44 pages • 1 hour read
Mary L. DudziakCold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Losing Control in Camelot”
In 1961, Malick Sow, an ambassador from the now-independent African nation of Chad, was refused service in a diner in Maryland. Such incidents were all too common for African diplomats who travelled outside of Washington, DC, and New York City. This caused a real foreign policy concern. As more nations in Africa and Asia became independent from colonial rule, such incidents might tip these nations toward Communism. Also, they might make these nations less likely to support the United States’ initiatives with the United Nations.
The early 1960s saw an escalation in the Cold War. The United States was caught sending spy planes over Soviet territory, while the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 may have nearly led to a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. Still, in the United States, there was “a period of greater tolerance of the right to dissent” (154). Critics of the US government, including civil rights activists, were given more freedom and had their passports restored. Meanwhile, President John F. Kennedy was criticized for doing too little for civil rights. His own advisors argued that civil rights were, instead of a distraction, important for the administration’s foreign policy.
At the same time, civil rights activists were launching grass roots campaigns such as sit-ins at segregated restaurants. The Congress of Racial Equality organized the Freedom Ride, where interracial groups of civil rights activists rode on interstate buses in the South. The Freedom Riders faced violence and the refusal of bus riders to accept them. When riots broke out in response to the Freedom Riders in Alabama, President Kennedy sent in federal marshals to intervene. Kennedy was against the Freedom Ride, feeling the violence it provoked made the United States look bad on the eve of an important meeting with Soviet leadership. When the Freedom Riders were arrested in Mississippi, the federal government did not step in. Indeed, the international press was dismayed at the resistance faced by the Freedom Ride. Chinese and Soviet newspapers wrote about “the savage nature of American freedom and democracy” (160).
Another civil rights crisis faced by the Kennedy administration was when James Meredith, an African American, had his application to the University of Mississippi rejected due to his race. When a federal court ruled in Meredith’s favor, a riot broke out on the university campus, forcing Kennedy to dispatch federal soldiers. Many international newspapers, including in Africa, approved of Kennedy’s intervention. Kennedy “wondered how Mississippi compared with Little Rock” (166). Whenever the actions of civil rights activists were met with violence, it made international news.
Another source of concern was continued discrimination faced by African diplomats. This happened often at restaurants along Highway 40 in Maryland, which was the main route between New York City and Washington, DC. To address the problem, the director of the State Department Protocol Office, Pedro Sanjuan, supported an anti-segregation Maryland law that was passed in 1963. The same year, civil rights protestors in Birmingham were attacked by police with high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs.
Photographs of the violence spread to the international press: “The concern about Birmingham’s impact led the administration to play a key role in resolving the crisis” (170-71). It especially concerned African diplomats and politicians. At a conference of African leaders and ambassadors in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, a statement was issued expressing solidarity with the Birmingham protestors. However, Dudziak argues that the Kennedy administration managed to avert a stronger diplomatic response. Thanks to the intervention of the Kennedy administration, negotiations in Birmingham led to the release of imprisoned civil rights protestors, desegregation in department stores, and help against employment discrimination. If not for these negotiations, relations between the United States and African nations may have been broken.
When a federal court ordered the desegregation of the University of Alabama, Alabama’s governor George Wallace dramatically protested. In response, Kennedy gave a speech in favor of civil rights on national television on June 11, 1963 and called for civil rights legislation. This new commitment to civil rights was provoked by local resistance and spontaneous violence. The only solution seemed to be federal intervention. Kennedy’s call for civil rights reform also coincided with a need for public support for a nuclear test ban treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s speech was distributed to all US diplomats.
Eventually, Kennedy’s push for civil rights reform laid the groundwork for what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The bill operated on the rationale that because discrimination hurt economic transactions, Congress could regulate it through the Commerce Clause. Congress was also “well aware of the diplomatic importance of such action” (183). The bill outlawed discrimination in public accommodations; allowed the Justice Department to sue schools for imposing segregation; created some protections for the right to vote; and established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The State Department lobbied for the bill, since it would end discrimination against African diplomats. Dean Rusk argued that such steps against discrimination were necessary to combat “hostile propaganda” (185). As such, he urged that “the civil rights movement was to be embraced” (186). The general public tended to agree. In August of 1963, a poll found that 78% of white Americans believed racial discrimination hurt the foreign interests of the United States (187).
