The Consequences of the Mass Movement

Nixon and Affirmative Action

• continued it after Johnson under Executive Order 11578

• kept the EEOC

• make employers hire more African Americans using federal contracts for supporters of affirmative action more available

• lack of enforcement in the North encourages black economic depression

• ultimate vision = integrationist meritocracy

  • ensuring integration for political gain rather than caring about race issue

  • knew the most effective form of integration was voluntary

Important rulings on affirmative action

• Alexander vs Holmes County Board of Education 1969

  • school desegregation had to be implemented immediately

  • closing the Brown II loophole

  • 1970 - 7 states still enforcing segregation

• Giggs vs. Duke Power Company 1971

  • ruling affirmative action as constitutional after the controversial Philadelphia plan

• University of California vs. Bakke 1978

  • challenging affirmative action as reverse discrimination

  • university had reserve a quota for 16 African American students

  • quotas deny other candidates equal protection under the law

  • ruled quotas as unconstitutional unless there was a history of discrimination

  • made affirmative action as only one element of a holistic approach

Reaction to affirmative action

• 1969: 68% of African American students in the north attending all black schools

  • Reduced to 8% in 1974

• North East poorly affected - Chicago

  • 67% of children attending majority black schools in 1968

  • rose to 80% in 1980

  • both figures higher than 1954

• 1970-1980: white male working class vote shifting heavily right wing to vote conservative republican

• Reagan heavily cuts funding to the EEOC

  • By 1984, they were filing 60% less cases than in 1980

• 1995 - Clinton trying to find a middle ground

  • Accepting affirmative action was flawed but necessary to reverse deeply entrenched segregation

Bussing

• began in the 1960s

• 1971 - ¾ of white families opposed

• caused the white flight to suburban schools out of inner city areas

  • 1974 - 45,000 white students in Boston inner city schools

  • 1987 - 16,000

• 1968/72 elections - Nixon and Wallace both heavily opposing bussing in their campaigns to attract white vote

• Nixon appointing a conservative supreme court

  • hoping for ‘strict constructionists’ to align rulings with conservative values and uphold law and order

Miliken vs. Bradley

• 1974

• cross district bussing in Detroit ruled as unconstitutional

• first case in 20 years where the court did not approve an NAACP segregation order

  • Reaction to the positive activist Warren court

  • Now negatively activist - reversing trajectory

  • reactionary to the civil rights movement - maybe would have continued improving if there hadn’t been such strong successes a decade ago

  • appealing to the silent majority which arose as a reaction to the civil rights movement

• Model extrapolated all over America

• turning point in the positive liberal activism

Reagan’s 2 term presidency

• Broke with the 1960s precedent due to the rise of conservatism

  • Increasing competition for jobs, 1980s economic crash in the North

• 20% of African Americans dependent on federal aid eg. Medicare

  • Reagan slashed their funding

  • disproportionately affecting African Americans

• William Rehnquist - chief justice 1986

  • Conservative activist - slowing the pace of liberal judgements

• 1988 - first president to veto a civil rights bill since 1866

  • overrode by congress

• 1984 war on drugs disproportionately inflating crime rates among ghettoized areas

The New South experience

• 1970s - massive economic growth

  • diversifying the economy beyond textiles

  • steel, mining, oil, gold - rich mineral resources

• 1970-76: amount of African Americans living in southern suburbs increased by 36% compared to 9% white

• 1980: 1/3 African Americans holding white collar jobs as professionals (double the 1960 proportion)

• 1982 - voting rights act extended by 25 years

• 1983 - Martin Luther King’s birthday recognised as a national holiday

• 1988 - expanding coverage of the fair housing act

• 1989 - Colin Powell appointe the first black chief of general staff

• 1992 - 6 African American congressmen

Evidence of limited improvement

• 1989 - 77% of white Americans graduating high school compared to 63% African Americans

• 21% white Americans graduating university compared to 11% black Americans

• underclass growing - 1990, 9 million Americans living under the poverty line

• Employment still 5% higher for white Americans in 1998

• Life expectancy

  • 1990: black Americans = 69.1 years, white Americans 76.1 years

• 2000 - Black Americans in prison 8x more than white

• 4 million black Americans denied the vote due to felony charges - disproportionately affected