DOCSLIB.ORG

The Honorable Harold H. Greene

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Honorable Harold H. Greene THE HONORABLE HAROLD H. GREENE U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Oral History Project The Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit Oral History Project United States Courts The Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit District of Columbia Circuit The Honorable Harold H. Greene U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Interviews conducted by: David Epstein, Esquire April 29, June 25, and June 30, 1992 NOTE The following pages record interviews conducted on the dates indicated. The interviews were electronically recorded, and the transcription was subsequently reviewed and edited by the interviewee. The contents hereof and all literary rights pertaining hereto are governed by, and are subject to, the Oral History Agreements included herewith. © 1996 Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit. All rights reserved. PREFACE The goal of the Oral History Project of the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit is to preserve the recollections of the judges who sat on the U.S. Courts of the District of Columbia Circuit, and judges’ spouses, lawyers and court staff who played important roles in the history of the Circuit. The Project began in 1991. Most interviews were conducted by volunteers who are members of the Bar of the District of Columbia. Copies of the transcripts of these interviews, a copy of the transcript on 3.5" diskette (in WordPerfect format), and additional documents as available – some of which may have been prepared in conjunction with the oral history – are housed in the Judges’ Library in the United States Courthouse, 333 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. Inquiries may be made of the Circuit Librarian as to whether the transcript and diskette are available at other locations. Such original audio tapes of the interviews as exist as well as the original 3.5" diskettes of the transcripts are in the custody of the Circuit Executive of the U. S. Courts for the District of Columbia Circuit. -i- Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit Agreement 1. In consideration of the recording and preservation of my oral history memoir by the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit, Washington, D.c. ,, its em loyees and agents vO '-' 1 tt- (hereinafter "the Society") I, !'.!3 , 1:!� , <- do hereby grant and convey to the Society, its successors and assigns, the ownership of the tape recordings and transcripts of interviews of me as described in Schedule A hereto, except as otherwise provided herein. I also grant and convey to the society all right, title, and interest I might have in such tapes, transcripts and their content, including literary rights and copyrights. All copies of the tapes and transcripts are subject to the same restrictions. 2. I have not previously conveyed, assigned, encumbered or impaired my rights and interest in the tapes, transcripts and their content referred to above, except as may appear in prior works of mine. 3. It is agreed that access to the aforementioned tape recordings and transcripts shall be preserved and made available in accordance with the direction and control of the Society and subject to terms to be set by the Society. I authorize the Society, subject to the above and to any exceptions contained herein, to duplicate, edit, publish, or permit the use of said tape recordings and transcripts in any manner that the Society considers appropriate, and I waive my claim to any royalties from such use. 4. I reserve the right to use the.tapes and transcripts and their content as a resource for any boo pamphl�t, article or other writing of which I am an author o co-aut r. 1� , r ' cl � �( Date: Ve,. ·z., /q-,} Ai .. '. J; Date: �;),{ Jr� 11./"ifl,.- President Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit �;/�� 7 � �/� -.J'/-/9 ff' Schedule A Tape recording(s) and transcript resulting from three interviews conducted by -�D�a�v�i�d:.....:E�p�s�t e in � = � ______________ on the following dates: April 29, 1992; June 25, 1992; and June 30, 1992. The Honorable Harold H. Greene BiographicalSummary as of December 22, 1993 Full Name ___.H-ar ..,,o..)d ....., H... ..,Q ..ciee "" owe.____________ __________ Address _____________________________ Telephone: Office______ Home ______ Date and Place of Birth 2/6/23 Frankfun Germany Parents: father IrvinflGreene Born Warsaw,Poland Mother Edith Greene Born Bad Schonfliess.Germany Primary and Secondary Education Elementaryand Hjgh School Stettjn.G ennany Higher Education G.W. Universjty. G,W. OnjversityLa w School Positions Held Chjef Judi:e,D c, SuperiorCourt, I 966- I978 Military Service J/,S, Anny )944-1947 Other GovernmentService US DepartmentofJustjce. !953-1965 Civic and Community Activities _______________________ Honors and Awards HonoraryDoctor of Laws, GeorgeWashington Unjyersjty, Bridgeport llnjyersity: Runner-up Ii roeM an ofthe Year:numerous Bar Assn. awards;etc. Spouse Evelyn Greene Children Michael P, Greene [McLean,VA} Stephanie Greene (LosAn2eles CA} Publications Many Supreme Courta nd Courtof Appeals Briefs. Articleson court oci:anjzatjon sentencing, civilcil?bls, civil libenies. etc - 1 - Oral History Project Historical Society for the D.C. Circuit Judge Harold Greene Tape I, Side 1 April 29, 1992 -- The interview at the United States Courthouse in the