The Idea of Citizenship in the Early Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

Luther P. Jackson was a key supporter of the Association for the study of Negro Life and History and a leading historian of the African American experience. As a leader in the voting rights movement in Virginia as well a prominent activist within region-wide civil rights organizations, Jackson crafted a message of black citizenship that balanced rights and civic duties. His emphasis on political engagement and civic consciousness transcended the specific issues that occupied civil rights activists of the 1940s. This philosophy of political commitment tied the black freedom struggle to the fulfillment of the democratic promise enshrined in the founding documents of the American republic. It also connected the movement for racial justice to the working-class movement for union organization and economic democracy. His effort to place citizenship front-and-center in the civil rights movement echoed the universal ideals of the American crusade to free the world of fascism. It also resonated with the egalitarian aspirations of the Reconstruction era. By linking black equality to political engagement, Jackson set out the only terms under which full equality could be achieved. As much as his message of justice through citizenship challenged the racial orthodoxies of his day, it challenges our contemporary society, transfixed as it is by the illusions of consumerism and marketplace privatization. As Carter G. Woodson and Luther Jackson both understood, racial justice required more than historical consciousness; it required political awareness grounded in a sense of civic responsibility.

Notes

 1 This is only a sampling of a vast literature on the interrelated issues of citizenship, civic culture, and political engagement. Putnam (1995) and others point to the influence of suburban expansion, telecommunications (specifically television), and generational change in explaining the decline of civic engagement. According to Putnam, this decline is a function of the erosion of social capital, the fiscal and psychological resources generated through participation in local groups and networks of mutual responsibility. The result is an increasingly individualistic, entertainment-absorbed population that cares little about social issues and even less about political affairs. While agreeing that social capital has declined, analysts such as W. Lance Bennett (1998) identify large-scale economic and social dislocation as the source of diminishing social capital. Disillusionment about government and job insecurity more than television are to blame for the displacement of communal forms of political involvement by individualized, identity-oriented modes of political engagement. For an analysis that stresses the active role of government in excluding citizens from decision-making and for transforming the relationship between government and people into one of client and service provider, see Crenson and Ginsberg (2002).

 2 This does not imply that the Constitution defined citizenship—that was a prerogative left to the states. But it did give Congress the authority to establish a standard procedure for naturalization, which produced the Naturalization Law of 1790. The first of its kind, the Naturalization Law stipulated that only “free white persons” could become citizens, a provision that did not change until 1868. African Americans gained citizenship rights, but not those of Asian descent—they would not qualify for citizenship until the 1940s. Anarchists, felons, polygamists, and the illiterate would also feel the cold rebuff of exclusion from citizenship in the nineteenth century. What these exceptions illustrate is the historical disparity between American ideals and social practices, a tradition not exclusive to the United States. Although the object of this essay is not to review the historical vicissitudes of citizenship, we need to understand that social and cultural conditions have filtered the definitions of citizenship since the founding of the Republic. As Eric Foner explains, “The diverse groups that make up American society have long spoken a common political language, although they have often interpreted its vocabulary in very different ways. Apparently universal principles and common values, moreover, have been historically constructed on the basis of difference and exclusion” (2002, p. 150).

 3 Charles W. Eagles (2002) recently pointed out that historians of the civil rights movement have largely overlooked its ideas and ideologies, the connection between rhetoric and historical context, and the significance of the terms that dominated in a given period. What I am suggesting here is that the notion of citizenship was critical to the early phase of the movement. While it was by no means the only way in which black activists imagined racial change, it was a dominant mode of expressing the desire for change and for explaining current developments. At the same time, it reflected the cultural atmosphere of the period. Influenced by the ideas of civic duty and sacrifice fostered by the war, black activists adopted the language and fused it to the black movement for equality. In doing so, they tapped into the ideological reservoir that the Second World War produced.

 4 Political theorist Judith Shklar (1991) has emphasized the idea of status and economic mobility as the principles motives for black claims on citizenship. Citizenship meant full standing in American society, the elimination of the stigma of subordination, and the affirmation of self-dignity in a community of independent equals. Jackson and his civil rights contemporaries certainly understood the symbolic and psychological significance of citizenship, expressed through voting and economic opportunity. As Shklar writes, “The ballot has always been a certificate of full membership in society, and its value depends primarily on its capacity to confer a minimum of social dignity” (1991, pp. 2–3, 25–62). But he and others affirmed a version of citizenship, that emphasized political influence over status, something which was always tenuous in a country marred by the legacy of slavery and racism. The triumph over political indifference, submission, and the almost reflexive assumption that government was the monopoly of white men meant more than escalation up the ladder of social rank and privilege. If anything, Jackson's vision of citizenship, forged as it was in the fires of the Depression and the trials of the Second World War, emphasized sacrifice and discipline rather than simply the psychic benefits, of inclusion, however rewarding.

