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E-book
Author Nieman, Donald G., author.

Title Promises to keep : African Americans and the constitutional order, 1776 to the present / Donald G. Nieman
Edition Second edition
Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]
©2020

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 342 pages) : illustrations
Series Organization of American Historians bicentennial essays on the Bill of Rights
Organization of American Historians bicentennial essays on the Bill of Rights.
Contents With liberty for some : the old constitution and African American rights, 1776-1846-- Law and liberty, 1830-1860 -- The national commitment to civil equality, 1861-1870 -- Equality deferred, 1870-1900 -- The age of segregation, 1900-1950 -- The civil rights movement and American law, 1950-1969 -- The elusive quest for equality, 1969-1989 -- The color-blind challenge to civil rights, 1990-present
Summary "This book examines the influence of race in the development of the U.S. Constitution and argues that African Americans have had a powerful influence creating constitutional rights. It examines the debate over slavery in the Revolutionary Era and at the Constitutional Convention, how antislavery advocates, black and white, created constitutional ideas that promoted equality, and their role in ending slavery, securing adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and establishing civil rights protections during Reconstruction. By 1900, southern whites had reversed most of these changes through disfranchisement, segregation, and sharecropping, but African Americans continued to resist. Through organizations like the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People, they challenged segregation, discriminatory criminal justice, lynching, and disfranchisement. After World War II, the civil rights movement triumphed through legal victories (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education), legislation (the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act), and mass protest. Civil rights advocates won victories in the 1970s and 1980s challenging institutionalized racism, even though conservative political strength grew. However, from the 1980s to the 2010s, a conservative Supreme Court invoked color-blind constitutional principles to weaken civil rights protections. Continued economic disparities between blacks and whites as well as the war of drugs and mass incarceration undermined gains made by the civil rights movement, although new social movements like Black Lives Matter continued the quest for equal justice"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from web page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed on July 20, 2020)
Subject African Americans -- Civil rights.
Civil rights movements -- United States -- History
Civil rights -- United States -- History
African Americans -- Civil rights
Civil rights
Civil rights movements
United States
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019031630
ISBN 9780190071653
0190071656
9780190071677
0190071672
0190071664
9780190071660
Other Titles African Americans and the constitutional order, 1776 to the present