Spirit and Velocity

Reviewed by Barry E. Lee

Vol. 16, No. 2, 1994, pp. 28-31

Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, by John Dittmer (University of Illinois Press, 1994, 530 pages).

John Dittmer’s Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi traces the struggles of black Mississippians, aided by national civil rights organizations, to break the death grip of white supremacy. The author unearths the origins of the Mississippi movement in the post-World War II period and the preceding decades. While admitting that to affix dates is arbitrary, the book closes “the movement” in 1968 with the demise of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party after its failure to impact the platform of the Democratic Party at its national convention in Chicago.

Dittmer’s thesis is that the Mississippi movement was made possible by three elements: the courage and commitment of local activists like Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine; the energy and enthusiasm of young SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) organizers; and the reputation of the state as a fortress of racial oppression which made service there a badge of courage. The key ingredient in the movement was the willingness of local people to act on their own behalf while also welcoming outside help. These factors combined to generate the strongest and most far-reaching civil rights activity of the period, easily surpassing the sister movements in southwest Georgia and all of Alabama—Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham included. While citing the volume of change that occurred as a result of the movement, Dittmer reminds the reader of the limits of those changes; black Mississippians still remained largely in abject poverty, attended segregated schools, and lacked any real political power statewide even with 250,000 registered voters.

Dittmer is uniquely qualified to synthesize the Mississippi struggle. The DePauw University history professor has published other works on the Black South, including Black Georgia in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920. In addition, he taught history at Tougaloo College from 1967-1979, giving him a close and personal view of many of the events detailed in his book.

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Local People has special, personal significance for this reviewer, a Delta native who was born in Indianola. In chapter three, Dittmer mentions the name of Dr. Clinton C. Battle, head of the Indianola NAACP. My parents purchased our home from Dr. Battle and my mother stills lives there. Reading about Medgar Evers brings back memories of his visits to our home to chat with my father. My maternal grandmother has been associated for decades with the Gulfside Methodist Assembly, a black-run retreat center in Waveland used by SNCC in late 1964 to hammer out its future goals, programs, and structure. I have spent part of nearly every summer since my birth in 1957 visiting my grandmother, who continues to live in Waveland.

Several features combine to make Dittmer’s book valuable. First, Local People is well researched and easy to read. The author used the papers of key organizations (SCLC, NAACP, CORE, VEP) and individuals (Ed King, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Burke Marshall). An example of how Dittmer’s extensive research enriched his work comes in chapter two, through a story about the lunacy of segregation. Jim Crow, Dittmer writes, was designed to “keep the Negro in his place” and “the place” varied according to the circumstances. When letter carrier Carsie Hall delivered the mall at the Heidelberg, the class of hotels in Jackson, he entered the building through the front door and rode the main elevator. But when attorney Carsie Hall came to the Heidelberg to take the bar exam he had to enter through the rear door and ride the freight elevator.

Also buoying the book’s content are scores of interviews with the people who made the movement. The oral history component provides a depth and scope unrivaled by written sources. Dittmer blends this wealth of sources into a portrait that is both easy to read and fascinating, making his Local People accessible to a broader audience.

Second, the author keeps the influence of national civil rights organizations and other outside influences in proper perspective. Too often, writers and producers portray the Mississippi movement as the sole property and/or brainchild of organizations like SNCC or CORE, failing to credit locals for laying the foundation for outside help. A number of historical works pretend that SNCC and CORE came to the state and “saved the day” for the locals who had no clue of how to champion their own causes. Dittmer avoids this mistake.

A third feature of Local People is its effort to acknowledge that women carried out something more than secondary roles in the movement. Many male historians tend to trivialize the contributions of women in the civil rights era. Early in his book, Dittmer points out that although their numbers were few prior to the 1960s, women’s roles were significant. Most notable were Ruby Stutts Lyells, president of the Negro State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and Mary E. Holmes, the only female officer of the 1953 Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP. Dittmer also highlights women like Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine, crediting Hamer with much of the spirit and velocity of the movement, both locally and nationally. In addition, the author made clear that the motivation for the sexual relations between black men and white women during the summer of 1964, exaggerated by some female writers, belongs to both parties.

Dittmer also highlights the weaknesses of the significant parties. He concludes that in the 1950s, the timidity of white Mississippi moderates in challenging white supremacy resulted in a “bankruptcy of both moral and

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political leadership at the most critical point in Mississippi’s history since Reconstruction” (p.69). Dittmer takes the luster off of the motives of white liberals with two stories. In the first case, Barnaby Keeney, president of Brown University, forced Tougaloo College’s board of trustees to fire its president, Daniel Beittel, before Keeney would lobby the Ford Foundation for grant money that Tougaloo needed. Beittel had adamantly refused to curb the civil rights activism of his students. The board fired Beittel, and shortly thereafter, Tougaloo received Ford funding for its educational program. But the school lost its prominence in the movement when Keeney helped terminate Tougaloo’s association with Bob Moses’ literacy project in the Delta and the college’s relationship to the Head Start program.

A second example involves the Voter Education Project, a project ofthe Southern Regional Council, funded by the Ford Foundation and other national foundations, in conjunction with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). Dittmer implies that the project was canceled because of displeasure that foundation funds were used for the Freedom Vote campaign instead of shepherding potential voters through the political mainstream. The author suggests that the white liberal establishment again put its own agenda ahead of the needs of the masses in Mississippi.

Nor does Dittmer hesitate in pointing out glaring weaknesses of the national civil rights organizations and its key leaders. He reveals that the NAACP often predicated its activities in the 1960s on the need to compete with rival organizations. Charles Evers, self-appointed field secretary after Medgar’s death, is shown as a self-serving egotist bent on establishing himself as “the leader” of the Mississippi movement. Evers attempted to personally profit from the movement by urging Natchez Blacks to boycott white businesses while at the same time purchasing a grocery store to pull in the business no longer going to white store owners.

Perhaps the most significant feature of Dittmer’s work is his approach. He avoids the pitfall of placing the activities of the 1950s and 1960s in a historical vacuum as if the preceding decades have no connection. Instead he

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establishes historical continuity all the way back to slavery. He invests three chapters of the book in establishing those links.

Although Local People has numerous strong points, it is not without its faults. First of all, Dittmer has missed part of the significance of the Emmett Till murder. Not only did the public display of Till’s mutilated body at the Chicago funeral enrage blacks, but Moses Wright’s defiant “Thar he” response at the murder trial when asked to identify Till’s abductor was a watershed in movement history. “It was the first time in the history of Mississippi that a Negro had stood in court and pointed his finger at a white man as a killer of a Negro,” remarked Michigan Congressman Charles Diggs, who attended the trial (Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965, p. 48). Actually it was not the first time, but the act was rare and courageous enough to embolden an entire generation.