A large civil rights march on Washington, DC, was planned, called the March on Washington. The Kennedy administration was afraid that the march could lead to violence that would be detrimental to the reputation of the US. However, it could also “be seen by the world as an example of effective participation in an open, democratic political process” (187). Petitions denouncing racial discrimination timed with the March on Washington were also delivered by activists to US embassies around Europe and Africa. Mostly the protests were peaceful, although in Egypt protestors were confronted by police. In the eyes of the international press, the peaceful nature of the protest vindicated American democracy. However, violence did continue elsewhere. A church in Birmingham was bombed, killing four African American girls. The bombing “undercut U.S. efforts to play up the March on Washington as an example of racial progress” (199). When Kennedy was assassinated, it was seen as damaging to the civil rights cause.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Shifting the Focus of America’s Image Abroad”
The new president, Lyndon Johnson, presented Kennedy as a “visionary” (204), especially for his actions on civil rights. Johnson committed himself to the civil rights cause. In the meantime, fears that Kennedy was assassinated because of his civil rights stance had caused the international reputation of the United States to decline. Johnson’s support of civil rights was important for maintaining good relations with African and Asian nations. However, this was complicated by the Vietnam War, which made protecting the US image abroad even more complicated and difficult.
In a 1964 USIA report titled “America’s Human Rights Image Abroad,” it was found that average people in foreign countries were most concerned about minority rights in the United States. The passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was closely followed by the international media. Politicians around Europe, Africa, and Asia also welcomed the passing of the bill. Upon signing the Civil Rights Act, President Johnson’s public comments discussed reform within the United States and “emphasized that the United States had inspired democratic movements worldwide” (212). At an Organization of African Unity conference, the passage of the act was hailed as a “great victory” (213).
However, the escalation of the Vietnam War in August of 1964 following a reported attack on US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin created new problems for US foreign relations. Civil rights activists continued to face violent resistance, while the activists also continued to bring their struggles to the attention of the international community. Three college students involved in civil rights activism—two white and one Black—were murdered in Mississippi. Civil rights activists petitioned the United Nations to dispatch a peacekeeping force to Mississippi. In response, US propaganda presented such racist violence as a regional problem mostly localized to the South.
However, this narrative was undermined in July of 1964 when a riot broke out in Harlem after an African American teenager was shot by a white police officer. Foreign newspapers saw the riots as a sign that the Civil Rights Act may not have been entirely effective. The USIA reacted by attempting “to bolster the image of American democracy” (216). They released a film, The March, that presented the March on Washington in a positive light and as a sign of democratic progress. Another documentary movie, Nine From Little Rock, described the nine African American students who were to be integrated at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The film presented the lives of the nine students after the incident, presenting their experience with discrimination as “an opportunity for personal growth” (218).
Civil rights activists by 1964 “engaged in more sustained efforts to use international pressure” (219). These efforts were helped along by the fact that civil rights advocates saw their struggles in the United States as linked to the decolonization campaigns elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless, the US government did not dare try to restrict the ability of even more radical civil rights activists like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael from traveling abroad. Instead, the “State Department quietly facilitated the international travel of more moderate and supportive voices” (220). Despite these efforts, Malcolm X fought against the Cold War narrative of gradual progress toward equality enabled by US democracy. Instead, he advocated for African Americans working with activists struggling against colonialism in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. He also accused the Civil Rights Act of being an empty attempt by the US to win over the people of Africa and Asia.
To counter Malcolm X’s influence, the State Department sponsored a trip to Africa by the Congress of Racial Equality taken by James Farmer, who had disagreed with Malcolm X in the past. In Africa, Farmer argued that African American rights was the fulfillment of the “American revolution” (225) and that whites had participated in the civil rights movement. However, the State Department did oppose CORE’s attempts to boycott South Africa, whose white-dominated government practiced harsh discriminatory policies against Black people. At the same time, while legal discrimination was curbed, racist acts against Black diplomats continued. In any case, “African leaders often took racial injustice personally, even when they were not the targets” (230).
