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Sweet Land of Liberty

2009-11-22T15:15:50Z

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Thomas J. Sugrue. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. (New York: Random House, 2008) p. 533 ISBN: 978-0-679-64303-6.

Summary

This is a survey of the civil rights struggle in the North in the second half of the twentieth century. Many civil rights histories focus on the South and the defeat of Jim Crow and segregation but there was also a huge struggle in the North as well. Dr. Sugrue looks at the constant struggle of the everyday person as opposed to the more famous incidents in the civil rights movement. Although there were no blatant Jim Crow laws, there was enough unofficial discrimination to make the plight of blacks bad. There were practices such as those listed in the National Association of Real Estate Boards brochure, telling agents not to sell to blacks so as to not lower property values. This book tells about all of the various roadblocks blacks had on their way to economic and social success. Many of these roadblocks were hidden, many happened as a result of natural processes that were backed by government policies. Some of the unofficial problems were things like being shut out of rich suburbs, and since local schools were based on local taxes, black neighborhoods and schools were underfunded. Northern whites may have not openly championed white superiority but they did enforce a de facto segregation they claimed just occurred as the natural results of the marketplace.

Blacks migrated in force to the North during the nineteen-forties. They had a struggle there as de facto segregation was as times as big a roadblock as codified segregation was in the South. African Americans were not passive victims but active fighters for what they believed to be their rights.Dr. Sugrue looks at many of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement like Roxanne Jones, the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature, who championed increases in welfare, and staged protests, and Anna Hedgeman, one of the many churchgoing grassroots activists. They pushed through victories such as the YMCA integrating. There are many profiles of such grassroots people such as Morris Milgram, a socialist who worked to integrate housing in the Philadelphia area. This is a story of all of the segregated hotels, and movie theaters and complete neighborhoods throughout the North before the nineteen-sixties. Dr. Sugrue emphasizes the big task was getting economic equality. That required equality in education and that required equality in housing. White flight left black neighborhoods ghettos. Public housing was not enough. African Americans grew deeper into poverty.
Dr. Sugrue finds the link between the early years of the struggle and the years that black power and militancy came to the fore in the streets of the cities. He claims there was a long, continuing ascent to greater militancy as time went by. He shows how early, more sedate activists such as Herman Ferguson had their early orderly protests mature into militancy. He also shows that the civil rights movement continues today following in those same footsteps.

Commentary

Chuck Crum Fall 2009

Dr. Sugrue has attempted a work that is rather huge in its scope. It is an extremely well-researched work, covering many little stories of struggles to open up theaters or lunch counters. It does a good job of displaying there was a civil rights struggle in the North as well as the South and a good job of showing that the struggle just didn’t emerge wildly into the streets in the nineteen-sixties. He also shows that the movement is not over. The book is valuable for these contributions.

Civil Rights

2009-11-22T15:14:33Z

Local studies:

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	* Sugrue, Thomas J. ''[[The Origins of the Urban Crisis]]: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).		* Sugrue, Thomas J. ''[[The Origins of the Urban Crisis]]: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
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		+	* Sugrue, Thomas J. "[[Sweet Land of Liberty]]:The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North" (New York: Random House, 2008).

	* Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds. ''Freedom north: Black freedom struggles outside the South, 1940-1980.'' New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xiv, 326 p. $29.95		* Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds. ''Freedom north: Black freedom struggles outside the South, 1940-1980.'' New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xiv, 326 p. $29.95

Parish Boundaries

2009-11-21T12:37:11Z

Created page with 'John T. McGreevy. Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) p. 362 ISBN: 0-226-55873-...'

New page

John T. McGreevy. Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) p. 362 ISBN: 0-226-55873-8

Summary

Dr. McGreevy’s work is about American Catholicism and race. He claims historians are always looking at race, gender and class and not often enough looking at the important role religion plays in American identity and history. “Religion frequently ends up at the bottom of a list of variables”.p4. Historians look at race in terms of working-class in urban areas without realizing the importance of religion in shaping racial views. Dr. McGreevy looks at urban north race relations in just those terms: how Catholicism affected those relations. Blacks moved into the urban north in droves from 1920 through 1960 from the South. They moved into neighborhoods that were populated by mostly working-class whites. The residents were first and second generation immigrants- Irish, Italian and Slovaks. These neighborhoods had a heavy concentration of Catholics. This was because the parish church was the center of social and cultural activity. Protestants and Jews mainly fled to the suburbs when blacks moved into these cities. However, Catholics had a much stronger identity with their neighborhood and stayed in the city in much greater numbers. They had a stronger sense of community, not only from their ethnic ties, but also their ties to a particular parish. Catholic religious heritage was a stronger influence than class, and gave cohesiveness to the whole neighborhood. The sacramental life of the church, the division of some parishes into “ethnic” parishes, and the church being the center of social life meant the Catholic experience was much more about place than the it was for Protestants. An individual’s ties to his parish were extremely strong prior to Vatican II.

It was this neighborhood cohesiveness, however, that made Catholics resistant to intruders and change. Blacks suffered prejudice and were reviled as strangers to the neighborhoods. This was true even of black Catholics. There were many racial clashes in the nineteen-forties and nineteen-fifties in urban neighborhoods. Blacks interacted with Catholics in the North more than they did with any other single group. This racism started in part from Catholic neighborhoods trying to keep themselves and their values together. In the nineteen-fifties and nineteen-sixties, liberal Church leaders championed the civil rights movement. The Second Vatican Council condemned racism. There was a bitter conflict between the laity and the hierarchy of the Church on this issue.

Commentary

Dr. McGreevy has done a wonderful job of accurately capturing urban Catholic life in the twentieth-century. He utilizes numerous archives and collections from various parishes and is quite convincing in his portrayal of American Catholicism. The cohesiveness of parish life was quite real for Catholics at least through nineteen-sixty. However, the race issue is much larger than just Catholicism and it is still questionable how big a role religion played. Was ethnicity the real glue in these neighborhoods? Where does class fit in with religion? Catholics may not have fled to the suburbs as quickly as Protestant and Jews because they were Eastern and Southern European first and second-generation immigrant working-class and could not afford to. It may be difficult to separate class from religion in this analysis. Was this racism a result of protecting neighborhoods or would it have been there anyway since the attitude toward non-blacks was very different? It is also difficult to ascertain whether race played a big role in changes in Catholic life in the urban north or did Vatican II and societal changes play a big role. Religion is important certainly, and Dr. McGreevy has done a fine job of showing it is understated, but religion’s place among other factors remains hard to quantify. You could find a lot of reasons for racism without mentioning Catholicism and you could find a lot of reasons for changes in Catholicism without mentioning race.

Civil Rights

2009-11-21T12:35:59Z

Local studies:

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:35, 21 November 2009
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	* Peter B. Levy. ''[[Civil War On Race Street]]: The Civil Rights Movement In Cambridge Maryland''. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. 2003.		* Peter B. Levy. ''[[Civil War On Race Street]]: The Civil Rights Movement In Cambridge Maryland''. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. 2003.
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		+	* John T. McGreevy "[[Parish Boundaries]]: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North. (Chicato: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

	== Biography ==		== Biography ==