Dittmer also fails to give full treatment to the Freedom Rides. In addition to testing the Supreme Court’s ruling banning segregation aboard buses in interstate travel, the Freedom Rides were also designed to force the Kennedy Administration out of its “hands-off” posture. Dittmer explains the significance of testing the Supreme Court in its ruling, but fails to explore another of CORE’s key motives. James Farmer of CORE, which sponsored the Freedom Rides, reasoned that pro-segregationists would respond with such brutality that federal protection would have to be provided.

Dittmer must also be chided for minimizing the impact of many events outside of Mississippi. For example, he gives the reader little feel for the significance of the March on Washington. Not only did it help push through Congress the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it also revealed the manipulations of the liberal establishment. Dittmer fails to mention how the Kennedy Administration helped turn the march from an angry demand for economic justice to a passive symbolic gesture. In addition, Dittmer sidesteps the impact of the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy. Although he does note the tragedies, the reader is left wondering how Mississippi dealt with them. Almost nothing is said about the influence of Malcolm X. Even though Malcolm never visited the state, his influence among youth was undeniable.

Although Dittmer dwells at length on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and its challenge to the regular Democratic delegates in Atlantic City in 1964, he understates the real significance of the event. The MFDP did not win its political challenge, but it gave poor black people who had never voted a new sense of power and dignity. They had taken on the most powerful politicians in the country on national television. Fannie Lou Hamer almost single-handedly wooed an entire nation into her corner. Had it not been for the trickery of President Johnson and his cronies, who knows what the outcome may have been.

In sum, Local People charts new territory in the chronicles of the Mississippi movement. Dittmer provides insightful analysis and pleasurable reading with an even-handed and sufficiently broad approach to his topic. The result is scholarship that does justice to the struggles and sacrifices of the people who made the Mississippi movement.

Barry E. Lee is a masters candidate in American History at Georgia State University and an Education Program Assistant at the Southern Regional Council.

Black Southern Churches Under Fire

By Barry E. Lee

Vol. 18, No. 1, 1996 pp. 11-13

Historically, the church has been the “soul of the black community,” says the Reverend Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Since April of 1993, at least twenty-seven black churches (and at least one with a racially mixed congregation) in the South have burned under suspicious circumstances. According to the Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR), an Atlanta-based civil and human rights action research center which specializes in tracking hate crimes, the number increases to forty-five if acts of vandalism are included.

This recent rash of church fires brings back haunting memories of the horror of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963, in which four black girls were murdered. The apparent rebirth of what many black community and civic leaders consider “domestic terrorism” has generated great consternation, national focus and a sense of urgency to end the fires.

Although church burnings were fairly common during the 1960s, the recent spate of fires has “caught everybody short,” according to Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, because most groups had ceased to monitor incidents of this sort.

Since 1986, there have been reports of suspicious church fires every year. The frequency of these acts increased dramatically in 1995 when thirteen churches were torched. Already in 1996 ten churches have been destroyed.

Most of the blazes occurred in rural, isolated areas served by volunteer fire companies where water must be transported to the fire site. In most cases there have been no witnesses and no arrests made. In the eight cases where arrests have been made, all the perpetrators have been white. A white fireman has been charged with arson in the fire set at New Liberty Baptist in Tyler, Alabama, on February 28, 1996.

Seventeen fires were set during Black History Month, on the anniversaries of important civil rights events like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, assassination and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, or near the time the King Holiday is celebrated in mid-January.

The states hardest hit have been Tennessee with eight fires, and Alabama and Louisiana with five each. In Louisiana, four churches were torched on February 1, 1996, the anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins, all in East Baton Rouge Parish. And in Alabama four churches were set on fire during a three-week period in the town of Boligee.

Officials responsible for investigating the fires are very reluctant to attribute racial motives to the tragedies or to speculate that a conspiracy links all of the fires. However, ministers of the burned out churches in Boligee, civil rights leaders, and the Center for Democratic Renewal have no doubt that the culprits have racial motives and that the fires are linked: all of the fires have hit black and integrated churches, all those arrested so far have been white and in some cases these white males have ties to white supremacists groups, and most of the fires occurred on or near civil rights anniversaries.

In a press conference held on March 27, 1996, at the King Center in Atlanta, the Reverend C.T. Vivian, chairman of the CDR, told the audience “what is used against black people will be used against all of us tomorrow. There must be redemption for the nation. We as Americans can stop this racist destruction.”

The urgency to end the burnings and the attending national focus is influenced by several factors. During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, local black churches often served as the Movement’s nerve center. Prayer vigils, strategy sessions, anti- segregation speeches and sermons, and protest rallies were based at black churches. This institution was the one place where African Americans claimed total ownership, and equally important, it was also the central training ground for African American leadership.

The suspicious nature of these fires is viewed as a direct attack against the life-force of many African Americans. The Reverend Donald Upton, pastor of Inner City Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, which was burned in January, best summed it up by saying, “We were more than just a church. We were providing jobs, we were a bank, a childcare center. We were trying to improve our community.”

Given the recent assaults on affirmative action, the actions of white supremacists and militias and the general racial tension across the nation, many African American leaders feel these fires are psychologically linked to the current racial backlash and hope to break the apparent cycle of arson before it escalates any further. The involvement of public figures such as Reverend Lowery and Reggie White, an assistant pastor of Inner City Baptist Church and a famous professional football player, has helped bring national attention to the fires. Both Lowery and White have publicly condemned the burnings and have endorsed rebuilding fund-raising efforts.

Black leaders are worried about the plodding and perhaps misdirected nature of the investigation. Officials from the FBI and ATF interrogated members of Inner City Baptist and confiscated property belonging to the church and pastor, but have not returned the items. Reverend Charles Mack Jones, former president of CDR contends that federal officials are “too busy probing the victims rather than looking for the real culprits.”

As tragic as the news is about these churches, there is some good news. Multiracial and cross-regional support has been building to help fund the resurrection of the churches that have been destroyed. Many of the congregations, particularly those in the Boligee churches, are small and had inadequate insurance to cover their losses. A fund has been established by the ministers in Boligee to rebuild their churches. For those readers who want to contribute, please send your check to: Greene County Emergency Church Fund, Route 2, Box 94, Eutaw, AL 35462, c/o the Reverend Levi Pickens.

Pressure is building to bring an end to this episode. The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), and various state and local agencies continue to investigate.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has promised a committee hearing later in the year, but no date has been set. Civil rights leaders, local ministers, and their congregations wonder: how much later? These burnings have been going on for years. Although no lives have been lost yet, parishioners of blacks churches are not safe as long as these arsons continue.

Concerned citizens should contact the Center for Democratic Renewal at (404) 221-0025 to inquire about other ways to offer help. Information about the fires can be reported to the ATF Arson Hotline, (800) 366-9501.