District of Columbia, Judge Harold Greene. The interviewer is David Epstein, a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Q. Would you please state your name, when you were born and where? A. Harold Greene. I was born February 6, 1923, in Frankfurt, Germany. Q. What are your earliest recollections of your life in Frankfurt? A. I didn't live in Frankfurt that long, but I lived in Germany until 1938. I don't have any early recollections other than being a child. Q. How many members were there in your family? How many siblings do you have? A. No siblings. Q. What were your parents' occupations? A. My father had a jewelry store. He was a watchmaker and owned a jewelry store. Q. In what city was that? A. In Stettin, Germany. - 2 - Q. Is that the Stettin that was made famous by Winston Churchill in his Iron Curtain speech? A. That's the same one. Q. So that was on the Baltic? A. Yes. Q. How did the family get from Frankfurt to Stettin? A. I really don't know because we were -- I think they were in Frankfurt for a few weeks, or a few months. Q. Just to have you born? A. Just to have me born. I've never been in Frankfurt, except for being born there. I've never been back there. Q. Did you have an extended family also? A. My father had a number of brothers and sisters, but none of them in Germany. My mother had some, had two brothers and one sister and they had some children, some of them. I knew them. Q. What was your father's name? A. My father's name was Ignatz. Q. Your mother? A. Edith. Q. Where was your father from before Germany? A. My father was born in Poland. - 3 - Q. In what town? A. Warsaw. Q. And his extended family still lived in Poland? A. No. They were all gone. There were eleven all together, brothers and sisters. And they all left Poland. None of them in Germany, but some in Belgium, some in France, two of them in America. Q. This would have been in the 1920's and early 30's? A. Yes. Q. Did you have any contact with them? A. Not really. I went to Brussels once when my grandmother died. Other than that, my father had more contact with them than I did. Q. What about your mother's family? A. My mother's family, I saw them quite often. They were around. Not all of them left. The two brothers left Germany in time to escape the Holocaust. Q. Did you go to school in Germany? A. Yes. Q. What was your first exposure to formal education? A. Well, the elementary school, just like any other elementary school. Q. Do you remember the name of it? A. Not really. - 4 - Q. What about the curriculum? A. God, I haven't thought about that in 50 years. I don't think there was anything remarkable about it. Q. German education is known for its discipline and rigor. A. I'm sure it was more structured and more rigorous than here. The idea of group discussions and so on, I don't think exists. It has been a long time and I haven't thought about it, but I'm quite sure the idea of group discussions and contradicting the teacher and so on didn't exist. Q. Through what level of schooling did you go before you left in 1938? A. I left in 1938 but I came back. It was a rather complicated thing. Q. What level of schooling were you at in 1938? A. I had almost finished high school. After being in regular high school, the situation with the Nazis and anti-Semitism, and so on, became more and more disagreeable, and there was a Jewish private high school established. Q. In Stettin? A. In Stettin. Q. You and your family were Jewish? A. Yes. Q. When did you become aware that there were Germans who had very negative views about Jews? A. As soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933. - 5 - Q. What was your first awareness of that? A. Really hard to say. Generally it was all over. Propaganda was in evidence immediately. Q. Did you see demonstrations of brown shirts? A. Yes. Even before they took power one could see that.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The African American Civil Rights Movement As a Long Lasting Process of Struggle for Freedom
    Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature The African American Civil Rights Movement As a Long Lasting Process of Struggle for Freedom Bachelor Thesis Brno2008 Supervisor: Author: Mgr.ZdeněkJaník,M.A.,Ph.D. HanaMarková I declare that this bachelor thesis is completely my own work and that all informationgatheredforitscompilationiscitedinthe bibliography. Brno1stDecember,2008 HanaMarková I gratefully thank my supervisor, Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, for his kind assistance, precious advice andwith providingme the useful materials necessaryfor understanding this complicated topic. Above all, I would like to thank him for his patience and valuablecomments. HanaMarková Annotation: This thesis deals with the African American Civil Rights Movement not only from the point of view of its most important years from 1955 to1965,but alsoexplains its first part throughslavery,BlackCodes andJim Crow laws how Americansociety became divided along the color line; the second part shows how the first half of the twentiethcenturythroughthe Great Migration,the Great Depression, andbothWorld Wars contributedtothe blackself-awareness,andimprovement of their social position; inaddition the increasingsuffrage movement andthe beginningof the ColdWar along with Brown v. Board of Education laid the foundation for the spreading of the movement; the thirdpart analyses the movement itself andis dividedinto four sub-parts according to the means that movement applied – boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides and marches; the thesis concludes
