, as well as overlooking historical and comparative data, may not allow for a full understanding and awareness of the nature and maintenance of poverty in Puerto Rican communities in the United States. While the presentation acknowledges the importance of sophisticated quantitative research, it implies that joined together with historical and comparative analysis, investigations of Puerto Rican poverty would be vastly improved. An …

The Competitive Advantage Of The Inner City: Does Race Matter?, Philip S. Hart

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Following up on his important work on the competitive advantage of nations, economist Michael Porter has turned his attention to the competitive advantage of the inner city. In his work on the competitiveness of nations—a five-year study often leading trading nations—Porter found that no nation was competitive in everything. He noted that competitive success tends to concentrate in particular industries and groups of interconnected industries, or clusters.

By turning his attention on the inner city, Porter has helped to reinforce the emerging sense that it is important to concentrate on the assets of such locations rather than on their liabilities. …

Beyond The Civil Rights Agenda For Blacks: Principles For The Pursuit Of Economic And Community Development, James Jennings

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Over the last several decades, this country has experimented with economic development and social welfare strategies and programs molded by liberals and conservatives, and embodied in the policies and politics of both Republicans and Democrats at the national level. However, given the continuing social and economic crisis, and gaps between African Americans and whites, it seems the approaches of both liberals and conservatives have been inadequate. Due to the failure of current policy strategies, in terms of black living conditions, debate in the black community should move from disagreements between liberals and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans, towards the question …

African-Americans And Social Policy In The 1990'S, Wornie L. Reed

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The basic social policy issue for African-Americans in the next decade will be a perennial objective - to have policies instituted that will bring them into the economic and social mainstreams of America. The main problems currently faced by blacks are quite familiar: inequalities in economic and social conditions. The new wrinkle in the 1980s is a downturn in racial progress, a downturn that is seen whether one is examining attitudes or specific social policies.

Racial divisions have increased sharply. The Reagan Administration's war against affirmative action, its refusal to allow access to decision-making by minorities, its fight against civil …

The Eritrean People's Liberation Front: A Case Study In The Rhetoric And Practice Of African Liberation, Tsenay Serequeberhan

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The views of the various African thinkers, which will be systematically explored in this Study, are neither "true" in any absolute sense, nor are they an "ideology" or false consciousness. Rather, they are the self-expression of an open-ended historical process. The works of Fanon, Cesaire, Cabral, etc., with which we shall be engaged in formulating the overall perspective of the struggle for African freedom as a discourse aimed at reclaiming history, are the self-expression of this process itself. These works are the artful and effective self-presentation of those engaged in the struggle, i.e., the rhetoric of African liberation.

The basic …

Blacks And Latinos In Boston: A Community Profile, James Jennings, A. Jean Burnette

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The purpose of this Report is to provide a socio-economic and demographic overview of predominantly black and Latino geographic areas in the City of Boston. This Report is primarily in response to a request for assistance from several community-based groups and organizations, including Project FATE, the Center for Community Action, the Urban League, and the Bank of Commerce.

Based on specific requests and feedback from several individuals representing the organizations mentioned, it was decided that a "Community Profile" based on electoral districts in Boston would be useful. The request from the community organizations listed several possible items for inclusion in …

Human Rights, Women, And Third World Development, Winston E. Langley

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

As part of the effort to inaugurate a new international socio-political order after World War II, international emphasis was given to certain moral and legal entitlements we have come to call human rights. That emphasis initially found its most forceful expression in the Charter of the United Nations, which not only asserts its members' faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, as well as in the equal rights of men and women of all nations, but also recites its members' commitment to employ international machinery for the promotion of the social and economic …

Determining Tax Contributions And Service Benefits For Greater Roxbury, Bette Woody

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

A study of tax contributions and services benefits received by the greater Roxbury community involves several questions. Important is determining the types of revenue to be included as a basis for assessing contributions. A second key issue is determining how to extract district services from aggregate expenditure budgets. This is necessary in order to make spending estimates consistent with geographic boundaries and revenue categories.

Developing an approximate picture of services which include qualitative measures of the service delivered is not a trivial question. Engineering analysis takes the perspective that dollar values alone are a poor measure of the level of …

Serving The Elderly: Need Versus Policy, Wornie L. Reed

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Medicare was established in 1965 under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act. It was originally meant to eliminate the financial barriers to medical care for the aged. It has been called a form of national health insurance for persons age 65 and over. But it was deliberately designed in a manner to avoid modification of the fee-for-services system that is the basis of American Medical Care (Estes, 1979). As a result, inflation in the cost of care has seriously reduced financial benefits to the beneficiaries and in turn limited the access to medical care by the elderly.

Media Images Of Boston's Black Community, Kirk A. Johnson

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

In their efforts to report on the forces that affect Boston's racial climate, the local media have typically focused on the more obvious institutional actors: businesses, city hall, school boards, churches, the courts, neighborhood groups. Rarely have the media themselves been subjected to the same scrutiny. This study represents one such effort It is an analysis of the images of Boston's black community that are conveyed through the local news media. It asks the question: If a Bostonian relied solely on the local news for information about local blacks, 1) what impressions would he or she be left with, and …

The Search For Voice: Ideology And Perspective In The Black Community, Phillip L. Clay

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

During the last seven years there has been a significant shift to the right in the ideological perspectives of American political institutions and behavior. Despite some inconsistencies, the direction is clear. The term "moderate" has acquired a conservative meaning, and liberals have been split into neo-liberal and neoconservative camps. At this moment American society is informally declaring that it is not committed to achieving the goal of equal outcomes long espoused by a mainly liberal national political and institutional system.