Sidebar: Black Church Burnings: A Chronology

• April 4, 1993–Springhill Freewill Baptist, McComb, Miss.
• April 4, 1993–Rocky Point Missionary Baptist, Summit, Miss.
• July 21, 1994–Springfield Baptist, Madison, Ga.
• September 8, 1994–New Wright’s Chapel, Shelby Co., Tenn.
• January 13, 1995–Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, Crockett Co., Tenn.
• January 29, 1995–Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Colombia, Tenn.
• January 29, 1995–Canaan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mount Pleasant, Tenn.
• January 31, 1995–Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, Bolivar, Tenn.
• June, 1995–St. Paul AME, Dallas, Ga.
• June 20, 1995–Mount Zion AME Church, Greeleyville, S.C.
• June 21, 1995–Macedonia Baptist Church, Bloomville, S.C.
• October 14, 1995–Zion Chapel AME, Sun, La.
• December 22, 1995–Mount Zion Baptist Church, Boligee, Ala.
• December 25, 1995–Mount Moriah Baptist, Efland, N.C.
• January 8, 1996–Inner City Baptist Church, Knoxville, Tenn.
• January 11, 1996–Little Zion Baptist Church, Boligee, Ala.
• January 11, 1996–Mount Zoar Baptist Church, Boligee, Ala.
• January 27, 1996–Cypress Trails United Methodist Church, Spring, Texas
• January 27, 1996–Resurrection Lutheran Church, Spring, Texas
• February 1, 1996–Cypress Grove Baptist Church, Zachary, La.
• February 1, 1996–St. Paul’s Free Baptist Church, Baker, La.
• February 1, 1996–The Sweet Home Baptist Church, Zachary, La.
• February 1, 1996–Thomas Chapel Benevolent Society, Zachary, La.
• February 21, 1996–Glorious Church of God and Christ, Richmond, Va.

Sources: Center for Democratic Renewal, USA Today

Barry Lee is a graduate student in the Women’s Studies Institute at Georgia State University.

Passing the Torch, Torching the Past

By Barry E. Lee

Vol. 18, No. 2, 1996 pp. 21-22

Known as many things since its founding in 1837–a city resurrected from the ashes of the Civil War to lead the South in commerce and industry, a city supposedly above the racial intolerance which has typified the United States, and a city poised to join the international metropolitanmetropolian [sic] ranks–Atlanta enjoys a reputation that is the cumulative handiwork of generations of local business moguls, newspaper publishers and editors, politicians, and civic boosters. One of the most extended and impressive public relations campaigns waged in this century of PR has constructed the climate that envelops the daily lives of so many greater Atlantans. With a shrinking population inside Atlanta’s city limits that is increasingly black and poor, the polishing of the metropolitan image is being taken over by movers and shakers who live in the affluent, predominantly white, suburbs to the north.

Atlanta’s advertisements for itself began in earnest in the wake of the torching given by General William T. Sherman’s troops during the Civil War. Henry Grady, part owner and managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution after 1880, set the tone of a New South intent upon the money-making potentials of reconciliation with the North. The symbol of this resurgence, the phoenix, remains attached to the city in a series of Olympic-year print and TV ads, or the iron grates of the newly rebuilt Woodruff Park.

It was the administration of Mayor William B. Hartsfield (1937-1940 and 1942-1961) that boosted Atlanta past other Deep South cities. In the wake of the 1946 Supreme Court decision declaring white primaries unconstitutional, Hartsfield combined a liberal rapprochement with such Atlanta black leaders as Grace Towns Hamilton, A. T. Walden, and Warren Cockran with a campaign for increased business investment and infrastructure improvement. By the 1950s Atlanta was the leading commercial and industrial city in the South.

By the 1960s, nearly one hundred years had been invested in grooming Atlanta’s image, but the agitation for social and political equality by African Americans threatened the luster. While cities like Birmingham, Montgomery and Jackson, Mississippi revealed themselves as havens of racial violence, Atlanta worked to camouflage its underlying tensions. This effort was personified in 1961 when Mayor Hartsfield reiterated the phrase he had coined, a phrase which had become the city’s manufactured hallmark for race relations. In announcing an end to the boycott of downtown businesses and lunch counters on March 7, 1961, Hartsfield concluded that the agreement proved once again that “This city is too busy to hate.” When the South was exploding with racial violence, a powerful biracial coalition of elites had formed for the explicit purpose of keeping the peace.

In 1970, the Journal-Constitution published a special Sunday supplement entitled “Amazing Atlanta, 1960-1970,” celebrating the “the psychology of success.” A year earlier, National Geographic had featured an essay “Atlanta, Pacesetter City of the South.” So grew the image of Atlanta as a city booming with economic growth, groomed by progressive leadership, and stabilized by social and racial harmony.

The African American leaders certainly held up their end of the bargain. According to Austin Ford, a local Episcopal priest and community activist at the time, “there was a triumvirate of blacks who ran things. It was Sam Williams, and Jesse Hill, and Leroy Johnson. You know, Martin Luther King, Jr., never had a SCLC chapter here during his lifetime. The establishment just was not going to have Atlanta disrupted if they could help it.”

Anyone living in Atlanta (luring the modern Civil Rights Movement knows that the city was racially polarized. This was particularly evident during the battle to desegregate the public schools. During the fifteen-year struggle, which officially ended in 1973 with drafting of a compromise agreement, African American students never achieved more than token desegregation of a few formerly all-white schools. By the time the desegregation suit was settled, white flight had rendered desegregation a moot point.

Urban renewal became a buzzword in the 1960s, and the new mayor elected in 1961, Ivan Allen, Jr., was determined to maintain Atlanta’s progressive profile. Allen used federal urban renewal dollars to “stop the spread of urban blight” by demolishing what was labeled dirty, filthy, substandard, overcrowded slums to make room for new development. During this period, more than 67,000 people were displaced from predominantly African American communities–such as Buttermilk Bottom and Summerhill–which were poor, yet stable, to make way for “civic improvements” better known as Interstate Connector (I 75/85), the Civic Center, and the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

Reflecting the city’s changed demographics, Maynard H. Jackson became Atlanta’s first African American mayor in 1973. He arrived as downtown began to fade as Atlanta’s center of commerce and trade. With the support of white business elites, Jackson pursued the construction of several new buildings–Peachtree Center, the Hyatt Regency, the Westin Peachtree Plaza, the Omni complex and the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC).

Peachtree Center, created by developer John Portman, was billed as the “Rockefeller Center South.” By the early 1980s, Atlanta boasted of great convention facilities, abundant hotel space, Southern hospitality, a first-rate airport, boundless shopping and good restaurants.

During the 1988 Democratic National Convention, Atlanta appeared clean and prosperous, thanks to a sweep of the homeless off downtown streets. While many large urban centers with African American mayors were crumbling, Atlanta seemed to thrive.

