Majority Rule Minority Rights

USA 1897 - 2020 Majority Rule, Minority Rights

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Objectives

Time 4

1 : Context

3 : Overturning the legislation

2 : Challenging the Legislation

4 : Radical Militancy

5 : Achievements

6 : Backlash

Timeline

Glossary

Famous figures

Objectives

The essence of democracy is majority rule : the making of decisions by a vote of more than one-half of all persons who participate in an election. This defining feature raises an important question : what about the opinion of the minority(ies)? How to make sure that majority rule will respect the rights and opinions of minorities? How to avoid falling into a tyranny of the majority, that would only fuel the anger and frustration of minority groups? As often, it is useful to turn to the Founding Fathers to realize the importance and relevance of this subject : Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, expressed this concept of democracy in 1801 in his First Inaugural Address :All . . . will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression.To tackle this issue, we will study the example of the situation of the African-Americans in the 20th century. It is far from being the only relevant example, but it will provide us with an interesting variety of responses to the problem, as well as with charismatic leaders who embodied these responses.

Segregation

1 : Context

Black Disenfranchisement

Here are a few elements to describe the context leading to the rise of the Civil Rights movement, which aimed at re-establishing rights which had been denied to the African-Americans.

Racial Violence

The Accomodationist position

Triggering Factors

1 : Context : Segregation

As you remember from last year, after the Civil War, during the period known as Reconstruction, the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments established a legal foundation for the political equality of African Americans. However, despite the abolition of slavery and legal gains for African Americans, racial segregation known as Jim Crow arose in the South. It was made official in a 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Justices declared that segregation did not necessarily mean inequality and was therefore constitutional, with the infamous sentence “separate but equal”. Actually, the facilities and accomodations supplied for African Americans were rarely ''equal'', and Jim Crow segregation made sure that Southern blacks would continue to live in conditions of poverty and inequality, with white supremacists denying them their hard-won political rights and freedoms. It is important to realise the legal implication of this decision : from then on, segregation was to be considered as constitutional, and could be materialised by states in the form of laws : it was a form of de jure segregation.

1 : Context : Black Disenfranchisement

Until the 1950s, every state in the South passed laws, explicitly for the purpose of disenfranchising blacks. It was a deliberate attempt to deprive a minority group of its ability to vote, hence of its political power. Although retrospectively we see them today as clear violations of the Fifteenth Amendment, they were not seriously challenged by the federal gouvernment or the Supreme Court before the 1950s. Here are a few examples of the devices used :

Fraud

Poll Tax

Restrictive Registrations Practices

Literacy Tests

Click to watch a (fictional) scene showing how intimidating the voting process was for African Americans

1 : Context : Racial Violence

Physical violence against minority groups, perpetrated by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan had various objectives : it was used to intimidate voters and candidates to elections, to prevent any form of interaction between cultural groups (especially the white supremacists' nightmare : miscegenation)... In short it made sure the minority group would lie low and abandon their ambitions. Even if any form of violence is usually an infringement on a person's rights, the example of lynching is a particularly eloquent one : when a mob decides, without trial, to torture and execute a presumed offender, this is a clear violation of the concept of due process of law mentioned in the Fifth Amendment. Statistics of reported lynching in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, about 3,500 black people were lynched. Most of the time, they were accused of sexual assault against a white woman.

Photo of a lynching, 1920

1 : Context : The Accomodationist Position

The question of how a minority group should behave in the face of majority rule, especially when it's oppressive, is a vast one. Our role is not to judge the various responses, but observe them. One of these responses could be identified as accomodationist : the idea that, faced with such a strong and aggressive majority rule, the minority group should accept the position it is given and adapt itself to the behaviour of the majority, as a means of economic or political survival. This stance was taken up by the African American author Booker T. Washington, who served as adviser to multiple presidents of the USA including T.Roosevelt. In his famous 1895 speech, he coined the sentence ''Cast down your bucket where your are''. In brief, his position was that African Americans should not try to challenge segregation and racial violence, but to adapt to this model of society and progress patiently through education and entrepreneurship. Some activists such as the African American author and activist W.E.B. Dubois criticized this position as an endorsement of the status quo that actually reinforced racial inequalities.

