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Sex discrimination against women--United States--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, World War, 1939-1945--Women--United States, Trials (Military offenses)--United States--History--20th century, World War, 1939-1945--Participation, African-American, Strikes and lockouts--United States--History--20th century, Women soldiers--United States--History--20th century, and African American soldiers--History--20th century

Before Rosa Parks and the March on Washington, four African American women risked their careers and freedom to defy the United States Army over segregation. Women Army Corps (WAC) privates Mary Green, Anna Morrison, Johnnie Murphy, and Alice Young enlisted to serve their country, improve their lives, and claim the privileges of citizenship long denied them. Promised a chance at training and skilled positions, they saw white WACs assigned to those better jobs and found themselves relegated to work as orderlies. In 1945, their strike alongside fifty other WACs captured the nation's attention and ignited passionate debates on racism, women in the military, and patriotism. Glory in Their Spirit presents the powerful story of their persistence and the public uproar that ensued. Newspapers chose sides. Civil rights activists coalesced to wield a new power. The military, meanwhile, found itself increasingly unable to justify its policies. In the end, Green, Morrison, Murphy, and Young chose court-martial over a return to menial duties. But their courage pushed the segregated military to the breaking point ”and helped steer one of American's most powerful institutions onto a new road toward progress and justice.

Deportation--United States--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Immigrants--United States--History--20th century, Mexican Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century, Mexican Americans--Social conditions--20th century, and Citizenship--United States--History--20th century

How Race Is Made in America examines Mexican Americans—from 1924, when American law drastically reduced immigration into the United States, to 1965, when many quotas were abolished—to understand how broad themes of race and citizenship are constructed. These years shaped the emergence of what Natalia Molina describes as an immigration regime, which defined the racial categories that continue to influence perceptions in the United States about Mexican Americans, race, and ethnicity. Molina demonstrates that despite the multiplicity of influences that help shape our concept of race, common themes prevail. Examining legal, political, social, and cultural sources related to immigration, she advances the theory that our understanding of race is socially constructed in relational ways—that is, in correspondence to other groups. Molina introduces and explains her central theory, racial scripts, which highlights the ways in which the lives of racialized groups are linked across time and space and thereby affect one another. How Race Is Made in America also shows that these racial scripts are easily adopted and adapted to apply to different racial groups.

African Americans--Segregation--History--20th century, African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, and Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century

During the Great Depression, black intellectuals, labor organizers, and artists formed the National Negro Congress (NNC) to demand a'second emancipation'in America. Over the next decade, the NNC and its offshoot, the Southern Negro Youth Congress, sought to coordinate and catalyze local antiracist activism into a national movement to undermine the Jim Crow system of racial and economic exploitation. In this pioneering study, Erik S. Gellman shows how the NNC agitated for the first-class citizenship of African Americans and all members of the working class, establishing civil rights as necessary for reinvigorating American democracy. Much more than just a precursor to the 1960s civil rights movement, this activism created the most militant interracial freedom movement since Reconstruction, one that sought to empower the American labor movement to make demands on industrialists, white supremacists, and the state as never before. By focusing on the complex alliances between unions, civic groups, and the Communist Party in five geographic regions, Gellman explains how the NNC and its allies developed and implemented creative grassroots strategies to weaken Jim Crow, if not deal it the'death blow'they sought.

Japanese Americans--California--Biography, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Japanese Americans--Social conditions--20th century, and African Americans--Social conditions--To 1964

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. government rounded up more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. One of those internees was Charles Kikuchi. In thousands of diary pages, he documented his experiences in the camps, his resettlement in Chicago and drafting into the Army on the eve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his postwar life as a social worker in New York City. Kikuchi's diaries bear witness to a watershed era in American race relations, and expose both the promise and the hypocrisy of American democracy. Jim and Jap Crow follows Kikuchi's personal odyssey among fellow Japanese American intellectuals, immigrant activists, Chicago School social scientists, everyday people on Chicago's South Side, and psychologically scarred veterans in the hospitals of New York. The book chronicles a remarkable moment in America's history in which interracial alliances challenged the limits of the elusive democratic ideal, and in which the nation was forced to choose between civil liberty and the fearful politics of racial hysteria. It was an era of world war and the atomic bomb, desegregation in the military but Jim and Jap Crow elsewhere in America, and a hopeful progressivism that gave way to Cold War paranoia. Jim and Jap Crow looks at Kikuchi's life and diaries as a lens through which to observe the possibilities, failures, and key conversations in a dynamic multiracial America.

Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, World War, 1939-1945--Social aspects--United States, and African American soldiers--History--20th century

World War II shaped the United States in profound ways, and this new book--the first in the Legacies of War series--explores one of the most significant changes it fostered: a dramatic increase in ethnic and religious tolerance. A Nation Forged in War is the first full-length study of how large-scale mobilization during the Second World War helped to dissolve long-standing differences among white soldiers of widely divergent backgrounds. Never before or since have so many Americans served in the armed forces at one time: more than 15 million donned uniforms in the period from 1941 to 1945. Thomas Bruscino explores how these soldiers'shared experiences--enduring basic training, living far from home, engaging in combat--transformed their views of other ethnic groups and religious traditions. He further examines how specific military policies and practices worked to counteract old prejudices, and he makes a persuasive case that throwing together men of different regions, ethnicities, religions, and classes not only fostered a greater sense of tolerance but also forged a new American identity. When soldiers returned home after the war with these new attitudes, they helped reorder what it meant to be white in America. Using the presidential campaigns of Al Smith in 1928 and John F. Kennedy in 1960 as bookend events, Bruscino notes a key change in religious bias. Smith's defeat came at the end of a campaign rife with anti-Catholic sentiment; Kennedy's victory some three decades later proved that such religious bigotry was no longer an insurmountable obstacle. Despite such advances, Bruscino notes that the growing broad-mindedness produced by the war had limits: it did not extend to African Americans, whose own struggle for equality would dramatically mark the postwar decades. Extensively documented, A Nation Forged in War is one of the few books on the social and cultural impact of the World War II years. Scholars and students of military, ethnic, social, and religious history will be fascinated by this groundbreaking new volume.

Racism--United States--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Protest movements--United States--History--20th century, Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans, African American sailors--Social conditions--20th century, and African American sailors--Civil rights--History--20th century

It is hard to determine what dominated more newspaper headlines in America during the 1960s and early ‘70s: the Vietnam War or America's turbulent racial climate. Oddly, however, these two pivotal moments are rarely examined in tandem.John Darrell Sherwood has mined the archives of the U.S. Navy and conducted scores of interviews with Vietnam veterans — both black and white and other military personnel to reveal the full extent of racial unrest in the Navy during the Vietnam War era, as well as the Navy's attempts to control it. During the second half of the Vietnam War, the Navy witnessed some of the worst incidents of racial strife ever experienced by the American military. Sherwood introduces us to fierce encounters on American warships and bases, ranging from sit-down strikes to major race riots.The Navy's journey from a state of racial polarization to one of relative harmony was not an easy one, and Black Sailor, White Navy focuses on the most turbulent point in this road: the Vietnam War era.

Racism--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century, Welfare state--United States--History--20th century, New Deal, 1933-1939, Depressions--1929--United States, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, African Americans--Government policy--History--20th century, African Americans--Economic conditions--20th century, African Americans--Segregation--History--20th century, and Social security--United States--History--20th century

The relationship between welfare and racial inequality has long been understood as a fight between liberal and conservative forces. In The Segregated Origins of Social Security, Mary Poole challenges that basic assumption. Meticulously reconstructing the behind-the-scenes politicking that gave birth to the 1935 Social Security Act, Poole demonstrates that segregation was built into the very foundation of the welfare state because white policy makers--both liberal and conservative--shared an interest in preserving white race privilege. Although northern white liberals were theoretically sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, Poole says, their primary aim was to save the American economy by salvaging the pride of America's'essential'white male industrial workers. The liberal framers of the Social Security Act elevated the status of Unemployment Insurance and Social Security--and the white workers they were designed to serve--by differentiating them from welfare programs, which served black workers.Revising the standard story of the racialized politics of Roosevelt's New Deal, Poole's arguments also reshape our understanding of the role of public policy in race relations in the twentieth century, laying bare the assumptions that must be challenged if we hope to put an end to racial inequality in the twenty-first.

