The Black Experience in America: from Civil Rights to the Present / Edited by Jeff Wallenfeldt.—1St Ed
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Published in 2011 by Britannica Educational Publishing (a trademark of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.) in association with Rosen Educational Services, LLC 29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010. Copyright © 2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, and the Thistle logo are registered trademarks of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Rosen Educational Services materials copyright © 2011 Rosen Educational Services, LLC. All rights reserved. Distributed exclusively by Rosen Educational Services. For a listing of additional Britannica Educational Publishing titles, call toll free (800) 237-9932. First Edition Britannica Educational Publishing Michael I. Levy: Executive Editor J.E. Luebering: Senior Manager Marilyn L. Barton: Senior Coordinator, Production Control Steven Bosco: Director, Editorial Technologies Lisa S. Braucher: Senior Producer and Data Editor Yvette Charboneau: Senior Copy Editor Kathy Nakamura: Manager, Media Acquisition Jeff Wallenfeldt: Manager, Geography and History Rosen Educational Services Hope Lourie Killcoyne: Senior Editor and Project Manager Nelson Sá: Art Director Cindy Reiman: Photography Manager Matthew Cauli: Designer, Cover Design Introduction by Eve Creary Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Black experience in America: from civil rights to the present / edited by Jeff Wallenfeldt.—1st ed. p. cm.—(African American history and culture) “In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61530-177-5 (eBook) 1. African Americans—History—1964– 2. African Americans—Civil rights—History. 3. United States—Race relations—History. I. Wallenfeldt, Jeffrey H. E185.615.B541523 2011 323.1196'073—dc22 2010014639 On the cover: Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest and most influential women in the United States (pictured here at the 2002 Emmy Awards), gives smiling testament to the great heights that have been reached by black Americans—heights civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., could have indeed only dreamed of when delivering his stirring and pro- phetic “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Mall in Washington, D.C., capping the March on Washington. Kevin Winter/Getty Images (Winfrey); AFP/Getty Images (King) On pages 17, 30, 54, 74, 106, 125, 153: U.S. Pres. Barack Obama delivers his first State of the Union address, Jan. 27, 2010, as Vice President Joe Biden listens. Mandel Ngan/AFP/ Getty Images 18 CONTENTS Introduction 10 Chapter 1: Overview: World War II to the Present 17 World War II 17 The Civil Rights Movement 19 Urban Upheaval 21 Soul Food 22 Kwanzaa 24 A New Direction 24 Political Progress 25 Other Contributions to American Life 26 Television and Film 26 The Cosby Show 27 36 Literature 28 Music 28 Sports 29 Chapter 2: The Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Struggle 30 The Movement 30 Abolitionism to Jim Crow 31 Du Bois to Brown 33 Paul Robeson 34 Montgomery Bus Boycott to the Voting Rights Act 34 From Black Power to the Assassination of Martin Luther King 38 Into the 21st Century 39 Activism, Action, and Acts 40 Affirmative Action 40 Bakke Decision 42 37 Black Nationalism 43 Black Panther Party 43 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 44 Civil Rights Act 44 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) 45 Freedom Rides 46 Racial Segregation 47 Sit-in 48 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 48 59 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 49 Tuskegee Syphilis Study 49 Presidential Apology for the Study at Tuskegee 51 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 51 Voting Rights Act 52 Chapter 3: African American Literature Since World War II 54 James Baldwin 54 Ebony 56 African American Theatre 56 Alice Childress 57 68 Lorraine Hansberry 57 The Literature of Civil Rights 58 Gwendolyn Brooks 58 Amiri Baraka 59 The Black Arts Movement 59 Reconceptualizing Blackness 62 Ishmael Reed 63 Renaissance in the 1970s 64 Toni Morrison 64 Ebonics 66 Alice Walker 67 The Turn of the 21st Century 68 Jamaica Kincaid 69 John Edgar Wideman 70 August Wilson 70 African American Roots 72 Chapter 4: Jazz 74 78 Field Hollers and Funeral Processions: Forming the Matrix 75 Cakewalk 77 Scott Joplin 78 Sidney Bechet 79 Ragtime into Jazz: The Birth of Jazz in New Orleans 80 New Orleans Style 81 James Reese Europe 82 84 Variations on a Theme: Jazz Elsewhere in the United States 82 The Cornetist Breaks Away: Louis Armstrong and the Invention of Swing 83 Armstrong’s Influence 83 Scat 84 Earl Hines 85 Orchestral Jazz 86 Johnny Hodges 87 Chick Webb 90 The Precursors of Modern Jazz and the Popularization of Swing 90 Jazz Dance 92 Ben Webster 94 108 The Return of the Combo and the Influence of the Territory Bands 94 Jazz at the Crossroads 96 Billy Eckstine 97 Cool Jazz Enters the Scene 98 Eric Dolphy 100 Free Jazz: The Explorations of Ornette Coleman 101 Art Ensemble of Chicago 102 Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians 103 Jazz at the Turn of the 21st Century 103 Jazz-Rock 104 Chapter 5: Gospel, Blues, R&B, and Doo-Wop 106 Gospel Music 107 Spiritual 109 113 Blues 110 WDIA 111 Little Walter 112 Boogie-Woogie 113 Rhythm and Blues 114 The Origins of Rhythm and Blues 114 Louis Jordan 115 Independent Record Labels 116 Clyde McPhatter 118 126 Rhythm and Blues in the Era of Rock and Roll 120 Doo-Wop 122 The Ink Spots 122 The Platters 123 Chapter 6: Soul, Motown, Disco, Funk, Hip-Hop, and House 125 Soul Music 125 Solomon Burke 127 Wilson Pickett 129 Motown 132 Martha and the Vandellas 134 Holland-Dozier-Holland 136 137 Disco 137 Donna Summer 138 Funk 138 Kool and the Gang 139 Go-Go 140 Hip-Hop 141 Origins and the Old School 141 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five 142 Sugar Hill Records 143 The New School 144 LL Cool J 144 Tommy Boy Records 145 New Jack Swing 146 Death Row Records and Interscope Records 147 Hip-Hop in the 21st Century 148 OutKast 149 House 151 161 The Warehouse 152 Chapter 7: Sports 153 Baseball 153 Segregation 154 Integration 160 Ernie Banks 162 Boxing 164 Floyd Mayweather, Jr. 165 167 Basketball 166 Elgin Baylor 168 Allen Iverson 170 Football 171 Fritz Pollard 172 Bob Hayes 174 Epilogue 176 Timeline: World War II to Present 177 Appendix: Primary Sources 191 Earl Warren: Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al. 191 Barack Obama: Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention 198 178 Barack Obama: A More Perfect Union (2008) 202 Barack Obama: Inaugural Address 212 Glossary 218 Bibliography 220 Index 222 189 INTRODUCTION Introduction | 11 s World War II drew to a close the unfulfilled promise of constitutionally Athe door of equality for African guaranteed rights. The brutal struggle Americans was slowly being pried open. for abolition grew into the long battle An executive order by Pres. Franklin for civil rights that crested in the 1950s D. Roosevelt in 1941 had banned dis- and ’60s. In the process, setbacks and crimination in federal agencies and all solidarity, injury and intestinal fortitude, unions and companies engaged in war- upheaval and uplift ultimately led to tre- related work, though only after A. Philip mendous political, social, and economic Randolph, president of the Brotherhood advancement and extraordinary accom- of Sleeping Car Porters, and other plishment in arts and culture by African African American leaders had threatened Americans. Readers of this volume will a march on Washington. Randolph was learn how events and individuals, both also behind the threat of mass civil dis- past and present, contributed the rich obedience that prompted Pres. Harry S. and diverse threads of African American Truman to issue the executive order in history and culture that have been woven 1948 that desegregated the military. The into the fabric of the American story and notable accomplishments of triumphant how a dream deferred has increasingly African American soldiers in World War been delivered. II, as well as the sense of equality they One of the first mid-20th century had enjoyed while off-duty in Europe, signposts on African Americans’ delib- led many to protest the varying degrees erate and persistent march toward civil of racism, discrimination, and disenfran- rights was the sit-in at a Chicago coffee chisement they encountered upon their shop in 1942 staged by an organization return to the United States. The nature that would become the Congress of Racial of the prejudice African Americans expe- Equality (CORE). Founder James Farmer, rienced, however, depended on whether a student of Mohandas Gandhi’s non- they faced the blatant segregation of the violent approach to political and social Jim Crow South or the more subtle dis- progress, was instrumental in organizing crimination of the North. demonstrations that would ultimately Since the arrival of the first slave eradicate public segregation in northern ships in colonial America, freedom and cities. Small, spontaneous acts of pro- equality have been the goal of African test, such as Rosa Parks’s refusal to give Americans, who, as a people, refused to up her seat on a bus in 1955, gave rise accept institutionalized segregation and to larger organized actions, such as the In the early 1960s, nonviolent responses to segregated lunch counters included sit-ins and picket- ing. In this 1960 photo, African Americans associated with CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) picket the lunch counter of the chain store Grants in Norfolk, Va. Howard Sochurek/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images 12 | The Black Experience in America: From Civil Rights to the Present Montgomery Bus Boycott, orchestrated taunting and death threats with equanim- by the young Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. ity. He opened the door for an unending King, another disciple of nonviolent civil parade of great African American players disobedience, helped found the Southern such as Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Rickie Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Henderson, and Bobby Bonds.