Booker T. Washington Click on him to read the script from his famous speech

1 : Context : Triggering Factors

Now that we have painted a general picture of the situation at the beginning of the 20th and the powerful enforcement of the rule of the white majority, let's mention two triggering factors which raised awareness and paved the way for the reconsideration of the status quo.

The Lynching of Emmett Till

The Impact of the World Wars

2 : Challenging the Legislation

Organized Direct Action

Now that the context has been described, let's study some of the strategies used to oppose the status quo and call for a change. Let's focus first on the use of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience as a way to challenge legislation and make it change.

Example of direct Action : the Bus Boycott

Civil Disobedience

2 : Challenging the Legislation : Organized Direct Action

Direct action is the idea that individuals should not wait for institutions to change a situation, but that they should use their own power to directly reach certain goals of interest. Confronted to the passiveness of the federal institutions, many citizens felt it was their responsibility to act. However, action on the individual level often lacks political weight. An isolated individual can hardly be heard. That is why certain associations started to emerge, as means to channel the individuals' involvement, coordinate it and turn it into efficient action. Religious groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), student organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO), all took part in massive protests to raise awareness, which took the non-violent forms of strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, etc. Gradually, associations were gaining weight in denouncing the apathy of federal institutions.

SCLC Badge

2 : Challenging the Legislation : The Montgomery Bus Boycott

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat so that white passengers could sit in it. Civil Rights activists called for a boycott of the bus company : for an entire year, the black citizens of Montgomery refused to ride the city’s buses in protest over the bus system’s policy of racial segregation. This is an example of non-violent direct action : citizens used their economic power to put pressure on a company and protest against certain practices, without violating any law. It was the first mass-action of the modern civil rights era, and served as an inspiration to other civil rights activists across the nation.

An empty bus during the boycott

2 : Challenging the Legislation : Civil Disobedience

Boycotting or organising a sit-in, however powerful the action may be, does not violate any law. But is it sometimes necessary to go one step further and violate a law to denounce it? You probably know Martin Luther King for his famous speech ''I have a Dream'' and his non-violent actions such as the March on Washington, which took place in 1963, and which was one of the largest civil rights rallies in US history. But there's more to him than just belief in peaceful protest. Here is an interesting extract from an interview, where he explains that certain laws can be considered as unjust, and that there is a moral obligation to violate such unjust laws. It is important to notice however that in his eyes, he who breaks the law must do it publicly and accept the punishment associated with it, because the ultimate goal is to raise awareness. The justification for breaking the law lies in the belief that there is a sense of morality and justice that is higher than the mere pieces of legislation which are written by fallible men. One could see in his views the typical Christian position of serving as a martyr for a cause : M.L.King says that one should be ready to pay for others' misconceptions in order to reveal to the world a higher (divine?) sense of justice.

M.L King about civil disobedience

The Role of Associations

3 : Overturning the legislation

Two Magistrates to Remember

The idea behind civil disobedience is that, by breaking the law, attention will be drawn to it, and the legitimacy and constitutionality of that law will be reconsidered. Here are some elements on the process which led to the nullification of certain laws :

The Example of School Segregation

The Example of Anti- miscegenation laws

3 : Overturning the Legislation : The Role of Associations

Once again, it is important to realise the role of associations in this fight : one individual can hardly have the courage and energy to take upon himself the task of striking down established legislation. The role of civil rights organisations was crucial : they had the finance and manpower to organise political lobbying and awareness campaigns. One of their most important means of action was legal support : by offering to the victims of discriminations the services of a competent legal team, they encouraged such victims to challenge the laws they deemed unjust : the victims knew that they would be represented by talented lawyers. The most famous example of these associations was the NAACP : The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was formed in 1909 by a group of activists including W.E.B. Dubois, with the mission to "ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination".

