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From ‘Brown’ to the Buses Law, Culture, and the Movement

From ‘Brown’ to the Buses Law, Culture, and the Movement. Questions. In what way does the law serve as a catalyst for moving structural injustices to the forefront of people’s lives? What is the relationship between the law and social movements?

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From ‘Brown’ to the Buses Law, Culture, and the Movement

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  1. From ‘Brown’ to the BusesLaw, Culture, and the Movement

  2. Questions • In what way does the law serve as a catalyst for moving structural injustices to the forefront of people’s lives? • What is the relationship between the law and social movements? • How can we understand the law as a cultural agent of change?

  3. Constance Baker-Motley “I think the Brown decision had its biggest impact not on the white community, but on the black community.”

  4. Michael Klarman “Brown’s most significant contribution to [the civil rights movement] may have been its impacts on whites rather than blacks.” p. 134

  5. Civil RightsThe Critical Years 1946-1965 1946 -- Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education 1964 – Civil Rights Act 1965 -- Voting Rights Act

  6. The U.S. ConstitutionThe Great Compromise How should power be divided between the federal government and the states?

  7. Supremacy Clause(Article 6, Clause 2)Doctrine of Pre-emption …establishes that the Constitution and federal laws made pursuant to it constitute the supreme law of the land.How should power be divided between the federal government and the states?

  8. Commerce Clause …states that the United States Congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,…"

  9. Equal Protection Clause (1868)14th Amendment …provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the laws".

  10. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) The Court, speaking through Justice Henry B. Brown, ruled that the Equal Protection Clause had been intended to defend equality in “civil rights,” not equality in social arrangements. For the Court, separate but equal fulfilled this criteria of equality in civil rights.

  11. Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) Supreme Court rules that the Virginia law affirming the legality of segregation on interstate buses was illegal. Instead of relying upon the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, NAACP lawyers argued that segregation on interstate travel violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

  12. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

  13. Structures What were the broad structures that account for the development of collective action on the part of African Americans and some whites to change an injustice?

  14. Organization How did individual and collective suffering assume and organizational expression? What were the critical organizational and institutional resources available to African American community to turn individual suffering into collective activity?

  15. Ideas / Prophetic Religion What role can we assign to prophetic religion in connecting the structure of injustice to the agency of African Americans in taking collective action against the institutions of segregation?

  16. Ties and Networks What kind of ties and networks seems to have been in play in the development of the civil rights movement? Do we agree that this movement achieved its successes as a result of strong ties?

  17. Moses Mendelssohn (1726-89) Mendelssohn associated with Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) which imagined Jewish emancipation through assimilation with European Society.

  18. Intolerance and Persecution Continue

  19. Solving The Jewish Question? • Assimilation Integration into Bourgeois Society Integration into (Future) Socialist Society • Separation Cultural / Religious Political / Secular

  20. Leo Pinsker / Auto-Emancipation (1882) “Wherever Jews reside they form a distinct group unable to integrate into the societies around them. Judaism and anti-Semitism are thus inseparable companions. The Jewish people can regain their dignity only by re-establishing themselves as a living nation forming a country of their own. The Jewish question can only be solved by the formation of a Jewish nation living on its own soil. Such an outcome is only possible through our own efforts – the auto-emancipation of the Jews. Leo Pinsker Auto- Emancipation(1882)

  21. What was Zionism? • Ideology Belief in Legitimacy of a separate Jewish Nation equal with other nations. • Political Movement Program for Emancipation of Jewish nation through State-building. • Core Idea Return to Zion.

  22. Zionist Counter-memory • Unbroken Bond Between People / Land • Story has three Phases • Antiquity (Jewish attachment to Zion) • Exile (Alienation from Zion) • Return to Zion

  23. The Great DivideAntiquity and Exile (Galut) “This periodization of antiquity and exile requires a highly selective representation of many centuries of Jewish experience…and ignores historical developments that do not fit the principles underlying this mold.” Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots (1995), p. 17

  24. Herzl, the Jewish Question, and The Jewish State “I consider the Jewish question neither social nor religious. It is a national question…. Let sovereignty be granted to us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation… Palestine is our historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency.…The Jews who wish for a state will have it.” Theodor Herzl The Jewish State (1896)

  25. A Land Without a People? “We abroad are used to believe the EretzYisrael is almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed..... But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains are not cultivated… …if the time comes when the life of our people in EretzYisraeldevelops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place.” AhadHa’am Truth From Eretz Israel (1891)

  26. Zionist Dilemma 1881 Population 21,000 Jews 4.2% 470,000 Arab 95.8% “The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man.”

  27. “Who can challenge the rights of the Jews to Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country… But [Palestine is inhabited and immigration will require brute force and bring revolt]. In the name of God, let Palestine be left in peace.” 1899 Yusuf al-Khalidi (Mayor of Jerusalem)

  28. THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE? “ The Question of Palestine is therefore the contest between an affirmation and a denial, and it is this contest, dating back 100 years, which animates and makes sense of the current impasse…Palestine was seen as a place to be possessed anew and reconstructed.” Edward Said (1979)

  29. The Iron Wall “Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers…This is how the Arabs will behave so long as they possess even a gleam of hope that they can prevent Palestine from becoming the Land of Israel. “Zionist colonization…can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall which the native population can not breach.” Ze’ev Jabotinksy (1923)

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