The civil rights era : origins and development of national policy, 1960-1972

Book

The civil rights era : origins and development of national policy, 1960-1972 / Hugh Davis Graham.

Summary:

A comprehensive history of the Civil rights era on the level of the Federal Government.

The civil rights era conjures up a wide range of dramatic images--sit-ins at segregated diners, burning churches, the massive march on Washington, police dogs and firehoses turned on protesters, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., lying dead from an assassin's bullet. But off the streets another civil rights struggle was also waged, less violent and far less visible but no less momentous, as the vast machinery of the Federal government turned to the task of securing equal rights.

The Civil Rights Era offers the first comprehensive history of this other side of the battle for civil rights. Based on extensive research in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon presidential archives, the National Archives, and special collections of the Library of Congress, this groundbreaking study recreates the intense debates in Congress and the White House that led to the breakthrough laws of 1964 and 1965--the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act--which banned discrimination against minorities and women. Graham then follows the implementation of these policies through a thickening maze of federal agencies and court decisions. In so doing, he reveals exactly how, in the dozen years from Kennedy through Nixon, the classic liberal agenda of non-discrimination evolved into the controversial program of affirmative action. Lyndon Johnson emerges as a key figure, but surprisingly enough, it was Richard Nixon who established the preferential quotas of the Philadelphia Plan. There are other surprising findings as well: for instance, Graham argues that despite similarities in rhetoric and tactics, the black civil rights and feminist movements during the 1960s switched philosophical positions. While black organizations shifted their demands from a "color-blind Constitution" to racial preferences, feminist leaders rejected special-protection laws in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The Civil Rights Era represents the definitive account of a revolution in government policy, offering keen insight into the civil rights legacy currently being challenged by the Supreme Court. Brilliantly researched and intelligently written, it offers a behind-the-scenes look at a pivotal moment in American history.

Record details

ISBN: 0195045319
ISBN: 9780195045314
Physical Description: x, 578 pages ; 25 cm
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1990.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 482-569) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Introduction -- pt. 1: Kennedy -- Kennedy, Johnson and the presidency in civil rights -- Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the politics of enforcement -- The Civil Rights Bill of 1963 -- The storm over racial quotas -- pt. 2: Johnson -- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- From the Civil Rights Act to the Voting Rights Act: the Johnson White House at flood tide, 1964-1965 -- The troubled search for civil rights enforcement: launching the EEOC, 1965-1966 -- The EEOC and the politics of gender -- From equal treatment to equal results: transforming civil rights strategy -- From ghetto riots to open housing, 1966-1968 -- From Johnson to Nixon: the irony of the Philadelphia Plan -- pt. 3: Nixon -- Richard Nixon and civil rights policy: "no master spirit, no determined road" -- The Philadelphia Plan redux -- Nixon, Congress, and voting rights -- The "color-blind" Constitution and the federal courts -- Women, the Nixon administration, and the Equal Rights Amendment -- Race, sex, and civil rights enforcement: culmination 1972 -- Conclusions -- Essays on sources -- Notes -- Index.