The world travels of Andrew Young, known as an absentee mayor during his tenure in office from 1982 to 1989 , paid off in 1991 when the city was named host for the 1996 Olympic Games. Young’s reputation with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) combined with the energy of former University of Georgia football player-turned-lawyer Billy Payne to advance Atlanta’s bid.

Given his involvement in the civil rights movement, his ties to the King family, and his international visibility, Young was the ideal spokesperson. Atlanta portrayed itself as the embodiment of civil rights and American justice.

As the Games begin and the city’s homeless are swept out of view, beneath the surface of what is now generations of image building, not only is the city’s infrastructure crumbling–with many bridges and sewer lines in need of repair and replacement–but unaddressed realities of class and racial division threaten sooner or later to collapse the happy scene.

Barry E. Lee is a graduate student in the Women’s Studies Institute at Georgia State University

Listeners Respond to Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

Introduction by Barry E. Lee

Vol. 20, No. 2, 1998 pp. 26-28

“Without a doubt, this was the most impressive radio program I’ve ever heard,” writes a listener from Fort Myers, Florida, about the Southern Regional Council’s radio series Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Other listeners have commented on Will The Circle Be Unbroken? as a well-crafted and valuable oral history. Produced by George King, the series, which premiered in the spring of 1997 and was rebroadcast in 1998 on Public Radio International, highlights the contributions of ordinary people to the Civil Rights Movement in five Southern cities-Atlanta, Columbia, Jackson, Little Rock, and Montgomery-along with the music of the times. More than any other initiative sponsored by Council in the last twenty years, Will The Circle Be Unbroken? has generated an incredible flood of positive response and professional accolades in the field of radio broadcasting.

The tremendous effort that it took to produce the series and to get it broadcast on over 250 stations in thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia resulted in several prestigious awards. Among them are the 1997 Peabody Award, administered by the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters’ Golden Reel Award, and the 1997 Nonprint Media Award for Outstanding use of oral history by The Oral History Association.

But perhaps as significant has been the more than one-thousand email responses from those who heard portions of the series. Reading through the responses makes the power of radio undeniably evident. For many listeners, the voices and the music bring back a flood of memories. For others the series makes them feel personally connected to an important historical era. Not surprisingly, numerous listeners felt motivated to take personal responsibility for the current state of race relations and to work toward multiracial understanding and cooperation. And still others see the series as the most powerful and effective teaching tool they have encountered.

You can visit the Circle’s web site at http://unbrokencircle.org. Tapes and CDs will be available in the fall.

Here are a few samples of the email responses received since first aired.

To: info@unbrokencircle.org Subject: Unbroken Circle radio series

Congratulations on having produced a fantastic radio program series. We are fortunate to hear it and it has moved us to tears. How good it is that you have done this, and that people, particularly us white folks, are hearing these stories that we’re sure are mostly unknown to mainstream America (and need to be known!). We are grateful for your work and proud of it.

If there is any way to purchase tapes of this, please let us know. Any kind of support we can offer, including membership in Southern Regional Council, please advise. We heard your program on Friday evenings, WQCS (88.9) out of Indian River Community College, Fort Pierce, Florida.

C. D. & S. G.

Melbourne, Florida

Subject: Your Civil Rights Series

I’ve really enjoyed the programs in this series. As I listen to the various interviews, I can see these people, the places, and the events unfolding. I live in Little Rock, I lived in Columbia, SC and Baton Rouge, LA. I met Rev. T.J. Jemmison. I met Mrs. Daisy Bates, here, in Little Rock. I remember the slaying of Dr. King: I was living in a suburb of Washington, D.C. at the time. The racial tension and riots were intense in that city. I am so glad you did these interviews before more of these Civil Rights activists have passed on.

You really tell the story of this Human Rights struggle very well. I can see this program taken further with the addition of visuals (videos,

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snapshots, slides, etc). It would make a great TV documentary or perhaps a college tele-course.

After this series finishes on NPR/PRI, where will it go? I’d like to suggest that it become a part of the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. It would add a great deal to what is already a fine display. Together, your audio and their audios, videos, displays, etc. could really explain well what happened during those times. It could become a very powerful, impressionable exhibit for all.

Subject: a bit more fan mail

I consider myself a public radio junkie. I like to think that this gives me pretty high standards. I just want to tell you that your show is one of the finest and most inspiring things I have ever listened to. History books, interviews with famous people-all excellent sources of information-simply do not have the power that these average, everyday heros have as they tell their stories.

I would be very interested in getting copies of the series to share with others not so fortunate to have heard it ‘live.’

Thank you for your work,

A. S.

Subject: NPR series

What a wonderful series! It is poignant beyond belief. I am 48 years old, and consider myself a strong liberal and civil rights advocate. However, I had no idea what really went on. There is not enough affirmative action in the world to make up for the indignities that most African Americans faced. Thank you for helping to further educate the public. White Americans just don’t have a clue, and that is partially why the outcome of the OJ trial was such an eyeopener.

Thank you again.

A. R. Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Subject: thank you

To the folks at Unbroken Circle:

I would just like to thank you for the incredible program that you have created on the Civil Rights movement. I sit rapt, listening to the voices of the times, the music, and the soothing and articulate narration of Vertamae Grosvenor. This documentary series is the most moving and informative I have ever heard. You all have done a spectacular job. I look forward to purchasing the audio cassettes of the series when they become available. I’ll keep checking the website for more info.

Thanks again for this important series, as we can all use a little reminder of our history to renew our dedication to the struggle for justice.

Inspired,

D. P.

Subject: amazing series

Just wanted to thank you all for this extraordinary documentary! The range of interviews, the music, the historical research, the footage, the editing, the moments captured, the ability of the interviewers to garner such open interviews-all outstanding.

Again, public radio producing something that commercial radio could never justify to its advertising mavens.

How do I get tapes of the series? I’m working with an elementary school in a very low-income neighborhood in Washington, DC, and would love to use this series in the classroom.

Thanks again for this masterpiece!

J. F.,

Clean Water Action

Subject: Thanks for series

I want to congratulate you on such an excellent series. I have caught several segments in the last few weeks and they are outstandingly well done.

Most importantly, I want you to know that you have opened my eyes and my mind to a deeper understanding of the whole experience of Blacks in America. For all the racial rhetoric I’ve heard in my 31 years, nothing else has so directly confronted me with the historical facts and experiences of American Blacks. Ironically and unfortunately, most rhetoric from civil rights leaders today has been a hinderance rather than a help to my right understanding of the racial issues we confront. But the truth you present in simple, personal accounts is the most powerful tool to foster real racial understanding, especially for people like me, too young to have experienced it firsthand. Thank you.

M.K.