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Rights- Supreme Court Hear Challenges to Southern Voter
    CASE NOTE CIVIL RIGHTS-SuPREmE COURT HEARS CHALLENGES TO SOUTHERN VOTER REGISTRATION SYSTEMS The Supreme Court has noted probable jurisdiction in two critical actions I brought by the United States under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 2 in an endeavor to halt two states' continued resistance to court attempts to enforce the fifteenth amendment.3 In United States v. Louisiana, 225 F. Supp. 353 (E.D. La. 1963), a three-judge district court held 4 unconstitu- tional the Louisiana provisions which require a prospective voter to inter- pret reasonably a section of the state or federal constitution if so requested by the parish registrar.5 The holding of invalidity was rested on the 'Louisiana v. United States, 377 U.S. 987 (1964) (No. 1073, 1963 Term; renum- bered No. 67, 1964 Term) ; United States v. Mississippi, 377 U.S. 988 (1964) (No. 1097, 1963 Term; renumbered No. 73, 1964 Term). The paucity of positive results from the voter registration drive in Mississippi during the summer of 1964 increases the importance of these actions. See N.Y. Times, Aug. 20, 1964, p. 13, col. 1. The extent of Southern white opposition and one of the major problems with enforcing the right to vote through county-by-county legal actions are illustrated by federal District Judge Cox's sentiments. At a hearing in which he refused to issue an injunction to speed up the registration in Canton, Mississippi, this jurist stated that he was interested in eliminating discrimination but not in whether "the registrar is going to give a registration test to a bunch of niggers on a voter drive." Watters, Negro Registration in the South, The New Republic, April 4, 1964, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • H.Doc. 108-224 Black Americans in Congress 1870-2007
    Keeping the Faith: AFRICAN AMERICANS RETURN TO CONGRESS, 1929–1970 With his election to the U.S. House of Representatives from a Chicago district in 1928, Oscar De Priest of Illinois became the first African American to serve in Congress since George White of North Carolina left office in 1901 and the first elected from a northern state. But while De Priest’s victory symbolized renewed hope for African Americans struggling to regain a foothold in national politics, it was only the beginning of an arduous journey. The election of just a dozen more African Americans to Congress over the next 30 years was stark evidence of modern America’s pervasive segregation practices. The new generation of black lawmakers embarked on a long, methodical institutional apprenticeship on Capitol Hill. Until the mid- 1940s, only one black Representative served at any given time; no more than two served simultaneously until 1955. Arriving in Washington, black Members confronted a segregated institution in a segregated capital city. Institutional racism, at turns sharply overt and cleverly subtle, provided a pivotal point for these African-American Members— influencing their agendas, legislative styles, and standing within Congress. Pioneers such as Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of New York, Charles C. Diggs, Jr., of Michigan, and Augustus (Gus) Hawkins of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of New York, a charismatic and determined civil rights proponent in the U.S. House, served as a symbol of black political activism for millions of African Americans. Image courtesy of Library of Congress California participated in the civil rights debates in Congress and helped shape fundamental laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
    [Show full text]
  • Communist Party Summary Report of Recent Civil Rights Events, May 1961
    CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1960 tI ', The Civil Rights Act of 1960, a weak measure supposed "to enforce constitutional rights and for other purposes," was passed by Congress and signed by President Eisenhower, May 6, 1960. Designed principally to extend federal protection of Negro voting rights in the South, the Act has been attacked as failing even in that limited purpose. The measure provides a new device for "voting referees" supposedly to help Negroes to register in southern areas where they have been excluded from voting. When he has trouble in registering, the Negro may go to the referee and then if he can show that he meets the state's qualifications, he may be registered. This roundabout referee provision makes it harder not easier for Negroes to vote, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People charged. It calls the Act a "fraud," and its attorney, Thurgood Marshall, states, "It would take two or three years for a good lawyer to get someone registered under this bill." (N.Y. Times, April 22, 1¢0.) He said Congressional action in such "driblets" as the 1957 and 1¢D laws might serve only to hold off the needed strong measures. Other liberal and Negro groups attacked the 1960 Act on two grounds: it. did not go beyond the voting issue, and even there the remedy provided is useless. Rev. Martin Luther King, leader of the successful bus boycott in Alabama in 1955-56, speaking · before the National Urban League in New York, September 6, 1960, charged that both Democrats and Republicans were "hypocritical" on civil rights.
