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The historiography of the Civil Rights Movement of 1955–68 is both rich and extensive. Expressed in terms of the language and imagery of the natural world, the diversity, fecundity and quality of the scholarship is akin to the luxuriant growth of a tropical rain forest. Sadly, this pleasing vista is not an appropriate description for the body of published research by historians on Black Nationalist groups of the period or the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. The scholarly output on these subject areas has, by comparison, been sparse, stunted
, such as the Great Migration, 1915–25, or lynching, attracted the attention of the wider American public. During the 1950s and 1960s the spread of more liberal attitudes and values, reflected in the rise of Martin Luther King and the post-war Civil Rights Movement, inspired scholars to investigate the African American past. They eloquently portrayed the historical sufferings of black communities and felt moral outrage at such racial injustice in a way that would have been incomprehensible for many earlier scholars, who saw such inequalities as natural and inevitable
The study of African American history, as has been noted earlier, first became a focus of interest for mainstream historians in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Previously, in the 1930s and 1940s, the subject had been seen as being of importance or interest only to black scholars. The few white historians who researched or published in the field were perceived either as eccentric, like August Meier, or driven by obsessive ideological conviction, such as the Marxist Herbert Aptheker. The historiography of the black experience for this time period has followed a
to the end of the 1960s. In the late 1930s and early 1940s a new generation of black historians such as Benjamin Quarles and, most notably, John Hope Franklin, began to take over academic leadership in African American history from the Woodson school. Born in 1915, the son of a poor Oklahoma lawyer, Franklin was a graduate of Fisk and Harvard Universities. In common with other young black academics of his generation, he was less interested in black achievers than the collective experience of the race and interactions between blacks and whites. 9 In another
prerogative of being wise after the event. Admittedly, the fact that race relations remains a serious and high profile unresolved issue in early twenty-first-century America can be said to influence the scholarly debate on almost any aspect of African American history. At the same time the early Civil Rights Movement of the 1930s and 1940s and the black freedom struggle of the 1950s and 1960s are distinct past periods that can be evaluated as a whole in their own right, even if from a wider perspective they can also be viewed as but the early completed acts in a still
popular culture as an unwelcome guest, to be looked upon with suspicion and doubt’. 1 This inhospitable approach can be seen as the result of a number of factors. In the first instance, as has already been hinted, until the 1960s historians were inclined to view popular culture as ‘vulgar and uncultured’, and scholars instinctively avoided ‘investigating the realm of the “low brow” to protect their own (or someone else’s) notion of intellectual integrity’. Moreover, there was also the perception that popular culture did not afford genuine insights into attitudes and
studies of the Movement that appeared in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Moreover, early accounts concentrated predominantly on the life of one individual in particular, Martin Luther King, resulting in a ‘King-centric’ approach to the subject. 3 Admittedly, even in these first studies, no serious historian was naive enough to explain the rise of mass black civil rights protests solely with reference to King, but he invariably occupied a centre stage position, seeming to dominate the individuals and events around him through his determination and vision like a
superpowers. This chapter will first outline the most important international events of the 1960s and 1970s. It will then consider how the major issues of the age were addressed by International Relations scholars who developed new concepts and approaches to grasp and understand them. Authors like Keohane, Nye, Krasner and North expanded on liberal approaches to co-operation and order. Authors like Baran, Sweezy, Gunder Frank and other radical authors elaborated on Marxist theories of exploitation, conflict and revolution. The turbulence and changes that marked
the intense involvement of the private agencies. In part these were missionary societies and philanthropic bodies that had lengthy experience of work beyond Europe in sectors like health or education. As well as these there were the organisations started for the post-war relief – mostly in the post-Second World War period – which broadened their areas of expertise, including in development. But above all, the idea of freeing the ‘backward’ countries from poverty and hunger was the stimulus for setting up new associations that during the 1960s contributed to
the 1960s, a form of ‘cultural revolution’ took place when such attitudes were re-examined and found wanting. Perhaps this is explained by: new British writers like Kingsley Amis, whose books poked fun at the established order; the imported music from the United States – jazz and rock and roll – which expressed individual expression and rebellion (and British musicians soon began to equal the popularity of their US models); the emergence of an elite, educated at grammar schools, many of whom went on to study at the elite universities and who resented the