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Subject: Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

Your series, Will The Circle Be Unbroken? is without a doubt the finest documentary I’ve ever heard. I have been riveted by every episode I’ve been able to catch, which unfortunately has not been all of them.

I was wondering if (i) you could provide me a list of the titles of each episode and (ii) indicate if the series is available on cassette or CD ROM.

Thank you for this program. You’ve raised the bar that all documentaries on the civil rights movement will have to measure up against.

S. K.

Chicago, Illinois

Subject: Your marvelous series!

I was a SNCC worker in southwest Georgia, 1963-5, and Atlanta, 1966. It was a life-changing experience for me, a rare opportunity to have an impact on history. Your series is superb. The mix of oral history, narrative by the incomparable Vertamae Grosvenor, and the civil rights songs and pop music of the time is very effective. While some productions on the civil rights movement are either just plain inaccurate or just don’t convey the feel of it, your series makes me feel as I did while I was part of it.

I also appreciate the substantial focus on SNCC, which is often slighted in favor of the “hero” interpretation of history, which I hear your programs contradicting. The movement was indeed made up of ordinary people doing extraordinary things with great faith and courage.You know, back in 1961-2-3, victory was not at all assured. We knew at the time that we could end up on the losing side, or it could have taken decades to do what we did in three or four years. If it had not been for the bravery and sacrifice of many people who never had their names in the news or the history books, we “outside agitators” would have been vulnerable to anything the Klan and White Citizens Council had to dish out.

Anyway, congratulations for an excellent job. As a member of the board of the Mt. Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum (yes, it’s a mouthful), I would like to obtain a set of the tapes for our collection. Do you have a special rate for organizations like ours (non-profit 501(C)3)? Our objective is not so much to commemorate a time in history but to inspire the kids of today to do extraordinary things in their own way. Thanks again.

Subject: PBS Radio

I am 30 years old. I am white. I am a father of 4.5 children. I am a janitor. I find the galantry of the ordinary person who sacrificed and succeeded in the movements of civil rights awe inspiring. Listening to their stories I find their courage for overcoming inspiring. It is my hope that with them in my thoughts I may overcome and succeed. I applaud you for bringing their stories to all.

C. L.

Edmonds, Washington

Subject: Kudos

After listening to “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” on WAMU tonight, I resolved to do what I’ve intended to do since the first episode: to write to thank you for a stunning series, and to offer my congratulations for radio at its best.

We are, I think, doubly blessed to have this series: it’s radio at its best *and* history at its best and most vibrant. How wonderful that folks in generations not yet born will be able to hear the voices of those who gave so much!

Again, deepest thanks.

J. H.

Subject: Radio Series

I am just done listening to today’s broadcast of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?. Your series is exceptionally informative, entertaining and emotionally charged. As a french national who arrived in the United States 5 years ago, it is important that I understand your racial history. My parents are originally from Martinique. Having been raised near the Swiss border, I have never experienced any form of racism while growing up. My American experience is slightly different. This is why your program is important to me. Have you, or are you thinking about publishing a book based on this program? What about the musical part? Could you tell me where I could buy some of the music you are using?

P.S.: The commentator is very good

S. M.L. B.

Reviewing The Test of Our Progress: The Clinton Record on Civil Rights: A Summary of the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights Report

By Barry E. Lee

Vol. 21, No. 2, 1999, pp. 12-18

Thirty-one years since the Kerner Commission observed that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal,” comes an updated warning by the bipartisan Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights in its 1999 report The Test of Our Progress: The Clinton Record on Civil Rights. “No one can deny,” the Citizens’ Commission observes “that much progress has been made since the Kerner Commission made its dire predictions. But . . . it is clear that many in our nation remain untouched by the civil rights laws and the access to service and opportunities that would make them full participants in society.”

Race remains a major determinant in American life, and complicating the picture even more than in the late 1960s, is the reality that the disparities are no longer between blacks and whites, but also involve Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.

When Bill Clinton became president in 1992, advocates of civil rights waited hopefully as he promised to assemble a cabinet that “looked like America.” After twelve years in which the Reagan and Bush administrations alienated minorities from public policy- making through their stacking of federal courts with conservative appointees and encouraging a climate of racial intolerance-civil rights advocates welcomed Clinton’s recognition of America’s diversity.

What has seven years of the Clinton Administration accomplished in terms of civil rights? The Citizens’ Commission’s recently released study, The Test of Our Progress, is an evaluatuion of Clinton’s civil rights record.

The Citizens’ Commission was founded in 1981 after President Reagan removed the late Arthur S. Fleming as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Fleming, along with a colleague from the Commission, William L. Taylor, created the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights. Bipartisan in nature, the Commission is composed of seventeen members, chosen from the ranks of government, business, or other arenas where civil rights were a high priority. New members are chosen by the current members and there are no term limits.

Published in 1999, The Test of Our Progress is a two-part study. Part one is a report on the response of the Clinton Administration and Congress to civil rights challenges and a series of recommendations. The second part is composed of working papers by authors considered knowledgeable by the Commission in particular areas of civil rights.

Many of the authors are lawyers, public policy experts, or advocates otherwise engaged in civil rights issues, including Todd A. Cox, a voting rights and school desegregation litigator with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Nancy Krieter who is research director of the Chicago-based organization Women Employed Institute, an agency focused on female employment issues and poverty among women. The Test of Our Progress was co-edited by Corrine M. Yu, director and general counsel of the Commission, and by William L. Taylor, who is the vice chair.

Below are short summaries from the report of the Clinton record in the areas of justice administration (judicial nominations and confirmations), enforcement of voting rights, equal employment opportunity, affirmative action, educational equity, and the effectiveness of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Portions of the summaries that are in italics reflect my viewpoint.

Justice Administration

By the beginning of Clinton’s second term, the nominations and confirmations of federal judges became the scene of intense partisan fights, resulting in a trickle of confirmations and a backlog of delayed court cases. Not

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only did the Senate refuse to consider some nominees, but the Administration was also slow to nominate candidates for the federal bench. According to Elliott Mincberg and Tracy Hahn-Burkett, authors of the working paper “Judicial Nominations and Confirmations During the First Half of the Second Clinton Administration,” President Clinton initially sought to “increase diversity on the federal bench, particularly in light of the extremely low numbers of women and minorities appointed by Presidents Reagan and Bush.” But the politicization of the process prompted Clinton to surface an additional criterion: the nomination of “centrist” candidates who would not likely produce controversy during confirmation.

By late 1997, Clinton pledged to make the nomination and active support of candidates for the bench a priority. However, in the face of partisan opposition to progressive nominees, the President failed to mount a vigorous advocacy on behalf of his nominees. Mincberg and Hahn-Burkett suggest that the result of such timidity is the “erosion of the principle of judicial independence and the consequent degradation of the quality of justice delivered to the citizens of America.”

