Ford and Carter Civil Rights

Question 1

What did Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education argue?

Answer 1

• 1971
• NAACP argued 6yr old James Swann had the right to an integrated education even though geographically closest schools were predominantly black

Question 2

What happened when a Boston judge ordered the school system to start busing in 1974?

Answer 2

• white parents/students rioted
• only black member of Ford’s cabinet, Secretary of Transport William Coleman, asked Ford to intervene but he remained silent saying it was a state matter
• Ford not racist: best friend Willis Ward was black and he’d refused to play when Georgia Tech asked if Ward could be dropped for a football game

Question 3

What was the result of Milliken v Bradley in 1974?

Answer 3

• districts where de facto segregation was occurring could only be forced into an integrated busing system if it was clear that the segregation was part of a pattern of violation on behalf of the districts
• hastened white flight as parents realised they could send children to predominantly white schools if they were in the right area

Question 4

What was the result of University of California v Bakke?

Answer 4

• barred racial quota systems in admissions to uni but also affirmed the constitutional validity of affirmative action programmes which were designed to give equal access to minorities
• Allan Bakke sought entry to UoCali medical programme but was prevented from admission on basis of quota that 16/100 needed to be black - was admitted but Court held true to 1964 Civil Rights Act

Question 5

What cultural gains were made by African Americans?

Answer 5

• blaxploitation films becoming increasingly popular
• professor Carter Woodeon founded black history month in 1976
• Alex Hayley wrote Roots - followed a family’s origins in Africa through slavery
• new music, e.g. Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder
• 1979: Rappers Delight by Sugarhill Gang became first comercially successful hiphop release - over 500,000 copies sold

Question 6

What did sociologist William Wilson suggest?

Answer 6

• suggested there was a ‘spatial mismatch’
• no longer a problem of being black but the problem of being born in locations distant from sources of employment
• flight of growing black middle class left areas like the Pruit-Igoe estate in St Louis as sinks of poverty, crime and isolation

Question 7

What was the problem with the prison system for African Americans?

Answer 7

• 1971: Nixon’s ‘war on drugs’ increased the prison population by 800%
• problem of increasingly ghettoised inner cities meant incarceration for drug offences began to affect young black men disproportionately
• poverty and police brutality remained a reality despite warnings of 1967 Kerner Commission

Question 8

What economic change occurred for African Americans under Ford and Carter?

Answer 8

• by the end of Carter’s term, African Americans made up 12% of the population but 43% of those receiving welfare, 34% of those in subsidised housing and 35% of those receiving food stamps
• 1980: Urban Institute calculated there were 900,000 members of a black ‘underclass’
• outside ghettos, however, economy improved
• 1975: 64,8% of 18-24yr old African Americans had completed high school
• 1990: 90% suggested affirmative action was still necessary, suggesting belief that this was the cause of progress
• 1977 Census: 31% black people could now be classified as middle class

Question 9

What was the link between civil rights and feminism?

Answer 9

• black feminist groups like the Combahee River Collective and the National Black Feminist Organisation
• 1974: Salsa Soul Sisters became the first organisation for black lesbians
• never boasted significant membership but indicated fragmentation of civil rights as an issue and the inherent sexism many women felt was prevalent in male dominated groups

Question 10

Who became the first black mayor in Atlanta and Georgia and when?

Answer 10

• 1973
• Lawyer Maynard Jackson
• reinforced black middle class involvement in city’s business and social affairs
• black employment in public departments increased - Jackson hired first affirmative action officer and proportion of black public employees rose dramatically
• increased percentage of city contracts awared to black firms by 25%

Question 11

What evidence suggests continuity in Georgia?

Answer 11

• only had 249 black elected officials - 3.7% of state total
• 1980: 1/3 black Atlantans remained below the poverty line
• black unemployment in Georgia 12.5% - 3x percentage proportion for whites

Question 12

What did sociologist Robert Bullard highlight?

Answer 12

• highlighted economic discrimination in where waste facilities were situated as an erosion of civil rights of black citizens in Houston
• found that African American neighbourhoods often chosen for toxic waste sites
• Houston: all 5 city owned garbage dumps, 6/8 city owned garbage incinerators, 3/4 privately owned landfills were sited in black neighbourhoods
• however, African Americans only made up 25% of the city’s population