 5 Roger M. Smith identifies three versions of American identity that have been used at various times to define citizenship (1988, pp. 225–251). While the Lockean liberal version is plagued by atomistic individualism and indifference to communal prerogatives, it at least offered a universal justification for the rights claimed by blacks, whites, men, women, and immigrants throughout the American experience. Republicanism, by contrast, engendered a demand for social uniformity and a tolerance of small, self-regulating communities of the virtuous that could resist federal authority. Most insidious was “ethnocultural Americanism” (p. 232), which nineteenth century elites used to exclude racial and ethnic minorities from the citizenship rights implicit in the liberal vision. Anthropologists, politicians, Social Darwinists, and historians refined this Anglo-Saxon conception of American identity to satisfy the longing for a “meaningful sense of national community … and civic identity” during periods of market expansion, accelerated immigration, and cultural dissonance (p. 246).

 6 Jackson's (1939) thinking about the positive benefits of government registered the impact of the New Deal and its influence on progressive thought. Sketchy about the economic details of political action in his earlier article, Jackson was clear about it here. Government expansion meant legislation that created jobs, provided relief for destitute African Americans and others, regulated wages and hours, provided social security, and created agencies such as the PWA and the WPA. “Let us remind ourselves that the nature and course of this legislation, that its very contents are determined by the forces who put the law-makers in office” (Jackson, 1939, pp. 15, 42–43). Blacks, sharecroppers, and unskilled workers suffered the consequences of political exclusion.

 7 Steven Lawson (1991) makes this point about the voting rights activists struggling to re-enfranchise blacks throughout the South: “Rather than attempting to overthrow the liberal ideology of republican self-government, black suffragists tried to gain admission to the democratic polity as an equal participant” (p. 187). The idea was that by accepting and participating in a system that in theory promised to distribute goods and liberties equitably, African Americans would achieve racial justice. This liberal optimism would begin to dim in the 1950s and dissipate completely in the 1960s when African Americans discovered just how determined white elites were to maintain a system of racial exclusion.

 8 Dawson (2001) also notes that black liberal theorists have traditionally been “radically egalitarian and want the state to have the capacity and responsibility not only to insure racial fairness, but also to provide economic opportunity for all of its citizens” (pp. 247–259). This certainly characterized the trajectory of Jackson's thought during the postwar period, a trend that was clearly reflected in his evolving conception of citizenship. As Dawson notes and as I've argued here, this vision was decidedly republican and much less individualistic than the liberalism that would characterize groups such as the Americans for Democratic Action and the Cold War liberal establishment. It should also be noted that this communitarian, egalitarian liberalism stood in stark contrast to the economic and political consensus that began to emerge once fiscal Keynesianism replaced economic regulation as the dominant motif of the New Deal order.

 9 Jackson published Virginia Negro Soldiers and Sailors in the American Revolution in the Revolutionary War (1944c) and Negro Office-Holders in Virginia, 1860–1895 (1945b), both of which were subsidized by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Carter G. Woodson, the enigmatic leader of the Association, did not wholeheartedly approve of Jackson's popularizing efforts, but Jackson pushed ahead, convinced that he owed the teachers something for their generous support of the Association. Woodson acquiesced, realizing that Jackson was one of the Association's most successful fund raisers (see, for example, Jackson, 1943k, Woodson, 1944). Woodson and Jackson would eventually have a falling out over Negro Office-Holders, which Woodson considered below the standard of a professional historian. Jackson's defense reflects his commitment to history as a vehicle of citizenship. For more on Jackson, Woodson, and the relationship between black historical scholarship and civil rights, see Meier and Rudwick (1986, Chapter 2)

10 Jackson, Gomillion, Moore, and Hamlin worked alongside voting league that translated the ideals of citizenship into practice. The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) based in Cleveland, Mississippi paralleled the work of the Progressive Voters League and the Virginia Voters League. Promoting voter registration and political involvement, it sought to advance “first class citizenship for Negroes in Mississippi’ (Dittmer, 1995, p. 33). The Georgia Association of Citizens Democratic Clubs, the Negro Democratic Association in Arkansas, and the Progressive Democratic Party of South Carolina attested to the vibrancy of active citizenship in the South of the 1940s (Jackson, 1948a, p. 19).

