African American Studies Commons^™

Civil Rights Gone Wrong: Racial Nostalgia, Historical Memory, And The Boston Busing Crisis In Contemporary Children’S Literature, Lynnell L. Thomas

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

On May 14, 2014, three white Boston city councilors refused to vote to approve a resolution honoring the sixtieth anniversary of Brown v. the Board of Education because, as one remarked, “I didn’t want to get into a debate regarding forced busing in Boston.” Against the recent national proliferation of celebrations of civil rights milestones and legislation, the controversy surrounding the fortieth anniversary of the court decision that mandated busing to desegregate Boston public schools speaks volumes about the historical memory of Boston’s civil rights movement. Two highly acclaimed contemporary works of children’s literature set during or inspired by Boston’s …

Bolling V. Sharpe And Beyond: The Unfinished And Untold History Of School Desegregation In Washington, D.C., Bryce Celotto

Honors College Theses

While the Brown V. Board of Education case is constantly referenced when discussing educational equity and desegregation, Bolling v. Sharpe stands as another important education civil rights case and is perhaps more telling of the story of education in the United States. Bolling V. Sharpe was argued and decided in the United States Supreme Court over the course of 1952 to 1954. Similar to Brown v. Board in terms of intent, Bolling v. Sharpe aimed to desegregate public schools in Washington, D.C. in order to give African-American students equal access to a high quality public education on par with that …

Stop And Frisk: From Slave-Catchers To Nypd, A Legal Commentary, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Trotter Review

Today’s “stop and frisk” practices stem from centuries of legal control of Africans in America. Colonial laws were drafted specifically to control Africans, enslaved and free. Slave catchers culled the woods in search of those Africans who dared escape. After slavery ended, “Black Codes” or criminal laws were enacted to ensnare African Americans, including the sinister convict-lease system that existed well into the twentieth century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to extend police authority to stop and frisk during the Civil Rights Movement.

Police abuse of stop and frisk has led to tens of millions of people detained and searched …

Civil Rights, Labor, And Sexual Politics On Screen In Nothing But A Man (1964), Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

The independently made 1964 film Nothing But a Man is one of a handful of films whose production coincided with the civil rights insurgency and benefited from input from activists. Commonly listed in 1970s surveys of black film, the film lacks sustained critical attention in film studies or in-depth historical analysis given its significance as a landmark text of the 1960s. Documentary-like, but not a documentary, it offers a complex representation of black life, but it was scripted, directed, and filmed by two white men, Michael Roemer and Robert Young.

This essay argues that the film’s unusual attention to labor …

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 …

William Monroe Trotter: A One-Man Protester For Civil Rights, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

William Monroe Trotter was the first, the only and the last of Boston’s significant protest leaders for civil rights, equality and justice for black Americans in this century. He gained national stature between 1901 and 1934.

Trotter was uncompromising in his demand for complete and immediate equality for black Americans in the early 1900s. His stress on militant protest for integration, legal and voting rights for blacks during the first quarter of this century became the hallmark of the modern civil rights movements of the 1954—65 period. William Monroe Trotter was a man 50 years ahead of his time.