African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Civil rights--United States--History--20th century, and Discrimination--United States--History--20th century

Literature publishing--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century, Authors and publishers--United States--History--20th century, American fiction--African American authors--History and critcism, American fiction--20th century--History and criticism, Discrimination in employment--United States, Literature and society--United States--History--20th century, Literature--Data processing, and Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century

The canon of postwar American fiction has changed over the past few decades to include far more writers of color. It would appear that we are making progress—recovering marginalized voices and including those who were for far too long ignored. However, is this celebratory narrative borne out in the data?Richard Jean So draws on big data, literary history, and close readings to offer an unprecedented analysis of racial inequality in American publishing that reveals the persistence of an extreme bias toward white authors. In fact, a defining feature of the publishing industry is its vast whiteness, which has denied nonwhite authors, especially black writers, the coveted resources of publishing, reviews, prizes, and sales, with profound effects on the language, form, and content of the postwar novel. Rather than seeing the postwar period as the era of multiculturalism, So argues that we should understand it as the invention of a new form of racial inequality—one that continues to shape the arts and literature today.Interweaving data analysis of large-scale patterns with a consideration of Toni Morrison's career as an editor at Random House and readings of individual works by Octavia Butler, Henry Dumas, Amy Tan, and others, So develops a form of criticism that brings together qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of literature. A vital and provocative work for American literary studies, critical race studies, and the digital humanities, Redlining Culture shows the importance of data and computational methods for understanding and challenging racial inequality.

Racism--United States--History--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Women, White--United States--Attitudes--History--20th century, Women, White--Political activity--United States--History, White supremacy movements--United States--History--20th century, Segregation--United States--History--20th century, and Women, White--United States--Social life and customs--History--20th century

Why do white supremacist politics in America remain so powerful? Elizabeth Gillespie McRae argues that the answer lies with white women. Examining racial segregation from 1920s to the 1970s, Mothers of Massive Resistance explores the grassroots workers who maintained the system of racial segregation and Jim Crow. For decades in rural communities, in university towns, and in New South cities, white women performed myriad duties that upheld white over black: censoring textbooks, denying marriage certificates, deciding on the racial identity of their neighbors, celebrating school choice, canvassing communities for votes, and lobbying elected officials. They instilled beliefs in racial hierarchies in their children, built national networks, and experimented with a color-blind political discourse. Without these mundane, everyday acts, white supremacist politics could not have shaped local, regional, and national politics the way it did or lasted as long as it has. With white women at the center of the story, the rise of postwar conservatism looks very different than the male-dominated narratives of the resistance to Civil Rights. Women like Nell Battle Lewis, Florence Sillers Ogden, Mary Dawson Cain, and Cornelia Dabney Tucker publicized threats to their Jim Crow world through political organizing, private correspondence, and journalism. Their efforts began before World War II and the Brown decision and persisted past the 1964 Civil Rights Act and anti-busing protests. White women's segregationist politics stretched across the nation, overlapping with and shaping the rise of the New Right. Mothers of Massive Resistance reveals the diverse ways white women sustained white supremacist politics and thought well beyond the federal legislation that overturned legal segregation.

Citizenship--Germany--History--20th century, National socialism--Germany--History, Antisemitism--Germany--History--20th century, Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Germany--History, Race defilement (Nuremberg Laws of 1935), Race discrimination--Law and legislation--Germany, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.--Southern States--History, African Americans--Segregation--History, and Segregation--United States--

Als in Deutschland die Nationalsozialisten triumphieren, ist in den USA die hohe Zeit der „Jim-Crow-Gesetze“, mit denen die Diskriminierung der Schwarzen geltendes Recht wird. Eine zufällige Parallele? Was kaum zu glauben klingt, das dokumentiert der Rechtshistoriker James Q. Whitman unwiderleglich: Der Rassismus in den USA lieferte den Nazis Anschauungsmaterial für die Diskriminierung der Juden. Der Empfang durch die New Yorker Anwaltskammer sei „warm“ und „besonders befriedigend“ gewesen, befand Ludwig Fischer. Der Jurist, der 1947 hingerichtet wurde, war Leiter einer Delegation, die sich auf eine „Studienreise“ in die USA begeben hatte. Die Reise im September 1935 war als Belohnung für ein Jahr „harter Arbeit“ gedacht, das die Ausarbeitung der „Nürnberger Rassengesetze“ und die Überwindung „überholter“ Rechtsstandpunkte allen Beteiligten abverlangt hatte. Nun aber war man in dem Land, von dem man so viel gelernt hatte und von dem man noch mehr lernen wollte: Wie man Rassengesetze nicht nur macht, sondern auch wirksam umsetzt.