In the US itself, voting rights remained a problem. Protests organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in Selma, Alabama were designed to call attention to voting rights. In Dallas County, where Selma was located, only 156 of 15,000 Black people of voting age were registered voters in 1961 (231). The protestors marched to Selma’s courthouse where African Americans had been prevented from registering to vote. Cops beat, arrested, and threw tear gas at protestors. Johnson denounced the violence and called upon Congress to pass voting rights legislation.
Despite the violence, the incidents at Selma did not affect world opinion, since the federal government was seen as supporting civil rights against the efforts of local white supremacists: “Instead of being part of the problem, the U.S. government was perceived to be part of the solution” (236). Not long after the protests of Selma, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It outlawed Jim Crow practices such as poll taxes and literacy texts and gave the federal government oversight over elections. Opponents called the bill a part of a Communist plot. However, overall the bill was seen as a victory for US democracy.
The Voting Rights Act was one of a number of achievements highlighted in a 1965 USIA pamphlet, For the Dignity of Man: America’s Civil Rights Program. Its premise was that “American democracy, the American people, and the American government were fundamentally good” (238). The pamphlet depended on images of a “middle-class, integrated world that most African Americans did not actually inhabit in 1960s America” (238). Still, protest movements over civil rights and violence continued, such as the riot in the Watts community in Los Angeles in August 1965, which started when white police arrested an African American driver.
As noted in a 1966 USIA report, “Racial Issues in the U.S.,” views of minority rights in the US were having less of an influence on international opinion. US propaganda seemed to succeed in convincing other nations that gradual progress toward equality was the norm in the United States. Foreign criticism of the United States had shifted toward the unpopular war the US was waging in Vietnam. The assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. and the spread of urban riots also overshadowed racism, making the international media perceive the United States as a nation undergoing extreme unrest and in need of “law and order” (248).
Chapters 5-6 Analysis
In these chapters, Dudziak argues that the 1960s were a major turning point in The Growth of Civil Rights Activism. The movement “no longer seemed bounded within the framework imposed during the McCarthy era” (154) and it “took an important turn” (161). Federal government pressure to keep civil rights activists in line eased and more radical voices like Malcolm X emerged. Under activists like Martin Luther King Jr., new, more ambitious tactics like sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and the March on Washington were organized. At the same time, the Cold War entered a new phase, with the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly bringing the Soviet Union and the United States into a military confrontation. Still, the anti-Communist hysteria embodied in McCarthyism in the United States (See: Background) had, overall, eased up (154-55).
Nonetheless, as with the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, President Kennedy eventually agreed that The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse required more attention for the sake of the United States’ international image. The pattern became that the new tactics of civil rights activists, “coupled with violent southern white reaction, created civil rights crises that demanded federal government attention” (162) and that caught the attention of the international community. Likewise, the discrimination faced by Black diplomats in the United States forced the Kennedy administration into action.
Another pressure point was how civil rights activists invoked international opinion to pressure the government for civil rights reform (178), reflecting The Global Influence on American Civil Rights. In attracting the attention of other countries—especially African ones—to their plight, civil rights activists harnessed international condemnation to help bolster their own quest for equality and justice at home. Eventually, the activities of civil rights groups and leaders, in addition to the need to protect the United States’ image in the Cold War, paved the way for the Civil Rights Act. Furthermore, Dudziak argues, the developments in United States’ civil rights showed that the movement had a “global reach” (201). Examples of the global impact of the United States civil rights movement in this area are marches that took place around the world in sympathy with the March on Washington.
In the end, Dudziak argues that the Johnson and Nixon administrations marked another major turning point. Although the Cold War continued, the emphasis on the civil rights movement as an object of international and national attention faded. The conservative government of President Richard Nixon shifted national attention to “[l]aw and order, not social change” (246) as a result of a number of racially-motivated urban revolts. Around the same time, the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War became the main focus of opposition of both activists in the United States and the international community. As Dudziak argues, “The Vietnam War soon pushed domestic civil rights off the table as a major factor determining American prestige abroad” (208). It represented a change toward a more reactionary era, during which civil rights was considered a settled issue and where the focus of activists increasingly looked overseas.
