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Mary L. DudziakA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Domestic civil rights crises would quickly become international crises.”
This passage summarizes The Global Influence on American Civil Rights that Dudziak explores throughout her analysis. Cases of extreme discrimination and racist violence would cause the United States to receive negative international attention that could have real political repercussions.
“In addressing civil rights reform from 1946 through the mid-1960s, the federal government engaged in a sustained effort to tell a particular story about race and American democracy: a story of progress, a story of the triumph of good over evil, a story of U.S. moral superiority. The lesson of this story was always that American democracy was a form of government that made the achievement of social justice possible, and that democratic change, however slow and gradual, was superior to dictatorial imposition.”
In many ways, this is a book about narratives and stories. The United States was concerned that racist discrimination and violence provided fuel for the United States’ Communist adversaries on the world stage to make anti-American propaganda. To combat this, United States politicians and ambassadors sought to promote a pro-American narrative about racism being an obstacle that democratic progress could overcome more surely and effectively than “dictatorial imposition.” These concerns introduce The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse.
“Soviet propaganda exploited U.S. racial problems, arguing that American professions of liberty and equality under democracy were a sham.”
Soviet propaganda actively exploited discrimination and racial violence in the United States for their own narrative, reflecting The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse. Such propaganda represented a major part of the Cold War, where both the Soviet Union and the United States sought to promote positive images of life and society in their own countries to win adherents to their respective causes.
“American vulnerability on the race issue gave civil rights activists a very effective pressure point to use in advocating for civil rights reform. Civil rights organizations relied on the argument that race discrimination harmed U.S. interests in the Cold War. At the same time they effectively brought international pressure to bear on the Truman administration.”
Civil rights activists are not passive agents in Dudziak’s narrative. While the US government was responsive to the anti-American narratives formed in response to American racism and tried to form pro-United States narratives, civil rights activists had their own goals. To achieve their aims, they fully exploited the US government’s anxiety over their image and relationship with other countries by appealing to the United Nations or to the international community. In these ways, the use of international condemnation helped to shape The Growth of Civil Rights Activism at home in the US.
“U.S. diplomats around the globe were concerned about the effect of domestic race discrimination and of propaganda on U.S. racial problems on the anti-United States or pro-Communist leanings of other nations.”
American diplomats played a major role in the Cold War. It was they who alerted the US government to any criticisms of the United States arising among the populations of foreign countries. They also did the work of promoting pro-American propaganda abroad.
“From The Negro in American Life, we see the image of gradual and progressive social change which was described as the fulfillment of democracy. Through education and enlightened participation by all in electoral politics, equality was ‘nurtured.’”
The US State Department produced a number of propaganda pieces, among them The Negro in American Life (1969). Works such as this were meant to promote the story of the United States as a government that could transcend its racist past through its democratic ideals.
“American racism was manifested both in its toleration of racial brutality at home and in its support for colonial regimes abroad.”
A key reason why international populations identified with the struggles of anti-Americanism was because of colonialism. In their minds, the historic treatment of African Americans was linked to the oppression of non-white peoples under European colonialism. This tendency to view African American rights within a broader anti-colonial and anti-racist context reflects The Global Influence on American Civil Rights.
“As other nations seized on stories of U.S. race discrimination, they questioned how the United States could argue that its form of government was a model for the world when American democracy accommodated racial oppression.”
One of the fundamental problems posed by civil rights for the self-image of the US was that stories of racism in the United States made American society and government appear hypocritical. This hypocrisy thoroughly undermined the democratic ideals that the United States sought to promote in the Cold War, making it easier for other nations to question the legitimacy of the American system itself.
“In a political and cultural climate steeped in anticommunism, arguing that civil rights reform would be a capitulation to communists, who themselves must clearly be pursuing ulterior motives to undermine American society, proved to be a very effective strategy.”
At the same time that the US government found Cold War foreign policy to be an effective reason for intervention in civil rights issues, opponents of civil rights also drew on anti-communism. Specifically, they argued that the civil rights movement was itself a Communist plot to undermine United States security. These competing ideas of civil rights reflect The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse.
“Why was the Justice Department filing briefs to vindicate the interests of one of the parties? In brief after brief, the Justice Department argued that crucial national interests were also implicated. The segregation challenged in these cases damaged U.S. prestige abroad and threatened U.S. foreign relations.”
Even in Supreme Court cases, the argument that civil rights would benefit foreign policy and that racial discrimination “damaged [US] prestige abroad” was effective, reflecting both The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse and The Global Influence on American Civil Rights. It is another example of how the federal government intervened in civil rights issues for strategic geopolitical reasons.
“The function of the briefs, therefore, was not to introduce to the Court a new idea but to underscore its role in the cases, and to emphasize the Court’s responsibility. The briefs were a call to arms to enlist the Court in a project it was already engaged in safeguarding national security in the Cold War.”
“The function of the briefs, therefore, was not to introduce to the Court a new idea but to underscore its role in the cases, and to emphasize the Court’s responsibility. The briefs were a call to arms to enlist the Court in a project it was already engaged in safeguarding national security in the Cold War.”
“Brown was an essential and long-over-due affirmation of the story of race and American democracy that the government had already promoted abroad.”
This passage summarizes why the Brown v. Board of Education case was significant, both in US history in general and in the relationship between civil rights and the Cold War. The decision was applauded by the international community for being a major milestone in civil rights.
“Little Rock […] was a crisis of such magnitude for worldwide perceptions of race and American democracy that it would become the reference point for the future.”
While Brown v. Board of Education was hailed as a positive step forward for the United States, the violent reaction to the attempt to desegregate schools in Little Rock hurt international attitudes toward the United States. Dudziak argues that this was one of the most important events in terms of foreign perceptions of the United States during the Cold War, reflecting The Global Influence on American Civil Rights.