Citizenship--Germany--History--20th century, National socialism--Germany--History, Antisemitism--Germany--History--20th century, Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Germany--History, Race defilement (Nuremberg Laws of 1935), Race discrimination--Law and legislation--Germany, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.--Southern States--History, African Americans--Segregation--History, and Segregation--United States--

How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi GermanyNazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies.As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh.Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.

Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Race discrimination--Law and legislation--United States--History--20th century, and African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century

This title will inform readers about the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The title will discuss those involved, such as John F. Kennedy--who spoke about civil rights in 1963--as well as Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and more. Vivid details, well-chosen photographs, and primary sources bring this story and this case to life. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, Discrimination in employment--United States--History--20th century, African American engineers--Biography, African American astronauts--Biography, and African American professional employees--Biography

Profiling ten pioneer African American space workers, including technicians, mathematicians, engineers, and an astronaut candidate, this book tells an inspiring, largely unknown story of how the space program served as a launching pad for a more integrated America.

African American diplomats--History--20th century, African Americans--Politics and government, and Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century

This text covers integration of the State Department after 1945 and the subsequent appointments of Black ambassadors to Third World and African nations. Other topics include: the setbacks during the Eisenhower years and the gains achieved during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Prejudices--United States--History--20th century and Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century

Americans believe strongly in the socially transformative power of education, and the idea that we can challenge racial injustice by reducing white prejudice has long been a core component of this faith. How did we get here? In this first-rate intellectual history, Leah N. Gordon jumps into this and other big questions about race, power, and social justice. To answer these questions, From Power to Prejudice examines American academia—both black and white—in the 1940s and'50s. Gordon presents four competing visions of “the race problem” and documents how an individualistic paradigm, which presented white attitudes as the source of racial injustice, gained traction. A number of factors, Gordon shows, explain racial individualism's postwar influence: individuals were easier to measure than social forces; psychology was well funded; studying political economy was difficult amid McCarthyism; and individualism was useful in legal attacks on segregation. Highlighting vigorous midcentury debate over the meanings of racial justice and equality, From Power to Prejudice reveals how one particular vision of social justice won out among many contenders.

Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century, Racism--United States--History--20th century, African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century, and Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century

This highly accessible account of the evolution of American racism outlines how ‘colorblind'approaches to discrimination ensured the perpetuation of racial inequality in the United States well beyond the 1960s. A highly accessible account of the evolution of American racism, its perpetuation, and black people's struggles for equality in the post-civil rights era Guides students to a better understanding of the experiences of black Americans and their ongoing struggles for justice, by highlighting the interconnectedness of African American history with that of the nation as a whole Highlights the economic and political functions that racism has served throughout the nation's history Discusses the continuation of the freedom movement beyond the 1960s to provide a comprehensive new historiography of racial equality and social justice

African Americans--Social conditions--20th century, Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century, African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century, and Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century

The ongoing struggle for civil rights and social justice lies at the heart of America's evolving identity. The pursuit of equal rights is often met with social and political trepidation, forcing citizens and leaders to grapple with controversial issues of race, class, and gender. Renowned scholar Harvard Sitkoff has devoted his life to the study of the civil rights movement, becoming a key figure in global human rights discussions and an authority on American liberalism. Toward Freedom Land assembles Sitkoff's writings on twentieth-century race relations, representing some of the finest race-related historical research on record. Spanning thirty-five years of Sitkoff's distingushed career, the collection features an in-depth examination of the Great Depression and its effects on African Americans, the intriguing story of the labor movement and its relationship to African American workers, and a discussion of the effects of World War II on the civil rights movement. His precise analysis illuminates multifaceted racial issues including the New Deal's impact on race relations, the Detroit Riot of 1943, and connections between African Americans, Jews, and the Holocaust.