    [Show full text]
  • Martin Luther King's Constitution: a Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
    The Yale Law Journal Volume 98, Number 6, April 1989 Articles Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott Randall Kennedy t I have had a little something to do with lawyers since the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Martin Luther King, Jr.' t Assistant Professor, Harvard Law School. Many people have generously aided me in writing this article. First, I would like to thank for his unflagging support Dean James Vorenberg. I would also like to thank Anita Allen, Scott Brewer, Archibald Cox, Charles Donohue, William Fisher, Morton Horwitz, Duncan Kennedy, Sanford Levinson, Martha Minow, Aviam Soifer, Girardeau Spann, Cass Sunstein, and David Wilkins. I presented earlier versions of this paper to the Program on Legal History at Harvard Law School and faculty colloquia at the University of Texas Law School and the Cornell Law School. I deeply appreciate the comments I received at those gatherings. 1. King, Foreword to W. KUNSTLER, DEEP IN My HEART. at xxi (1966). 1000 The Yale Law Journal [Vol. 98: 999 INTRODUCTION Martin Luther King, Jr., demonstrated a keen appreciation for both the power and the limits of law.2 The movement in which he played such a central role-the Civil Rights Movement of 1955-1968-produced, as Harry Kalven, Jr. once quipped, "the first revolution in history con- ducted, so to speak, on advice of counsel." 3 King displayed attentiveness to legal symbolism in the first speech that he gave as a civil rights leader. Urging the blacks of Montgomery, Alabama, to boycott the city's buses to protest racially-motivated mistreatment, he invoked legal and religious icons to inspire their collective defiance.
    [Show full text]
  • A New Nation Struggles to Find Its Footing: Power Struggles, 1789-1804
    Invigorated by the victory of Brown and frustrated by the lack of In preparation for sit-in’s, activist Jim Lawson teaches students The Civil Rights Era, 1954-1969 immediate practical effect, citizens rejected gradualist, legalistic tactics in passive-aggressive non-violence; specifically, in how to (Page 1 of 3) approaches as the primary tool to bring about desegregation. take the blows while responding with dignity. They were faced with "massive resistance" in the South by Sit-ins’s occur throughout south! Tactics employed by the Civil Rights Movement: proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression. Moral suasion – the strategic use of guilt to generate moral In defiance, African Americans adopted a combined 1958, Malcolm X expounds a militant philosophy, advocating for behavior strategy of direct action with nonviolent resistance. blacks to arm themselves and to act in self-defense. His speeches Litigation – the direct use of lawsuits to challenge Jim Crow routinely call the white person “devil” and are divisive. Civil disobedience – use of collective non-violent action to 1952, Cesar Chavez travels California urging Mexican Americans Civil Rights Act of 1960 disrupt state activity to registrar to vote. Signed by Eisenhower, it established federal inspection of local Economic boycott – use of collective non-violent actions to Brown v.Board of Education, 1954 voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who disrupt private activity Supreme Court case ruled that segregation is schools was illegal obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote or actually vote. Grassroots organizing – rural and urban strategies to build The Act survived a 125+ hour filibuster; a calculated act of mass movement Teenager Emmitt Till murdered in Sumner Mississippi, 1955 defiance by 18 Southern Democrats who sought to delay the Solicitation of corporate sponsors – use of private vote on the bill by continuous speeches in the Senate.