W.E.B Du Bois

3 : Overturning the Legislation : Two Magistrates to Remember

Earl Warren was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969, a period during which the Court took landmark decisions in the liberal direction, which contrasted with the passiveness of the previous courts in terms of civil rights. He is generally considered to be one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in the history of the United States.

Thurgood Marshall was one of the most famous lawyers hired by the NAACP. He became in 1967 the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court.

3 : Overturning the Legislation : The Example of School Segregation

Linda Brown, a third grader, was required by law to attend a school for black children in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas. To do so, Linda walked six blocks, crossing dangerous railroad tracks, and then boarded a bus that took her to Monroe Elementary. Yet, only seven blocks from her house was Sumner Elementary, a school attended by white children, and which, save for segregation, Linda would otherwise have attended. Her father encouraged by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall, took legal action against the Topeka school district, and the case reached the Supreme Court in 1954.. In making the case in Brown, Marshall drew upon the research of contemporary psychologists to argue that the very fact that black and white children were sent to separate schools damaged the black children’s self-esteem, stigmatized them, and shaped their self-image for the rest of their lives. Separate schools, Marshall argued, made plain to black children that they were deemed unworthy of being educated in the same classrooms as white children. In the landmark decision Brown V. Board of Education , the Court agreed with Thurgood Marshall that segregated schooling violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the law. In Brown v. Board, the Supreme Court which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and outlawed segregation.

Click on Earl Warren to read the Court's Decision

3 : Overturning the Legislation : The Example of Anti-Miscegenation Laws

Two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, went to the District of Columbia to get married, because inter-racial marriages were allowed there. The Lovings returned to their home in Virginia shortly thereafter. The couple was then charged with violating the state's anti-miscegenation statute, which banned inter-racial marriages. The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail. They appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided in 1967 that the Virginia law violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Under our Constitution," wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren, "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State." Anti-miscegenation laws were therefore declared unconstitutional.

Trailer for a film about the story of Mildred and Richard Loving

4 : Radical Militancy

Black Power

The strategies studied so far worked on the assumption that blacks and whites were parts of the same society and that they had to collaborate to find a way to live together. It was not the only point of view : more radical activists flirted with the idea that the two communities could not, and should not, try to collaborate, or even live together.

The Black Panthers

Pan-Africanism

4 : Radical Militancy : Black Power

Although comprehensive civil rights legislation represented a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement, the obstinacy of the white power structure in the South convinced some black activists that nonviolent civil disobedience was insufficient. Some African Americans were also concerned about the presence of so many northern middle-class whites in the movement, which was seen by some as an attempt to impose white leadership onto the Civil Rights Movement.As a response to the continued power of whites, both within and outside of the movement, a more militant variety of civil rights activism emerged. One of its most influential proponents was Malcolm X, who advocated black self-reliance, cultural pride, and self-defense in the face of racial violence. The approach that Malcolm X spearheaded came to be known as Black Power, and it gained many adherents after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party were among the most vocal proponents of Black Power after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965.

Click here to listen to one of Malcolm X's impassioned speeches

4 : Radical Militancy : The Black Panthers

The Black Panther Party was a Black Power political organization founded in 1966. The Black Panthers espoused a militant form of black self-defense and functioned as a local militia, taking advantage of open-carry gun laws to patrol black neighborhoods in Oakland in order to prevent police harassment and brutality. It should be noted that the Panthers also provided services to the black community, such as free breakfasts for children, drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, self-defense classes, and free medical clinics and childcare centers.

The Black Panthers protesting against the passing of a gun-control bill in 1967 in California.

