Civil rights and affirmative action: Hope or despair

Autor: Michael W. Hughey
Rok vydání: 1993
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. 7:287-295
ISSN: 1573-3416
0891-4486
DOI: 10.1007/bf02283198
Popis: It has been nearly forty years since Brown vs. Board of Education struck down the fiction of separate but equal education for black and white Americans, almost thirty years since the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land, and thirty years since Martin Luther King articulated his dream of racial equality. In these landmark events, and in many other acts of political will, strategic litigation, and personal courage, the Civil Rights movement has fundamentally reshaped the political, cultural and social landscape of the nation, and has influenced the rebellions of oppressed peoples throughout the world. It is without question one of the most de? cisive social movements of this century, and probably no American now living has been untouched by its effects. In this book, a distinguished group of mostly black intellectuals, many of whom have been directly involved in various ways in the Civil Rights movement, assess the movement's past struggles, hopes and aspirations, vic? tories and defeats, current situation, and future prospects. The contributors do not all agree, of course, on what the movement has achieved or on what it may yet achieve. Most, however, would agree with Robert L. Carter that today "the climate [of race relations] is bleaker than I can ever recall" (83), and would accept with Derrick Bell that many African Americans have succumbed to "fatalism . . . about the current prospects for achiev? ing .. . racial justice" (74). Despite a few exceptions, the contributors tend to collaborate in giving the book an overall tone of guarded pessimism, with the outlook of some shading over into grim despair. In the initial chap? ter, for example, Kenneth Clark sets a despondent ? indeed, nearly defeatist ? tone for the book in a stunning autobiographical essay in which he recounts his early experiences with bigotry and prejudice, his encounters with discrimination in his career, and his studies of the harmful psycho? logical effects of segregation on black children, which figured prominently
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