“The [Supreme] Court’s strong statement in Cooper helped reinforce the point the USIA and U.S. embassy staffs had been emphasizing for so long. Cooper illustrated the working of American constitutionalism, and it preserved the argument that racial equality was an American ideal.”
Race-based slavery and racial discrimination were major elements in the history of the United States. To overcome this, the US government attempted to explain that US democracy led gradually but inevitably to the triumph of racial equality. In claiming that “racial equality was an American ideal,” the American justices presented equality as something inevitable in the US system.
“Measured, at least, by the degree and pace of integration, it may be that Cooper succeeded more in maintaining democracy’s image than in actually desegregating the schools.”
Despite the ideals the US government attempted to promote, there were serious flaws in practice. In this case, local school boards were able to sabotage desegregation through administrative decisions. Such details were ignored by the US government and escaped the notice of the international community, which tended to respond to more dramatic, famous events like the riots following the attempt to desegregate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.
“Would race discrimination make it less likely that African and Asian nations would ally themselves with the United States and against the Soviet Union?”
The answer to the hypothetical question posed here is “yes,” as the non-white peoples of former European colonies identified with the struggle of African Americans in the United States. In addition, non-white delegates in the United States often faced discrimination, even in northern states like Maryland, such as when African diplomats were refused service in segregated restaurants. The fears of the US that such racial discrimination would make it “less likely” that African and Asian nations would side with the US “against the Soviet Union” reflect The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse.
“Yet as long as discrimination and disenfranchisement plagued the nation, the image of democracy would be at risk. And the rank and file of the civil rights movement did not shy away from protest actions out of fear of harming the nation’s image abroad.”
In tracing The Growth of Civil Rights Activism, it becomes apparent that civil rights activists were not complacent, not even when it came to the US government. Even more moderate activists made attempts to appeal to the international community and to the United Nations in order to achieve their goals for reform, linking their struggle to a wider global context.
“President Kennedy’s strengthened commitment to civil rights came at a time when international criticism was heightened and the goodwill developed from the Meredith affair had been undermined. If Kennedy’s sense of himself as a leader was at stake, then surely his sense of himself as a world leader, as well as a national leader, was implicated.”
President Kennedy was reluctant to become involved in civil rights concerns, since his priority at the start of his administration was foreign policy. However, civil rights soon became a concern not only for foreign policy and promoting US interests, but also for Kennedy’s own image. Violent reactions to advancements in civil rights had gotten to the point that they endangered both the United States’ international reputation and the president’s image to Americans.
“As long as the story told overseas could be a story of U.S. government action against injustice, then civil rights crises provided opportunities to demonstrate that American democracy sided with the champions of justice, and that the American government would use its power in battles, small and large, between freedom and tyranny. In that sense, civil rights crises provided a stage upon which the United States could act out in symbolic form its Cold War commitments.”
Civil rights crises like the violence at Little Rock or Governor George Wallace’s pro-segregation speech might hurt the United States’ international image. However, they also provided the government with an opportunity to prove pro-US rhetoric by intervening or having the President give a pro-civil rights speech. In this way, the US government tried to turn even moments of crisis into opportunities to bolster its image at home and abroad.
“American leaders had long understood that social change itself was the only effective way to convince foreign audiences that the nation was committed to its professed principles of liberty and equality.”
As effective as presidential speeches sometimes were, the US government found the most effective strategy was initiating some action in response. This was often carried out by sending federal soldiers in to quell violence, initiating a civil rights reform through the Supreme Court, or by passing legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The government’s anxiety about its international image reflects The Global Influence on American Civil Rights.
“Many activists saw the struggle for civil rights in the United States and anticolonial movements abroad as different branches of one worldwide human rights movement.”
The global movement toward decolonization coincided with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Both non-whites from Africa and Asia and African American activists saw both struggles as parts of the same movement, with consequences for how the United States was perceived internationally.
“Treatment of African Americans was taken as evidence of American feelings toward Africa as well.”
This passage is an example of Dudziak’s argument that United States history has to be understood in the context of world history. The historic struggles for independence faced by the non-white peoples of Asia and Africa were seen as strongly connected, if not inseparable, from the poor treatment of African Americans and their own campaign for civil rights reform.
“Civil rights crises no longer threatened the nation’s international prestige. Instead, they had become moments to showcase and reinforce the lessons of the previous twenty years of U.S. propaganda: that the federal government was on the side of justice and equality, that racism was not characteristic of American society but was aberrational, and that democracy was a system of government that enabled social change.”
Over time, famous incidents of racist violence no longer had the same impact on the United States’ international reputation as they had earlier in the Cold War. This was because the United States government’s concrete actions toward civil rights reform, such as the Brown v. Board of Education decision or President Kennedy’s compromise following the abuse of protestors in Birmingham, Alabama, had vindicated the United States’ own narrative that the story of racism in the US was one of gradual progress.
“The story of civil rights and the Cold War is in part the story of a struggle over the narrative of race and democracy.”
The Cold War was an ideological struggle, meaning that it was in many ways a war of ideas. From the United States’ perspective, it was a crusade to prove the superiority of capitalism and democracy over other forms of government and ways to organize society. For this reason, The Role of the Cold War in Rights Discourse was large and significant.
“As Martin Luther King Jr. suggested, the destiny of people of color ‘is tied up in the destiny of America,’ and justice at home will have an impact on the nation’s moral standing in a diverse and divided world.”
Dudziak argues that US history should be seen as part of the world. This is, as Martin Luther King Jr. suggests, even more true for the history of African Americans’ struggles, which is part of a much wider crusade for independence and civil rights across the world.