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

One of the primary tools available to the Executive Branch to monitor the application of civil rights laws is the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights. Although the Commission does not advocate, litigate, mediate, or enforce laws, it possesses special investigative powers including the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas. While the Commission shaped the national civil rights agenda during the 1960s and 1970s, it floundered under Reagan whose appointees mismanaged and neglected the agency’s mission. These setbacks led to an erosion of public confidence in the agency and stagnation in its funding; adjusted for inflation, the Commissions budget declined 58 percent since 1980.

Despite the Civil Rights Commission’s inadequate funding, Michael J. Kelleher and Michael L. Walker, in their assessment entitled “The Performance of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission,” concluded that, “the Commission has continued to meet its statutory responsibility for monitoring and evaluating federal civil rights enforcement through its issuance of reports,” which are used by the President, Congress, the courts, governmental agencies, interest groups, and private citizens. As evidence, Kelleher and Walker noted that the Commissions’ 1996 report, Federal Title VI Enforcement to Ensure Nondiscrimination in Federal Assisted Programs, was instrumental in the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s civil rights operations. It was the Title VI report which spotlighted the Department’s discrimination against Black farmers. Similarly, the Commission’s 1996 report prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to become more proactive in its enforcement of Title VI; the Department allocated more resources for enforcement activities and developed a public service announcement to inform the public of its rights under Title VI.

In 1999, the Commission has ambitious plans. One major project involves a comprehensive study to measure discrimination in the United States. The results of such a project will, according to Kelleher and Walker, “provide a stronger factual basis for conducting a national dialogue on civil rights and for developing federal, state, and local civil rights policies.”

The second major initiative planned for 1999 centers on a study of affirmative action in which the Commission hopes to: 1) determine the nature of the controversy surrounding affirmative action; 2) assess the positive and negative impacts of affirmative action, and; 3) measure the effect of efforts to eliminate affirmative action programs.

•While there are benefits to be reaped from both studies and Kelleher and Walker treat the proposals as a positive development, dangers lurk behind the latter study. The most flawed aspect of the proposed study is its inference that there are “negative impacts” associated with affirmative action. Given the successful assault on affirmative action in California and Washington state, and the evolving initiative drive in Florida, such rhetoric can be used to the advantage of affirmative action opponents. The Commission’s language appears to line up with President Clinton’s “mend it, don’t end it” approach to assaults on affirmative action.

Despite the Commission’s dubious proposal to study affirmative action, its role in matters of civil rights is even more important in today’s conservative climate. Kelleher and Walker contend that the White House must establish a strong connection with the Commission if it is to retake a leading role in civil rights policy. They urge the President to “entrust the Commission with responsibility for civil rights initiatives, including the analysis of discrimination in America or the ‘unyielding problems’ of poverty and race.” He must also publicly praise the Commission’s accomplishments and push for additional funding when warranted.

If President Clinton is to be remembered as being true to his pledge to honor the nation’s diversity and be responsive to the needs of minority communities, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights must be a central component. Much work is required to restore the Commission’s credibility.

Affirmative Action

•Perhaps one of the most volatile, divisive, and politically partisan issues in recent years is the subject of affirmative action. It is in this arena where African Americans in particular looked the most to test Clinton’s intent on civil

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rights and where the White House has been most effective.

Under Clinton’s tenure, according to Sarah C. von der Lippe who examined the issue for the Citizen’s Commission on Civil Rights, there have been four major affirmative action battles; the Canady Bill which unsuccessfully attempted to end federal affirmative action; the battle over Bill Lann Lee’s nomination as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights; the effort by conservatives to end the Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program; and Republican attempts to halt affirmative action in higher education.

Although the demise of the Canady Bill–also known as H.R. 1909 and the Civil Rights Act of 1997–was largely due to the fear by Republicans of being labeled as racially insensitive, its failure can also be attributed to stiff opposition by civil rights groups, most congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans, and mostly importantly the White House. As a result, H.R. 1909 was tabled in the House Judiciary Committee by a thirteen to four vote.

Of the four major affirmative action battles, President Clinton was most steadfast in his support for Bill Lann Lee, former director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a vocal supporter of affirmative action. When the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to approve Lee’s nomination because of his support of affirmative action, Clinton took the unusual step of appointing him Acting-Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Appointing Lee to “acting” tenure signaled Clinton’s willingness to stand firmly behind a high profile and controversial nominee, something he was criticized for not doing with previous nominees such as Lani Guinier (nominee for Sssistant Attorney General for Civil Rights) and Dr. Henry W. Foster, Jr. (nominee for Surgeon General).

Von der Lippe gives Clinton high marks for his unrelenting stand on Lee’s appointment, calling the move “the right thing to do” and “defiant” in the face of partisan opposition. According to her, “The move did more than install Lee into the position he deserved; it served notice that the President would not be bullied on affirmative action. The President’s commitment to remain strong in his support of affirmative action sent a signal to conservatives that ending affirmative action would not happen easily.”

While von der Lippe gives Clinton high marks for his support of Lee, she is noticeably uncritical of his politically strategic defense of affirmative action, mainly his “mend it, don’t end it” approach. Such a strategy implies precisely what many affirmative action opponents contend – that the abuses affirmative action lead to “reverse” discrimination toward white males. The “mend it, don’t end it” approach is designed to appease the opponents by saying affirmative action is flawed but it works. The problem with that strategy is that it not only minimizes the tremendous success record of affirmative action, but it also attempts to appeal to opponents who wish to destroy rather than “improve” affirmative action. Very little if anything could be gained from pandering to the opponents on the right.

Perhaps the quietist challenge to affirmative action was Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) failed attempt to end the DBE Program, a provision that provides that at least 10 percent of federal transportation contracts be granted to small and disadvantaged business, the majority of which are controlled by women and minorities.

Because the DBE program was implicated in the Adarand v. Pena litigation and was targeted by the Associated General Contractors (AGC), a well-financed trade association of construction firms with extensive lobbying experience, it attracted the attention of a key affirmative action opponent in the U.S. Senate, Senator McConnell. The Senator, supported by Ward Connerly, the AGC, and other affirmative action foes, mounted an effort to end the DBE program by attaching an amendment to a highway and transit infrastructure bill known as TE-21.

The assault on the DBE program failed because of a highly coordinated and intense lobbying effort by civil rights advocates, women and minority business leaders, a bi-partisan array of affirmative action supporters in the House and Senate, and, most importantly, the Clinton administration. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater made it clear in a letter to Senate Majority and Minority leaders, according to von der Lippe, that he “would find it difficult to recommend ISTEA (the predecessor legislation to TEA-21) reauthorization legislation to the President for signature that did not include the DBE program.” Secretary Slater’s adamant support was bolstered by Attorney General Janet Reno’s constitutional support for the program and by the White House’s coordination of Congressional lobbying.