    [Show full text]
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964: an Overview
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An Overview September 21, 2020 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R46534 SUMMARY R46534 The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An Overview September 21, 2020 The Civil Rights Act of 1964, comprised of eleven titles and numerous sections, has been called the “most comprehensive undertaking” to prevent and address discrimination in a wide range of Christine J. Back contexts. Legislative Attorney From discriminatory voter registration practices to racial segregation in business establishments and public schools, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enacted new prohibitions and protections targeting discriminatory conduct in different forms and diverse contexts. The act not only created new statutory rights, but also designed distinct methods of enforcing these rights, and established federal entities responsible for the enforcement or facilitation of these protections as well. “In our time,” the Supreme Court has stated, “few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance.” Although the titles address discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was principally a legislative response to ongoing and pervasive conditions of racial segregation and discrimination in the United States. Such conditions included the enforced exclusion of black citizens from a host of services and establishments affecting much of daily life: public libraries, public parks and recreation systems, public schools and colleges, restaurants, hotels, businesses, performance halls, hospitals and medical facilities, and any other setting designated as “white-only.” Legislative history reflects that Titles II, III, IV, and VI, for example, were enacted to address these forms of race-based segregation and discrimination.
    [Show full text]
  • The Civil Rights Presidents: FDR to Nixon
    Montana Tech Library Digital Commons @ Montana Tech 2015 Undergraduate Research Other Undergraduate Research Fall 2015 The iC vil Rights Presidents: FDR to Nixon Brody Shields Montana Tech of the University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.mtech.edu/urp_aug_2015 Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Shields, Brody, "The ivC il Rights Presidents: FDR to Nixon" (2015). 2015 Undergraduate Research. 2. http://digitalcommons.mtech.edu/urp_aug_2015/2 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Other Undergraduate Research at Digital Commons @ Montana Tech. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2015 Undergraduate Research by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Montana Tech. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Civil Rights Presidents: FDR to Nixon By Brody Shields 1 Presidents throughout the civil rights era had different ideas and strategies on how to handle the issue and bring about equality for African Americans. When evaluating the different presidents in the era, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, it is often found that the main driving forces among them to act on civil rights were necessity and political gain. Factors such as domestic unrest, political aspirations, and political influence forced these presidents to act on, or delay, civil rights legislation whether they had the desire to or not. Although they may have found civil rights to be a moral issue that deserved attention, they were careful not to agitate either Southern Democrats on one end of the spectrum and liberals from both parties on the other end.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Rights, Guide to Studies Of
    A Guide To Historical Holdings In the Eisenhower Library A Guide to Civil Rights Studies Compiled by Barbara Constable and Linda K. Smith Revised by Barbara Constable (12/03) (Library staff made additional revisions 9/04, 5/05, 4/08) INTRODUCTION The decade of the 1950s was an era of significant advances in the movement for racial equality for black Americans. It was the time of desegregation of the United States armed forces, desegregation of Washington, D.C., Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and the Little Rock, Arkansas school integration crisis. This guide presents a survey of historical materials in the Eisenhower Library that relate to the civil rights movement of the late 1940s and the 1950s. Files documenting African-American experiences during World War II are also included as are collections containing information on civil rights during the 1960s and 1970s. The guide explores the extensive research potential for civil rights topics at the Eisenhower Library. It is not a complete and comprehensive account, but rather a survey of manuscript collections with high research potential, manuscript collections of lesser importance, oral history transcripts, and audiovisual materials. The guide should not be considered definitive, as the search for pertinent materials was conducted primarily at the folder title level and not for individual documents. There are, no doubt, additional references to civil rights topics in the papers of the Eisenhower Library, but locating them will require a visit to the Library and an intensive search by the researcher. A complete list of holdings is available upon request.