4 : Radical Militancy : Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism is the idea that peoples of African descent have common interests and should be unified. According to this view, the African-Americans, who were originally brought to another continent against their will, should not look for support within the American society but should take into account their African roots and build a common identity with other African peoples. There are many varieties of Pan-Africanism but, in its narrowest political manifestation, Pan-Africanists envision a unified African nation where all people of the African diaspora can live. It gained prominency at the beginning of the 20th century with leaders such as Marcus Garvey. The fact that M.Garvey had no scruples collaborating with the KKK shows the separatist dimension of this ideology : members of the Klan were more than happy to see blacks dreaming of a community without any ties with the white community whatsoever. Pan-Africanist cultural thinking reemerged with renewed force in the United States in the late 1960s and ’70s as one of the manifestations of the Black Power movement. By the early 1970s it had become relatively common for African Americans to investigate their African cultural roots and adopt African forms of cultural practice, especially African styles of dress. However, the political dimension of this project was never properly carried out.

Marcus Garvey, an early proponent of Pan-Africanism

Federal Intervention

5 : Achievements

New Legislation

The struggle for civil rights was long, violent, but in the end it bore fruit. Here are some elements on what it managed to achieve.

Action against de facto segregation

A New Conception of Justice

Affirmative Action

5 : Achievements : Federal Intervention

For decades, the federal government had disengaged itself from the enforcement of civil rights in the South, allowing the violations of rights to happen. In the 1950s, with the new controversial decisions of the Supreme Court, it had to come out of its state of inertia and intervene to make sure these decisions were respected. The desegregation of schools was a subject which required particularly heavy-handed intervention. Keep in mind two famous examples :

Ruby Bridges

The Little Rock Nine

5 : Achievements : New Legislation

When a politician committed to the advancement of civil rights came to power, the guarantee of the enforcement of these rights was officialised : Lyndon Johnson, who became president after J.F.Kennedy's assassination in 1963, signed in 1964 the Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. One year later, in 1965 he signed the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in voting. You might ask the question of the relevance of those acts, since these concepts had already been enshrined in the Amendments to the Constitution, but the fact that these were translated into federal legislation was an indication that the federal government was now committed to enforcing those rights : law enforcement agencies and courts now had the duty to make sure these acts were respected.

Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act. Do you recognize anyone?

5 : Achievements : Action against de facto segregation

Putting an end to de jure segregation was, in a sense, rather straightforward : segregated schools were illegal, and local officials had to comply with it. De facto segregation was much harder to fight : schools were officially desegregated, but, geographically speaking, whites and blacks were still separated : middle-class whites often lived in the suburbs, while blacks lived in the city centers. In that case, how to prevent de facto segregation : almost all-white suburbian schools and almost all-black downtown schools?To try and tackle this issue, the government implemented in 1971 a controversial system called busing : public buses transported children from one area to a school in another to create racially integrated classes. This policy met considerable opposition from both white and black people, many tried to avoid it, for example by moving their children to private schools. You may have heard that Joe Biden, in the 70s, voted against busing. Today, busing is increasingly abandoned and studies show that there has even been substantial resegregation of schools since the early 1980s.

Busing : a controversial solution to de facto segregation

5 : Achievements : A New Conception of Justice

Be prepared : we'll get a bit conceptual here : The civil rights era led to a deep reconsideration of what justice was. Prior to that era, the concept of utilitarianism prevailed : according to utilitarians, the objective of a society is to provide a maximum of happiness to a maximum of people. In that view, reducing the welfare of a minority group is acceptable if it increases the welfare of the majority, because, mathematically speaking, even if it prejudices against a group, it creates more happiness than harm. This conception was challenged by the philosopher John Rawls in 1971 in his widely commented book A Theory of Justice. It would be illusory to try and sum it up, but keep in mind one of its principles, and see how it contrasts with the previous utilitarian principles : "Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.'' This is called the difference principle. To reformulate it, inequalities – either social or economic – are acceptable only if they are in favour of the most disadvantaged group. This might not sound like a big deal to you, but in such an unequal society, it was a radically new conception of justice : according to this new liberal conception, minority groups could not be sacrificed for the greater good anymore, as the utilitarians argued, but the state and the majority had the duty to help compensate such inequalities.

