- [UNTITLED]
- List of Contributors
- African American Citizenship
- An American Conundrum: Race, Sociology, And The African American Road To Citizenship
- Race and the Limits of American Democracy: African Americans from the Fall of Reconstruction to the Rise of the Ghetto
- The Strange Career Of Racial Science, Racial Categories, And African American Identity
- Race-Conscious Color Blindness: World War II, <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>, and the Strange Persistence of the One-Drop Rule
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part I: Racial Attitudes in the United States during World War II, 1939–1945
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part II: Racial Attitudes during the Civil Rights and Black Power Eras, 1946–1975
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part III: Contemporary Era Racial Attitudes, 1976–2004
- From Slave to Citizen: Overview of the Evolution of African American Economic Status
- Reconstruction: The Foundations of Economic Citizenship
- The Economy and the Black Citizen, 1900 to World War II
- The Expansion of Economic Rights since World War II
- Government Policy and the Poor
- African American Politics and Citizenship, 1865–Present: An Overview
- The Black Public Sphere and Black Civil Society
- Blacks and the Racialized State
- War and African American Citizenship, 1865–1965: The Role of Military Service
- From the Civil Rights Movement to the Present
- African American Women: Intersectionality in Politics
- The United States Constitution and the Struggle for African American Citizenship: An Overview
- African American Legal Status from Reconstruction Law to the Nadir of Jim Crow: 1865–1919
- African American Legal Status from the Harlem Renaissance through World War II
- Law from the Rise of the Civil Rights Movement to the Present
- Education and the Quest for African American Citizenship: An Overview
- Emancipation and Reconstruction: African American Education, 1865–1919
- From the “New Negro” to Civil Rights: African American Education, 1919–1945
- Education from Civil Rights through Black Power: 1945–1975
- From Retrenchment to Renewal: African American Education, 1975–Present
- The African American Psyche, 1865–Present: An Overview
- Predicaments, Coping, and Resistance: Social and Personal Identities among African Americans
- Contemporary Black Identities and Personalities
- The Rise and Fall of Race Psychology in the Study of African Americans
- Black Personality in the Integrationist Era
- The Racism of Intelligence: How Mental Testing Practices Have Constituted an Institutionalized Form of Group Domination
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
As it had during the Depression in the 1930s and boom of the 1940s, the economy's macroeconomic performance remained crucial to African American status during the half century following World War II. During the quarter century beginning in 1948 and ending with the sharp recession of 1974–75, average family income doubled in the United States. Backed by the teaching of eminent sociologists, the typical American believed government action such as legislation, judicial decisions, and executive decrees had little affect on the deeply held social mores and practices driving race relations. But civil rights activists understood that by sanctioning discrimination and segregation government was the most powerful supporter of prevailing mores and practices. In the mind of the average citizen wishing to abide by the law, what moral dilemma existed between American political ideals and racist practices when the highest courts in the land had declared segregation legal, when U.S. armed forces deemed blacks unfit to serve in the same units as whites, and governments at all levels discriminated against blacks in as blatant fashion as the most unrepentant racial bigot? Civil rights leaders gambled that people's beliefs and practices toward blacks would adjust to the ideas sanctioned by governments following principles of justice and fairness.
Keywords: economic rights, World War II, judicial decisions, African American status, civil rights, political ideals, racist practices
Gerald Jaynes is Professor of Economics and African American Studies at Yale University.
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- [UNTITLED]
- List of Contributors
- African American Citizenship
- An American Conundrum: Race, Sociology, And The African American Road To Citizenship
- Race and the Limits of American Democracy: African Americans from the Fall of Reconstruction to the Rise of the Ghetto
- The Strange Career Of Racial Science, Racial Categories, And African American Identity
- Race-Conscious Color Blindness: World War II, <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>, and the Strange Persistence of the One-Drop Rule
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part I: Racial Attitudes in the United States during World War II, 1939–1945
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part II: Racial Attitudes during the Civil Rights and Black Power Eras, 1946–1975
- From Color Caste to Color Blind, Part III: Contemporary Era Racial Attitudes, 1976–2004
- From Slave to Citizen: Overview of the Evolution of African American Economic Status
- Reconstruction: The Foundations of Economic Citizenship
- The Economy and the Black Citizen, 1900 to World War II
- The Expansion of Economic Rights since World War II
- Government Policy and the Poor
- African American Politics and Citizenship, 1865–Present: An Overview
- The Black Public Sphere and Black Civil Society
- Blacks and the Racialized State
- War and African American Citizenship, 1865–1965: The Role of Military Service
- From the Civil Rights Movement to the Present
- African American Women: Intersectionality in Politics
- The United States Constitution and the Struggle for African American Citizenship: An Overview
- African American Legal Status from Reconstruction Law to the Nadir of Jim Crow: 1865–1919
- African American Legal Status from the Harlem Renaissance through World War II
- Law from the Rise of the Civil Rights Movement to the Present
- Education and the Quest for African American Citizenship: An Overview
- Emancipation and Reconstruction: African American Education, 1865–1919
- From the “New Negro” to Civil Rights: African American Education, 1919–1945
- Education from Civil Rights through Black Power: 1945–1975
- From Retrenchment to Renewal: African American Education, 1975–Present
- The African American Psyche, 1865–Present: An Overview
- Predicaments, Coping, and Resistance: Social and Personal Identities among African Americans
- Contemporary Black Identities and Personalities
- The Rise and Fall of Race Psychology in the Study of African Americans
- Black Personality in the Integrationist Era
- The Racism of Intelligence: How Mental Testing Practices Have Constituted an Institutionalized Form of Group Domination
- Index