Not long after the DBE saga, a new threat to affirmative action emerged. Congressman Frank Riggs (R-CA) offered an amendment to a House education bill modeled after California’s Proposition 209 to end affirmative action in public colleges and universities. Like the DBE debate, the Riggs amendment attracted a broad coalition of opposition including educational groups, congressional leaders-the Congressional Black Caucus, the Women’s Caucus, and the Hispanic Caucus-a variety of pro-affirmative action forces, and the Clinton White House. As a result Congress defeated the amendment 249 to 171.

• On the whole, von der Lippe rightly contends that “the story of affirmative action in the 105th Congress makes it clear that who occupies the White House matters.” Without a concerted effort by key cabinet members and a well-coordinated lobbying effort by the White House, the outcome might have been different. Obviously the next election cycle will have high stakes. A Congress dominated by Republicans combined with a Republican president could spell trouble for

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affirmative action.

• Less compelling is von der Lippe’s assertion that because of the recent victories at the national level, “affirmative action proponents face a threat of complacency and over-confidence.” Such a development seems unlikely given the continued threat posed by deceptively-named anti-affirmative action groups such as the American Civil Rights Coalition, chaired by Ward Connerly. If anything, affirmative action proponents fear that opponents will have new tactics (see “Anti-Affirmative Action: Chasing the Intiative” on page 3) and that conservative legislators are biding their time for the political opportunity to launch future attacks.

Educational Opportunity

As the posturing over affirmative action revealed, education is a key battleground for conservatives. Not only is higher education a major concern, but control of public schools has emerged as a major point of contention. Dennis Parker, in his summary entitled “The Clinton Administration’s Record on Equal Education Opportunity in Elementary and Secondary Education,” notes that the challenge facing the administration was the development of an aggressive agenda to further educational equity in the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section, which falls under the supervision of the Acting Assistant Attorney General of Civil Rights, Bill Lann Lee.

While Congress stalled Lee’s appointment, Clinton named Thomas Perez as Deputy Assistant over the Educational Opportunities Section with a mandate to increase the Section’s outreach efforts and make it more assertive in the enforcement of civil rights.

Under Clinton’s tenure, the Section grappled with the perennial issue of school desegregation. Although a number of school districts remain under court-mandated desegregation orders, Indianapolis, Indiana, had its order terminated in 1998 and St. Louis, Missouri is currently negotiating termination of its order.

In the case of Indianapolis, children from the city were bused to suburban schools. When a district court denied the city’s effort to end the busing, the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded the order on the basis that the arrangement was never meant to be permanent. Consequently, the Justice Department and the city negotiated an agreement to end the busing of some 5,500 African-American students, one grade per year. Additionally, the agreement contained a commitment to assist low-income and minority families in finding suburban housing, an effort to soften the segregated housing that would be exacerbated by returning the students to Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis agreement was harshly criticized in some quarters, according to Parker. Gary Orfield, a professor of Education and Social Policy at Harvard University and an expert on desegregation, concluded that the Justice Department unnecessarily compromised a strong case. Hired by one of the townships seeking to continue the busing program, Orfield, according to Parker’s summary, argued that “housing measures should complement, rather than replace, the existing programs, and that the plan would relegate Indianapolis’ students to an ‘extremely inferior’ school system.”

In St. Louis there is also concern about the long-term effects of ending desegregation where, like Indianapolis, students are sent to suburban schools. How the Justice Department handles this case “will have a profound effect on the future of desegregated schools in the country,” Parker concludes.

Unlike the desegregation cases, the Justice Department has been more cautious in its handling of cases involving public school programs-such as magnet schools-that consider race in making admissions decisions. Although the courts have indicated moderate acceptance of the notion of promoting educational diversity as a compelling interest, the Justice Department has not taken an active role in such cases. Instead, it has only submitted amicus curiae, or friend of the court briefs, recognizing diversity as a compelling interest.

• Even though Parker’s article concedes that such a strategy is “not the most aggressive position possible,” a more critical assessment is needed. The posture assumed here by the Justice Department infers indifference to the issue and contradicts Clinton’s firm stand on affirmative action in higher education. Equally as important, the pale responses seem to be a proverbial “throwing in the towel” on race-

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conscious admissions policies at the elementary and secondary levels. Such a development raises questions about the Clinton Administration’s commitment to affirmative action as it affects public schooling.

Voting Rights

Judging from Parker’s assessment of the Clinton record on equal educational opportunity in public schools, the Justice Department plays a key role in the President’s overall civil rights strategy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of voting rights. It was under Clinton’s watch that the more serious threat to minority voting rights appeared-Shaw v. Reno-in which the Supreme Court muted the creation of congressional districts favoring minorities. According to Todd A. Cox in his article “Enforcing Voting Rights in the Clinton Administration as We Approach the New Millenium,” the role of the Administration will be crucial to the fate of minority voting rights and “minority electoral gains will either be protected or suffer severely as we near the next century and the next redistricting cycle.”

In the current political climate, Cox sees three threats to minority voting rights that must be addressed by the Clinton Administration. The first is enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act following the Shaw decision. Although a number of minority districts have been invalidated because of the Shaw case, the Supreme Court has not voided the Voting Rights Act. Still standing is the notion of a compelling justification for creating majority-minority districts to remedy voting rights discrimination.

The Justice Department assumed the role of defendant in many of the numerous redistricting cases that were spawned by Shaw. The Justice Department’s defendant status has helped define the limits of the Shaw ruling. In Lawyer v. Department of Justice the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a state senate district in Florida, signaling room for race-conscious redistricting at the state and local level. Cox believes that the presence of the Justice Department in such cases is invaluable because it promotes “the successful settlement of cases and redrawing of districts that still provide minorities an equal opportunity to elect candidates of choice.”

While the Justice Department is an active defendant in Section 2 cases, Cox feels it must be more aggressive in filing Section 2 lawsuits where discrimination can be documented. “It is critical for courts and jurisdictions alike to understand that Section 2 compliance is still required and that the Department will hold jurisdictions accountable for any discrimination against minority voters during the next redistricting process,” concludes Cox.

The second threat to minority voting rights involves Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Covered jurisdictions must receive preclearance from the Justice Department before altering any voting standards or procedures. Presently, the Justice Department needs to redefine its enforcement of section 5 standards in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bossier Parish v. Reno which let stand a circuit court ruling that circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent may not be considered in a Section 5 proceeding if the same evidence would be used in a Section 2 proceeding.

Cox urges the Justice Department to make clear that it will still prosecute Section 2 cases even if they do not violate Section 5. He also warns the Department not to overreact to Supreme Court rulings by charging section 5 procedures in such a way as to unnecessarily weaken enforcement.

