Chapter 24, Reaction and Progress, p.564-601

• Carter had appointed blacks to important positions in government
• bad developments: unemployment increased. Energy, welfare, and taxes were not handled well.
• Reagan, extremely far right. Criticized "welfare queens" and big government
• Reagan, against affirmative action and equal employment opportunity programs
• Carter took 90% of the black vote
• head of housing and urban development, typically a black position
• William Bell, opposed by civil rights groups
• the US Commission on Civil Rights, Arthur Flemming would be replaced with Clarence Pendleton, a conservative black Republican
• Hart, against virtually every item of the civil rights agenda
• no blacks served as assistant secretary of state
• there HAD been respect for the US Commission on Civil Rights
• Reagan weakened the Legal Enforcement Assistance Administration, stopped enforcement of laws against housing administration and redress of grievances
• the Legal Defense Fund originally partneredw with the federal government to enforce civil rights legislation
• Reagan  wanted nonprofit status for private institutions that practiced racial discrimination
• fought food stamps, Medicaid, student loans, unemployment compensation, child nutrition assistance, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children
• high income groups got a lot of tax relief
• 94% of blacks disapproved of Reagan
• The Myth of Black Progress, a large black underclass developed
• Jackson fought for black opportunities
• Jackson ran for president but the NAACP wanted to vote for a white Democrat.
• Barry Commoner, an environmentalist and Gloria Steinem, a feminist supported Jackson
• great stimulus to black registration and voting
• Jackson was not "Pro-Israel" and had Palestinian sympathies
• 1988, Jackson debated Michael Dukakis, Gart Hart, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore Jr., and Bruce Babbitt
• Jackson received 24% of votes
• Dukakis received 43% of votes
• Vice President George Bush was a formidable candidate
• 90% of blacks voted for Dukakis
• the rich got richer and the poor got poorer
• Bush vetoed a minimum wage increase, Civil Rights Act, motor voter bill, longer unemployment benefits, family leave bill
• Reagan's Scalia and Kennedy, many civil rights gains were lost
• In Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, the Court reversed its 1976 ruling in holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 protected an employee in making a contract but did not extend protection to the employee once the contract was made
• Martin v. Wilks, white firefighters could sue Birmingham for making race conscious promotions
• blacks dreaded the retirement of Thurgood Marshall
• President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a black conservative. Erwin Griswold, the 87 year old dean of Harvard Law school called Thomas as the "best qualified," a "fantasy."
• Clarence Thomas, a graduate of Yale Law School was appointed by Reagan as assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education

Against Thomas

• the American Federation of Labor
• American Federation of Teachers
• the National Bar Association
• the National Council of Jewish Women
• Gray Panthers
• the National Organization for Women
• People for the American Way
• National Lawyer's Guild
• the United States Student Association
• the NAACP Legal Defense and Education fund

"Uncle Justice Thomas" 

• Anita Hill, professor of law at the University of Oklahoma accused Thomas of sexual harassment

Major African American writers

• Ralph Ellison, Going To The Territory(1986)
• James Baldwin, Evidence of Things Not Seen(1986)
• Leon Forrest, There Is A Tree More Ancient Than Eden(1973), The Bloodworth Orphans(1977), Two Wings To Veil My Face(1983)
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, Song Of Soloman, Beloved
• Alex Haley, Roots
• Albert Murray, Trainwhistle Guitar(1974), The Spyglass Tree(1991), and the Seven League Boots(1996)
• Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, The Heart Of A Woman 
• James A. McPherson, Hue and Cry
• Ernest Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
• John Edgar Wideman, racial identity in urban life
• Bebe Moore, Your Blues and Mine (1992), Brothers and Sisters(1994)
• Charles Johnson, Middle Passage (1990), Dreamer(1998),
• Walter Mosley, Devil In A Blue Dress
• 90's: Terry McMillan, E. Lynn Harris, homosexuality in the middle class black community

Major Poets

• Robert Hayden
• Nikki Giovanni
• Sam Allen
• Audre Lorde
• Lucile Clifton
• Michael Harper
• Yusef Komunyakaa
• Essex Hemphill
• Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah(Pulitzer Prize)

New Artistic Institutions

• Amiri Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory School in Harlem in 1964
• Playwright Douglas Turner Ward founded the Negro Ensemble Company, Day of Absence
• August Wilson, Fences, The Piano Lesson, and Two Trains Running
• August Wilson called to "save black theater institutions," was seen as separatist

Postwar Literary Trends

• Amiri Baraka, black art needed for Black Pride
• The Black Aesthetic, how the black writer should be judged
• mid-1960s: black women writers got popular
• Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for the Color Purple

African Americans In The Graphic Arts

• Hale Woodruff, Trial of the Amistad Mutineers
• Charles Alston, very versatile-portraits, caricatures, and pieces of sculpture.
• Elizabeth Catlett, leading printmaker and sculptor moved to Mexico. Created a black heroes piece, Malcolm Speaks For Us.
• Horace Pippin, exalt the lives of ordinary black folk
• David Driskll, artist and scholar
• Augusta Savage, Head of Dr. Dubois, sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
• Paul R. Williams, major architect

Major Composers:

William Grant Still, Ulysses Kay

• Andrew Watts, one of world's foremost pianists
• George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess(1985/1986)

Heard and Seen By Millions

• better jobs: industry, service sector, civil service, the professions
• patronized theaters, nightclubs, and cabarets.
• Jazz: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Theolonius Monk, Max Roach, Art Tatum

Inventive: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Charles Mingus, Herbie Handcock, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Heath.

Composers: Quincy Jones and Mary Lou Williams

• Wynton Marsalis

Popular Music:

• James Brown, Muddy Waters, Smoky Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Patti LeBelle, the Shirelles, the Four Tops, the Supremes, The Temptations, and the Jackson Five. 

Movies

• crime, sex, and violence> black films.
• mid 1970s, black actors disappeared
• The Color Purple (1986), Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It(1986) 
• Spike Lee, gave black independent film commercial viability
• Spike Lee produced Malcolm X
• Ghetto films: Boyz N The Hood, Straight Out Of Brooklyn, Menace II Society
• Marlon Rigg's, creative experimental works 
• the 90s were good for male actors: Denzel Washington, Forrest Whittaker, Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Laurence Fishburne, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Will Smith.
• Female actors: Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry.

Painful Films, not commercial sucesses

• Hoop Dreams, documentary-ghetto basketball players
• Amistad, slave-ship mutiny 
• Rosewood, destruction of a black town
• Beloved, indictment of slavery

• whites only wanted to watch black comedies
• blacks don't want to address painful realities of their history

Blacks on TV

• The Flip Wilson Show
• Bill Cosby starred in I SPY
• The Cosby Show and A Different World, student's experiences at a historically black college

• 1993, William Hilliar, editor of the Portland Oregonian, the only statewide daily in Oregon, was elected as the first black president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors
• more blacks could participate in sports after WWII
• Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals in track and field
• 1947, Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers
• 1910 to 1915, Jack Johnson was the world heavyweight champion
• Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the US Army on religious grounds
• Ali was convicted of violating the Selective Service Act, he was barred from the ring and stripped of his crown
• the Supreme Court reversed this and he regained his championship title
• successful black athletes used the prestige and publicity to challenge remaining forms of discrimination in American sport and protest the inclusion of nations that espoused racial discrimination in the Olympics