11 The Truman administration's support for racial equalization, if not full-scale racial equality, took the form of desegregation in the armed forces but also assistance in several key court challenges to racial segregation in education, which cumulatively established the legal momentum for the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision (Dudziak, 2000).

12 Estimates by the Southern Regional Council suggested that black voter registration increased dramatically after the Smith v. Allwright decision. In 1947, black registered voters stood at 600, 000 and more than one million in 1952 (Bartley, 1995, p. 171). Looking at estimates from the 11 former Confederate states, Steve Lawson determined that between 1940 and 1952, the total number of registered black voters increased from 168,888 to 1,000,005. This growth can be attributed to the effect of the Smith v. Allwright decision eliminating the white poll tax, black economic improvement, and the mobilization of the black middle class through organizations such as Jackson's Virginia Voters League (Lawson, 1976, p. 134).

13 As sociologist Gunnar Myrdal (1944) explained, African Americans were more cynical about American war aims than they had been during the First World War. Journalists, activists, and average people identified the contradiction between armed forces that actively discriminated against blacks while fighting a war to end a regime motivated by ideological racism. African Americans also began to see the common ground that Asians, Africans, and Arabs shared in a world dominated by Anglo-Saxons. Even so, black loyalty was never in question. What they wanted was “to be accepted as Americans” and enjoy the entitlements guaranteed to them by the Constitution. As Myrdal astutely observed, “Negroes are standing only for the democratic principles, to defend which America is waging war. They are dissatisfied because these principles are ignored in America itself … The cause of the American Negro has supreme logical strength. And the Negro is better prepared than ever before in his history to fight for it” (1944, pp. 1007–1008). As Eric Foner explains, “official rhetoric helped to inspire a new black militancy” that expressed itself in the demand for victory over fascism abroad and victory over racial discrimination at home (1998, p. 243). The nationalistic optimism that Luther P. Jackson espoused tended to mitigate the new black militancy. Teachers, voting rights activists, and opponents of job discrimination vigilantly demanded an end to inequitable salaries, the elimination of the poll tax, the registration of black voters, and the expansion of federal wartime employment for African Americans. Yet, as Harvard Sitkoff explains, “the dominant theme of African American organizations and journals during the Second World War was that patriotic duty and battlefield bravery would lead to the Negro's advancement” (1997, p. 74).

14 Jackson also believed that the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History provided an avenue for extending black citizenship. Through its Negro History Week celebrations, the Association asserted that “the past of the Negro is no different from the past of other Americans”, a task that assisted in “the preservation of the democratic ideal for which we are now fighting” (Jackson, 1943i).

15 Jackson's correspondence is studded with letters to and from teachers on the issue of voting and political instruction in the classroom (Jackson, 1946; Butler, 1948; Harris, 1948). The requests for Negro History Week addresses, talks on voting and registering, and addresses to various political action and professional associations are equally ubiquitous (see, for example, Jackson, 1947e). That Jackson was having an impact beyond the circle of teachers is evident enough from the adulation he received from correspondence connected to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History as well as random correspondence from average citizens, former students, and readers of Jackson's publications. One particularly compelling illustration of his impact is a short note from a reader of the Journal and Guide who believed that Jackson was “rendering a distinguished service to the full-fledged Negro citizens of Virginia as well as helping those who have not yet placed themselves in the full-fledged class to do so”. According to the reader, the Virginia State professor was “in the class of real leadership of the masses of Virginia Negro citizens” (Grant, 1943).

16 Looking at the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Richard King discusses Hannah Arendt's concept of “public happiness”, the idea that participation in the public forum could produce the “sense of becoming more fully human, of discovering that neither one's sense of significance nor the world's meaning is fully explained by private relationships, the satisfaction of needs or the promise of life after death” (1988, p. 23).

17 For Jackson's endorsement of the Southern School for Workers, which makes no mention of his active involvement in the organization to promote citizenship and literacy among the working class, see Jackson (1947); for his opposition to fascism, his support for the progressive Southern Conference for Human Welfare, his belief in the possibilities of cross-racial alliance for reform, and his general enthusiasm for democratic revitalization in the South, see Norfolk Journal and Guide (1942, 1945, 1946a, 1946b, 1947a, 1947b, 1947c).

18 As Michael Denning (1997) has convincingly demonstrated, racial equality was a central feature of the Popular Front, expressed not only in biracial unions but also the literature, theater, and music of progressive artists and performers.