    [Show full text]
  • The Civil Rights Record of the Nixon Administration, 49 Notre Dame L
    Notre Dame Law Review Volume 49 | Issue 1 Article 3 10-1-1973 Moods and Changes: The iC vil Rights Record of the Nixon Administration Clarence Mitchell Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Clarence Mitchell, Moods and Changes: The Civil Rights Record of the Nixon Administration, 49 Notre Dame L. Rev. 63 (1973). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol49/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MOODS AND CHANGES: THE CIVIL RIGHTS RECORD OF THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION Clarence Mitchell* I. Introduction Not many years ago the United States Senate was similar to a gentlemen's club. It was ran in the main by white Protestant conservatives. The Senators in charge gave a high priority to their own comfort and convenience. Junior members of the Senate had to shuttle back and forth from their offices two blocks from the Senate floor in the Capitol, while the inner establishment that controlled power in the Senate had, in addition to regular quarters in the Senate Office Building, many little rooms in the Capitol itself. Between votes or proce- dures that were of interest to them, the members of the inner circle could retire to their Capitol offices to transact business, to talk with special visitors or per- haps just to meditate. A recent meeting between some civil rights advocates and a liberal Senator in one of these offices, a few steps from the Senate floor, had special significance.
    [Show full text]
  • Exploring the Limits of Executive Civil Rights Policymaking
    EXPLORING THE LIMITS OF EXECUTIVE CIVIL RIGHTS POLICYMAKING STEPHEN PLASS * Racial equality for blacks remains a minefield issue for American presidents. Any position a president takes is bound to alienate someone. As a result, even a well-meaning president such as Bill Clinton has had to tread very carefully when addressing this topic. 1 Popular attitudes shaped by the powerful continue to dictate the extent to which presidents are able to confront continuing racial discrimination and its legacy of inequality in American life. 2 Although many laws ordaining racial equality have been written, discrimination remains a normal part of life in America. This reality makes the President’s role in this area almost as difficult and compelling as it was over a century ago. The Clinton presidency demonstrated that even a president who is inclined to make equal treatment a priority first must consider the needs of a non-black electorate, congressional opponents, and conservative judges. 3 Presidents walk a tightrope when they expend resources on old and new barriers to equality because they face searching scrutiny from an electorate and judiciary that question the propriety, if not the constitutionality, of such an agenda. 4 Absent a popular mandate that is unlikely, race-specific policies intended to ensure equal treatment are invariably viewed as “affirmative action,” or an unnecessary government hand-out to blacks. Presidents sympathetic to minority concerns continue to have a difficult time responding to perceptions * Professor of Law, St. Thomas University School of Law, Miami Gardens, Florida. 1. See infra text accompanying note 173. 2. This, of course, is unsurprising since the president is the product of an electorate, a small portion of which is comprised of blacks.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom Summer: the Successes and Failures of the Civil Rights Movement
    FREEDOM SUMMER: THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT A THESIS Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The Colorado College In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Arts By Kimberly Turano April/2013 1 Freedom Summer: The Successes and Failures of the Civil Rights Movement The summer of 1964 was unlike any other time in American history. The whole country was reeling from the effects of the Civil Rights Movement that had begun a just a few short years before, but in Mississippi something truly radical was taking place. Freedom Summer, also known as the Mississippi Summer Project, was redefining what it meant for a movement to be organized from the ground up. Students from many well- respected and prestigious colleges, as well as young people who just felt the need to do something about the rampant racism that still existed in the South, ventured (or, in the vernacular of some, “invaded”) “the heart of the Deep South” to try to resolve some of these deep-seated issues.1 With the intention of educating and ultimately registering to vote the many African Americans who had been mistreated by a corrupt electoral system in Mississippi, the Freedom Summer volunteers sought to change the lives of many Southerners, and ended up with their lives changed as well. Many different forces shaped the preparation for and outcome of the Summer. In the heart of the South, since reconstruction African Americans were purposefully and violently discriminated against and disenfranchised. While many African Americans in the South were going to great lengths to change their surroundings through their own means, the rest of the world was beginning to see how truly terrible their circumstances were.
    [Show full text]