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Week VII. {Topics}{Personalities}{Readings}{Multimedia}

Depression, World War II and the Cold War

TOPICS >>>

Scottsboro Boys Trial, 1930s
Black labor organizing, 1930s
Black segregated units in World War II
Blacks in Communist Party USA
Marian Anderson; impact of Roosevelt agencies, NRA, WPA, TVA
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Harlem Congressman
Henry Lee Moon, The Balance of Power (1948)
Election of 1948: Dewey vs. Truman
Du Bois's interest in Socialism, 1904-1940s; visits Soviet Union in 1926,
1936 and in 1949. Advocates welfare state socialism similar to Sweden
Impact of the Cold War and McCarthyism in Black America, 1946-1950s

The Great Depression, 1929-1941:
Unemployed workers, malnutrition, poverty widespread; growth of
Communist Party; rent strikes; organizing the unemployed;
Unemployed Councils of the US; Socialist Party creates the Workers Alliance of America
Herbert Hoover administration, 1929-1933
John J. Parker, North Carolina Judge, 1930, Supreme Court controversy
Scottsboro Boys Case, Alabama, 1931
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal

Black Cabinet:
Robert C. Weaver, William Hastie, Mary McLeod Bethune
A. Philip Randolph, Ralph Bunche, others establish the National Negro Congress in Chicago, 1935

Influence of Paul Robeson:
Negro March on Washington Movement, 1941
Fair Employment Practices Committee, 1941
Major advances for African-Americans in organized labor, 1940s

NAACP Legal Defense Fund:
Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall
Guinn v. US 1915-- outlawing grandfather clause legislation
Norris v. Alabama, 1935-- outlawed the exclusion of blacks from state juries
Morgan v. Virginia, 1946-- outlawed segregation on interstate buses,
transportation
Smith vs. Alwright, 1944-- outlawed the whites-only Democratic Primary
Debate within the NAACP over the issue of racial segregation--
Du Bois vs. Walter White, 1934; Du Bois resigns from the NAACP, 1934
Du Bois rejoins NAACP in 1944; he is fired from NAACP in 1948 election
partially because of his support for Henry Wallace over Truman

National Negro Labor Council:
Cleveland Robinson, William Hood,
Coleman Young, Ewart Guinier. Robeson and Du Bois, 1951-1955

PERSONALITIES >>>

Paul Robeson
Walter White
W.E.B. Du Bois
Mary McLeod Bethune
Charles Hamilton Houston
Jackie Robinson
Joe Louis
Philip Randolph
George Padmore
Benjamin Davis
(black Communist leader, not the general with the same name)

Philip Randolph, The Messenger 1917-1925, militant socialist newspaper

Chandler Owen, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters-1925 first black union to win official contract with white company-1937

Cyril V. Briggs, African Blood Brotherhood

READINGS >>>

Giddings, When and Where I Enter, Chapters XII, XIII and XIV, pp. 199-258.

Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion Chapter II, "The Cold War in Black America, 1945-1954," pp. 13-39.

Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, Chapter II, "Standing for Justice: Mississippi and the Till Case," pp. 37-57.

Marable and Mullings, eds., Let Nobody Turn Us Around, Section Three, Numbers 9-21, pp. 295-364.

MULTIMEDIA >>>

Music:
Marian Anderson - "Schubert's Ave Maria"
Mahalia Jackson - "Take My Hand Precious Lord"
Mahalia Jackson - "Trouble of the World"
Billie Holiday - "Strange Fruit"
Paul Robeson - "Ole Man River"
Paul Robeson - "Swing Low, Seet Chariot"

Films:
Clip of Marian Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1939
Historical clips on black life during the Great Depression
Clips from film, Tuskegee Airman
Historical film on Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, Mary McLeod Bethune





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