Tag: Civil Rights

Channeling Taney.

Columbia historian (and one of my interlocuters two weeks hence) Eric Foner takes a gander at William Rehnquist’s new book on the disputed 1877 election, and, aside from the obvious Bush v. Gore overtones, discovers that the Chief Justice’s grasp of history is as backward as his jurisprudence. “The scholarship on which Rehnquist relies is almost entirely out of date and his grasp of the complex issues of the Reconstruction era tenuous…That the Chief Justice of the United States sees national protection of blacks’ rights as a punishment imposed on whites is disheartening.” Hmm…let’s hope Rehnquist doesn’t decide to regale us with his thoughts on Dred Scott anytime in the future.

Hate and No. 28.

So, in an attempt to appease the stark raving Right, Dubya now wants a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Good God, what a colossally stupid idea. Since when did it become “conservative” to encode goofy prejudices into our founding document? And can someone please explain to me what jurisdiction the federal government has over the ecclesiastical institution of marriage anyway? Ridicky-goddamn-diculous. Surely Bush and Rove can find some other way to get out their base besides threatening to tinker with the United States Constitution.

Bad Judge of Character.

Going over the heads of the Democrats in Congress, President Uniter-not-a-Divider gives segregationist Judge Charles Pickering a recess appointment (which he can hold until January 2005, after the seating of the next Congress.) In case you missed it, Pickering’s segregationist backstory was ably fleshed out by historian Sean Wilentz eight months ago.

The Limits of Segregation.

“All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches,” decried Strom Thurmond in 1948 as he led the Dixiecrat segregationists out of the Democratic Party. Of course, as always in the Souths Old and New, the bedroom was another matter. To no one in South Carolina’s real surprise, 78-year-old Essie Mae Washington-Williams announces she is Thurmond’s mixed-race daughter. True to the character and hypocrisy of the Jim Crow South, here is a man who broke the Democratic Party and the filibuster record of the United States Congress trying to deny basic civil rights to his own child. How’s that for “family values?” Unbelievable. Update: Surprise, surprise. The Thurmond family confirms it.

Dust, Discrimination, and Domestic Containment.

Some thanksgiving orals reading, for you and yours…read with lavish amounts of stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era.
C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s.

Old South Pandering.

A week after sidestepping Sharpton’s anti-black attack (one that could have been directed at many of the major candidates), Howard Dean stumbles into a Confederate controversy. I’ve already written about my thoughts on this snafu at length over at Value Judgment, but to summarize: Somebody needs to tell Dean, if he doesn’t know himself, that (a) the Stars-‘n’-Bars is not a symbol to be thrown around lightly, and (b) most Southerners (and even the truck-drivers) do not endorse the flag or the racist sentiments that brought it back into Southern life (and the ones who do aren’t going to like Dean anyway.) Dean’s still in the lead for my vote, but, frankly, this is just dunderheaded, if not offensive, in its ignorance of both the South and the racial politics surrounding the flag.

Don’t Know Much About History.

Sorry about the lack of updates since Sunday….As it happens, encroaching November has frightened me into working harder on my US history orals site. My note-taking is still two months or so behind my reading, but – in case you’re interested – I’ve recently put up notes and reviews on the following books:

John Morton Blum, Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961-1974.
William Leach, Land of Desire, Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture.
Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right.
Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.
Ellen Schrecker, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America.
Robert Schulzinger, A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975.
Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound: A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement.

Gary Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home.

Updates to the orals site should come relatively frequently for the next few months, so expect more to come.