Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T20:32:04.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF BLACK CITIZENSHIP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2019

Leah Wright Rigueur  and
Anna Beshlian
Leah Wright Rigueur*
Affiliation:
Harvard Kennedy School
Anna Beshlian
Affiliation:
Columbia Justice Lab, Columbia University
*
*Corresponding author: Leah Wright Rigueur, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper offers a broad overview of Black citizenship within the United States, concentrating on the major shifts in Black life that have transpired since the classical phase of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. We examine several critical aspects of Black citizenship including economic status, education, criminal justice and mass incarceration, and political participation. Our report reveals that Black progress toward equal citizenship is inconsistent at best; at worst, it is stagnant and at times, regressive. As such, we conclude that dramatic solutions beyond traditional reformist approaches are needed in order to realize genuine citizenship and equal rights for Black people within the United States. In closing, we briefly highlight a specific example of a strategic approach to advancing substantive social and political change.

Keywords

African Americansracecitizenshipeconomicseducationcriminal justiceblack politics
Type
Guest Edited Dossier
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Spring 2019 , pp. 267 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, Michelle (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Carol (2016). White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide . New York: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Berger, Dan (2016). Mass Incarceration and its Mystification: A Review of the 13th. Black Perspectives . October 22. <https://www.aaihs.org/mass-incarceration-and-its-mystification-a-review-of-the-13th/> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Bester, DeAngelo, and Jean, Valery (2012). Strengthening Black Organizing Across the United States. In Critical Issues Forum: Mobilizing Community Power to Address Structural Racism, pp. 14–17. San Francisco, CA: Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity. < https://www.wkkf.org/-/media/pdfs/2013/michigan-convening/community/mobilizing-community-power-to-address-structural-racism-pre-critical-issues-forum-volume-4.pdf?la=en> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Brown, Anna, and Atske, Sara (2016). Blacks Have Made Gains in U.S. Political Leadership, but Gaps Remain. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, June 28. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/blacks-have-made-gains-in-u-s-political-leadership-but-gaps-remain/ (Accessed April 5, 2019).Google Scholar
Brown, v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)Google Scholar
Cohen, Cathy J. (1999). The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Cathy J., Luttig, Matthew D., and Rogowski, Jon C. (2016). GenForward: A Survey of the Black Youth Project with the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Chicago, IL: GenForward. <http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/GenForward/GenForward%20June%202016%20BYP%20Report.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Darity, William Jr., Hamilton, Darrick, Paul, Mark, Aja, Alan, Price, Anne, Moore, Antonio, and Chiopris, Caterina (2018). What We Get Wrong About Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. <https://socialequity.duke.edu/sites/socialequity.duke.edu/files/site-images/FINAL%20COMPLETE%20REPORT.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
DeSilver, Drew (2013). Black Unemployment Rate Is Consistently Twice That of Whites. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, August 21. <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/08/21/through-good-times-and-bad-black-unemployment-is-consistently-double-that-of-whites/> (Accessed April 5, 2019).Google Scholar
Darling-Hammond, Linda (1998). Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, March 1. <https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) (2017). Mass Incarceration. <https://eji.org/mass-incarceration> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
Forman, James Jr. (2017). Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America . New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
Formisano, Ronald P. (1991). Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frey, William H. (2013). Minority Turnout Determined the 2012 Election. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution. May 10. https://www.brookings.edu/research/minority-turnout-determined-the-2012-election/> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Geismer, Lily (2015). Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney-López, Ian (2006). White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Hurst, Charles Jr. (1973). Time to Twist the Knife. Chicago Defender. October 23.Google Scholar
Jones, Martha S. (2018). Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krogstad, Jens Manuel, and Lopez, Mark Hugo (2017). Black Voter Turnout Fell in 2016 U.S. Election. Washington DC: Pew Research Center, May 12. <https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/> (Accessed April 5, 2019).Google Scholar
Kruse, Kevin (2005). White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, James P., and Sabol, William J. (1997). Did Getting Tough on Crime Pay? Washington, DC: Urban Institute. <https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/70411/307337-Did-Getting-Tough-on-Crime-Pay-.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Mauer, Marc (2016). Bill Clinton, ‘Black Lives,’ and the Myths of the 1994 Crime Bill. New York: The Marshall Project. April 11. <https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/11/bill-clinton-black-lives-and-the-myths-of-the-1994-crime-bill> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Muhammad, Khalil G. (2010). The Condemnation of Blackness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2010). Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, July. <https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010015.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
National Research Council (2014). The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. <https://doi.org/10.17226/18613> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
New York Amsterdam News (1965). Negroes to Focus on Political Action, February 6.Google Scholar
New York Times, The (2014). Black Turnout in 1964, and Beyond. October 17.Google Scholar
Payne, Charles M. (2007). I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2016). On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart. Washington, DC <https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/on-views-of-race-and-inequality-blacks-and-whites-are-worlds-apart/> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
Ransby, Barbara (2003). Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision . Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Rooks, Noliwe (2017). Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Sentencing Project, The (TSP) (2018). Fact Sheet: Trends in U.S. Corrections. Washington, DC <https://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (StanfordCEPA) (2014). The Educational Opportunity Monitoring Project: Racial and Ethnic Achievement Gaps. Stanford, CA. <http://cepa.stanford.edu/educational-opportunity-monitoring-project/achievement-gaps/race/> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
Shapiro, Thomas, Meschede, Tatjana, and Osoro, Sam (2013). The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap: Explaining the Black-White Economic Divide. Research and Policy Brief 8, February. Waltham, MA: Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University. <https://community-wealth.org/content/roots-widening-racial-wealth-gap-explaining-black-white-economic-divide> (Accessed April 3, 2019).Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau (2018). Income and Poverty in the United States, 2017. Table 3: People and Families in Poverty by Selected Characteristics, 2016 and 2017. < https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html> (Accessed April 4, 2019).+(Accessed+April+4,+2019).>Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division (2015). Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. March 4.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Justice: Civil Rights Division (2016). Baltimore City Police Department . August 10.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate: Art & History Division (2019). Special Features: African American Senators.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce (2018). The Challenge of Criminal Justice Reform. Executive Session on the Future of Justice Policy. New York: The Square One Project. September 20. <https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/Photo_Exhibit_African_American_Senators.htm> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Western, Bruce and Pettit, Becky (2010). Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effects on Economic Mobility. Philadelphia, PA: Pew Charitable Trusts. < https://www.pewtrusts.org/∼/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2010/collateralcosts1pdf.pdf> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar
Wilentz, Sean (2006). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln . New York: W.W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Wright Rigueur, Leah (2015). The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamahtta-Taylor, Keeanga (2016). From #Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Zelizer, Julian E. (2016). 50 Years Ago, the Government Said Black Lives Matter. Boston Review, May 5. <http://bostonreview.net/us/julian-e-zelizer-kerner-report> (Accessed April 4, 2019).Google Scholar