John Rawls. Click on him to read another quote

5 : Achievements : Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action is the fact of giving preferential treatment to a group to correct the effects of past discrimination. It can therefore be seen as the implementation of John Rawls's difference principle. For example, in the 1960s, some American universities had different application processes : the candidates belonging to certain minority groups were given preferential treatment and accepted on lower standards. This type of policy was encouraged by President Lyndon Johnson, as you can see in this extract from a speech : ''You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.'' As you can imagine, this system was also very controversial, and was called reverse discrimination by those who believed it penalized the white majority.

Survey on the popularity of Affirmative Action. Click to enlarge.

6 : Backlash

Civil Disobedience from the other Side

So far, we've studied how minority groups tried to maintain their rights against majority rule. But this presentation wouldn't be complete without a few words about the reactions to this affirmation of rights. And with significant progress often comes violent reaction : the brutal response to the Civil Rights Era is often called the backlash.

Police Brutality

Political backlash : the Southern Strategy

6 : Backlash : Civil Disobedience

This is where you realize that civil disobedience is a tricky concept because people's notions of ''just law" differ... While the Supreme Court decision was a major victory for civil rights, white supremacists in the South pledged "massive resistance" to desegregation. In response to Brown v. Board, a group of Southern congressmen issued the Southern Manifesto, denouncing the court’s decision and vowing to use “all lawful means to bring about a reversal” of the Court’s decision. Massive resistance spread beyond opposition to school desegregation to encompass a broad agenda in the South. Some southern states outlawed the NAACP. In 1956, Georgia incorporated the Confederate battle flag into its state flag, and within a few years South Carolina and Alabama began flying the Confederate battle flag over their state capitol buildings. The enforcement of the measures by the federal government fueled an already existing distrust of federal institutions in the Southern states which is still present today.

Badge worn by Southerners in the 50s. Click to read a quote from the Southern Manifesto

6 : Backlash : Police Brutality

Although the causes of police brutality are complex and can lie in something else than racism, statistics show that in the USA, the great majority of victims of police brutality are and have been African American. In the estimation of most experts, a key factor explaining this predominance is antiblack racism among members of mostly white police departments. In the 60s, incidences of police brutality against African Americans became more frequent, partly because of the increase in black protest movements (such as the riots which took place after the assassination of M.L. King by a white supremacist in 1968), but also as a form of oppression aimed at silencing a group that was becoming too vocal. As you've probably read or heard, the racist dimension of police brutality is still an unsolved issue which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, a protest movement still active and relevant today.

Statistics about police brutality. Source : pnas.org Click to enlarge.

6 : Backlash : The Southern Strategy

Think about it : you remember that it was members of the Republican party who emancipated the slaves and later, during Reconstruction, tried to guarantee civil rights for all. Democrats, especially in the South, were traditionally opposed to such policies. And yet nowadays, decades later, the tables have turned : the Democrats are traditionally associated with minority rights and government intervention, and the Republicans with limited government intervention. What happened? The inversion can be traced back to the 60s : The image of the Democratic party had already been changed by L.B.Johnson's committment to civil rights. In the 1968 election, the Republican candidate R.Nixon realised he could appeal to voters who had so far always voted for the Democrats, but who had been disappointed by Johnson : he appealed to what he called the ''Silent Majority'' : mostly Southern whites who were fed up with the omnipresence of minority groups in the debate. In his campaign, he emphasized his desire to restore ''law and order'', terms which were widely identified as code words for the restoring of white supremacy : Nixon was promising to tame the minorities which were getting, according to some, out of control. This strategy has been called the Southern strategy, and it partly shaped the image of the Republican party as you know it. And, by the way, it worked : Nixon was elected in 1968. The turmoil of the civil rights era brought progress, but it also incited its opponents to organise and fight back.

Click on Nixon to read an extract from his 1968 speech.

Timeline

1896

1909

1954

1955

1956

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968

Glossary

• De Jure

• Civil Rights

• Affirmative Action

• De Facto

• Lynching

• Miscegenation

• Accomodationist

• Direct Action

• Civil Disobedience

• Pan-Africanism

• Sit-in

• Suburb

• Busing

Famous figures