The shift to the right is working changes on traditional black ideological perspectives, both among blacks and between black and …

Preliminary Report On A Comparative Analysis Of The Underlying Dimensions Of Unemployment Among Blacks, Hispanics, And Whites In Boston, Jeremiah Cotton

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

There are four major objectives of this research. The first objective is to determine whether and to what extent differences in unemployment rates in Boston among black, Hispanic, and white workers are due to the following: (1) the differences in the percentage of individuals in each group who experience a spell of unemployment at one time or another during the year, that is the incidence of unemployment; or (2) the differences in the average number of spells of unemployment during the year, that is the frequency of unemployment; or (3) the differences in the average length of time a spell …

Youth Employment And Unemployment: Outreach Initiatives In Massachusetts And The City Of Boston, James Jennings, William J. Stracqualursi, Zaki A. Sakin

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

An effort is made here to identify trends in the labor market participation of teenagers, especially in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and in the City of Boston; to specify unemployment trends in terms of the racial identification of teenagers or youth, with a special focus on the 14-19 year old cohort; to describe the types of jobs held by teenagers and make an assessment of the long-term implications of types of employment for future employability; to specify the most frequently identified issues* delineated when attempting to address the problem of youth unemployment; to permit young employed people to speak about …

Fire At The Door: The Black Student Union Movement At Boston English High School, 1968-1971, Michael T. Tierney

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Rickie Thompson and his friends were surprised by the mob as they cut through the Harvard Medical Complex from Brigham Circle to Louis Pasteur Avenue on their way to Boston English High School. The three black youths, earnest sophomores in the college engineering track of the 1,100-student, all-male high school, had expected a typical day. Rickie had even stayed up past eleven finishing geometry homework that now lay, apparently useless, in his briefcase. To be sure, there had been rumors of a walkout the day before-something to do with the seniors who had been suspended for wearing dashikis. But Rickie …

Youth And Jobs: A Bibliography Of Publications, 1980-1986, With Selected Annotations, James E. Blackwell, William J. Stracqualursi

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

This working bibliography of publications on youth employment and unemployment covers the period between 1980 and mid-1986. It is designed to be of assistance to researchers seeking a reference tool that may facilitate their research and/or expedite efforts to review recent literature on the complex subject of youth employment, unemployment and outreach initiatives intended to address the problem.

The areas encompassed by this document attest to the magnitude and scope of the problem of moving young people into the labor market. Assuming a need to be able to work through the maze of studies on youth and work, a plan …

Seniority And Affirmative Action: The Shadow Of Stotts, Drew S. Days Iii

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The purpose of this paper is to discuss why I think the Reagan administration's avowed commitment to helping only "actual victims" of racial discrimination retards rather than advances the cause of civil rights. I make reference in my title to "seniority" and "the shadow of Stotts" because the current administration is relying upon Supreme Court decisions having to do with seniority, particularly its 1984 opinion in Memphis Firefighters v. Stotts, to justify a wholesale attack upon race-conscious remedies, not only in employment but in education and public contracting as well.

Affirmative Action: Problems And Perspectives, Clarence M. Pendleton

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

If I sound a little bit incoherent it is because I have only been in California for ten hours in the last three weeks, and that was just to change clothes and change bags and hug my little six-year-old tight and spend some time with my wife. I got back in last Tuesday night from a trip to the East Coast by way of Salt Lake City and got up at 2:00 a.m. to be at a local television show to be able to be on the "CBS Morning News." My options were slim-either go to New York and do …

Affirmative Action: Problems And Prospects, James Farmer

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

Affirmative action has had an interesting history. I, with no attempted modesty, claim to have proposed the idea to Lyndon Johnson in either late 1962 or early 1963 when he was vice president. The only person I known who would disagree with me on that is the late Whitney Young, and he is not present to voice his disagreement now. When I reported to the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership, the group that was called the "Big Six" or the "Big Four" by the media, that I had had such a meeting with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and had …

Race And Class In American Race Relations Theory, 1894-1939, Vernon Williams Jr.

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

The purpose of this essay is to identify the origins of the debate between Wilson and Pinkney. The period covered focuses on the years 1894 to 1939 - from the publication of Franz Boas's "Human Faculty as Determined by Race" in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1894, to the publications of Robert E. Park's "The Nature of Race Relations" in 1939. It is my argument that the parameters of the discussion regarding the progressiveness of race relations in the United States were defined during these years, and that all current theories are but …

Community-Based Housing: Potential For A New Strategy, Rachel G. Bratt

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

While the housing problem in the United States has changed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed that "one-third of the nation is ill-housed," it has by no means disappeared. For most low-income people, and to a lesser extent for moderate income people, housing still presents formidable problems.

Academics and housing analysts recognize four major aspects of the housing problem: affordability (ratio of housing costs to income), adequacy (including quality and overcrowding), neighborhood conditions, and availability. Over the past decade, the nature of the country's housing problem has undergone some important transformations.

Until ten years ago the phrase "housing problem" conjured up …