The final threat to minority voting rights involves the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Because the NVRA was so successful at registering poor and minority voters, congressional conservatives attempted to attach measures requiring proof of identity and citizenship, structures that would disproportionally affect poor and minority voters. Moreover, legislation was introduced to repeal the mail-in provision of the NVRA which would undermine its effectiveness.

According to Cox, the Justice Department’s role is to discourage jurisdictions from employing discriminatory or intimidating electoral practices and to aggressively prosecute those who act in this manner; to monitor areas with histories of discrimination and intimidation; and to proactively discourage illegal electoral procedures by lowering its threshold for interventions.

Cox acknowledges that while the Justice Department is vigilant in its enforcement of NVRA voter registration requirements at drivers’ license bureaus, he mildly chides the Department for its “much less systematic” enforcement of these provisions at public assistance and disability benefits offices in many states.

• Cox’s assessment of voting rights enforcement makes it clear that the Voting Rights Act and the NVRA anchor the protection of minority voting rights. These measures have little meaning without the Justice Department’s leading role as compliance officer. What is missing here is any way to judge whether or not the Justice Department has the capacity to meet its enforcement obligations. This is particularly relevant in the case of the NVRA where state agencies have responsibilities for enacting its provisions and local jurisdictions have been the culprits of discriminatory and intimidating practices.

The EEOC and the OFCPP

The effectiveness of the Clinton Administration’s policies regarding civil rights cannot be judge without exploring issues of employment opportunities. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible

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for enforcement of fair employment laws and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCPP) ensures that federal standards are met by those with government contracts.

Over the years, according to Nancy Kreiter’s article entitled “Equal Employment Opportunity: EEOC and OFCCP,” the EEOC lost its viability and effectiveness. It fell to the Clinton Administration to reinvigorate the Commission. Consequently, by late 1994, the EEOC chair, Gilbert Casellas (who left in 1997) had in place a new leadership team.

One of the measures enacted to revamp the agency was the implementation of a new priority charge handling system, a system that prioritizes charges most likely to have merit. Although this new system halved the agency’s backlog of cases, there were unforeseen consequences. Rather than resolving issues of discrimination, the backlog of cases was sharply reduced by declaring the charges too weak to warrant further investigation.

Kreiter concludes that the most troubling aspect of the EEOC is its poor record in obtaining remedies for victims of discrimination. The settlement rate has plummeted from a high of 32 percent in 1980 to its current low of just 8 percent. Likewise, its no-cause finding rate-in which the agency concluded there was no cause for a finding of discrimination-reached an all-time high of 61 percent, a significant jump from its 1980 rate of 28.5 percent.

From a litigation standpoint, the agency also improved. Not only did the EEOC more than double the number of cases filed over the last two years, it also took a hard, public line against egregious employment discrimination in several high-profile cases. The EEOC was strategic in producing precedent-setting judgements against Texaco ($176 million), Publix Supermarkets ($81.5 million), and Mitsubishi ($3.4 million).

In spite of these highly-publicized successful settlements, Kreiter notes that the EEOC was criticized by civil rights advocates for not engaging more aggressively in class-action litigation. Although in recent years the agency increased its proportion of such suits to 30 percent of all suits filed, that level is far below the two-third’s ratio of 1980.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCPP) has an equally important role in protecting workers from discrimination. According to Kreiter, nearly one-quarter of American workers fall under the agency’s jurisdiction. Like the EEOC, the OFCCP was revamped to better monitor and enforce compliance with federal regulations. Not only were procedures amended to make the regulatory process more effective, but Reagan-era initiatives that hampered the agency’s work-the National Self-Monitoring System and the Standard Affirmative Actions Format which allowed employers to mask localized discrimination by providing national employment data-were terminated.

Besides policy improvements, the OFCCP also improved its enforcement capacity in some areas. In 1997, the agency trained its investigators on systematic discrimination, a practice abandoned since the Reagan Administration. In addition, the agency dramatically increased the number of compliance reviews conducted per year, resulting in an increased number of complaints filed and the debarment of eight firms by the Clinton Administration. (This number equals the total for both the Reagan and Bush years combined, but is less than one-third of the total for the Carter Administration.)

Because the effectiveness of the EEOC and the OFCCP was undermined by the Reagan and Bush Administrations, both agencies needed major overhauls in policy and enforcement procedures.

Conclusion • The inauguration of the Clinton Administration created a great deal of hope for civil rights advocates. President Clinton’s promise to assemble an administration that reflected America’s diversity seemed a welcome change from the regressive Reagan and Bush years. • After seven years under Clinton, it is evident that civil rights is an endangered species. The Test of Our Progress makes it clear that civil rights are under assault. The working papers highlighted here demonstrate that pockets of opposition to civil rights are emerging in nearly every measurable segment of our society-the workplace, the schoolhouse, the courts, and the polls.

Part of the problem faced by the Clinton Administration is that Presidents Reagan and Bush crippled many of the agencies-such as the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the EEOC-created to promote civil rights. They also stacked the federal courts with right-wing appointees who later helped undermine previous decades of civil rights progress.

Added to the quagmire is the reality of partisan politics. Republican legislators in both houses of Congress block Clinton appointees, especially those labeled “liberal” and those who were not white males. They also attempted to underfund federal agencies with a civil rights mission.

Unfortunately, the President responded with the nomination of non-controversial centrist candidates, a strategy that threatens to undermine judicial independence and erode the quality of justice.

In other areas, the Clinton Administration also acted inconsistently. While the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights produced useful reports, its proposed affirmative action study could give fodder to opponents.

At the same time that the Administration defeated

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several challenges to affirmative action and stood firmly behind Bill Lann Lee, it raised serious questions with its “mend it, don’t end it” approach to affirmative action. Even more troubling was the Justice Department’s capitulation in the Indianapolis desegregation case. Such strategies prompt doubts about the Administration’s commitment to affirmative action.

The bitter-sweet performance in affirmative action is complimented by the Justice Department’s less than aggressive approach to section 2 and section 5 compliance and its enforcement of NVRA provisions at state public assistance offices.

With systemic employment discrimination still pervasive, the EEOC and the OFCCP improved its policy and enforcement standards, but failed to give adequate remedy to most victims of discrimination. The agencies must recover from years of apparent intentional neglect under Reagan and Bush.

The Clinton record on civil rights is a mixture of strong, principled advocacy, lukewarm cheerleading, and weak, misguided capitulation to conservative political pressure. Yet, President Clinton represents a refreshing relief to the anti-civil rights tone of the Reagan and Bush years, but has failed to measure up to Carter’s record. As the 2000 presidential election brings the possibility of Governor George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” to the White House, the future of national civil rights protections are very much in question.

Barry E. Lee is a program assistant in communications at the Southern Regional Council and a graduate student in history at Georgia State University in Atlanta.