No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Reluctant Radicals: How Moderates Shape Movements for Social Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 December 2018
Abstract
This essay reviews three books within the southern history literature on the white moderate's response to the civil rights movement; Kevin Kruse's White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005), Matthew Lassiter's The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South (2006), and Jason Sokol's There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945–1975 (2006). I examine how white moderates impacted the struggle for African American civil rights, and explore how this dynamic can help us understand the trajectory of the current debate over gay rights in the United States. I argue that while the US public ultimately came to support equal rights for African Americans, and has grown more tolerant of gay rights recently, they have been willing to do so only when these rights claims are framed as benefiting “deserving” segments of these populations. This shows that rights are, to some extent, contingent resources, available primarily to those citizens who fit certain ideal types, and suggests that those individuals who are unwilling (or unable) to live up to this ideal may ultimately fail to benefit from these movements.
- Type
- Review Essay
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2016
References
References
Alexander, Michelle.
2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Aud, Susan, Ann Fox, Marry, and Kewal‐Ramani, Angelina. 2010. Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Badgett, M. V. Lee.
2001. Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Badgett, M. V. Lee.
2010. When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same‐Sex Marriage. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Badgett, M. V. Lee, Durso, Laura E., and Schneebaum, Alyssa. 2013. New Patterns of Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community. Williams Institute. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/LGB-Poverty-Update-Jun-2013.pdf (accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Bartley, Numan V.
1974. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Katherine.
1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blankenhorn, David.
1996. Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problems. New York: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Blankenhorn, David, and Rauch, Jonathan. 2013. Now, Let's Get Straight on Marriage. New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/straight-marriage-article-1.1303011 (accessed December 9, 2014).Google Scholar
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2014. Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm (accessed November 24, 2014).Google Scholar
Burwick, Andrew, Gates, Gary, Baumgartner, Scott, and Friend, Daniel. 2014. Human Services for Low‐Income and at Risk LGBT Populations: An Assessment of the Knowledge Base and Research Needs. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/lgbt_hsneeds_assessment_reportfinal1_12_15.pdf (accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Carpenter, Dale.
2012. Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Carter, Dan T.
1996. From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963–1964. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Chappell, David L.
1994. Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Chauncey, George.
2004. Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Cherlin, Andrew.
2014. Labor's Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class Family in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Condon, Patrick.
2012. What's Missing from Pro‐Gay Marriage TV Ads? Gays. Associated Press. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/whats-missing-pro-gay-marriage-tv-ads-gays (accessed December 12, 2014).Google Scholar
Cosby, Bill.
2004. Dr. Bill Cosby Speaks at the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~schochet/101/Cosby_Speech.htm (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Crawford, Alan.
1980. Thunder on the Rights: The “New Right” and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams.
1988. Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law. Harvard Law Review
101 (7): 1331–87.Google Scholar
Crespino, Joseph.
2007. In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Critchlow, Donald T.
2007. The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Daniels, Cynthia R.
2000. Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dittmer, John.
1995. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Donovan, Charles A.
2011. A Marshall Plan for Marriage: Re‐Building our Shattered Homes. Backgrounder
2567:1–13.Google Scholar
Dudas, Jeffrey R.
2008. The Cultivation of Resentment: Treaty Rights and the New Right. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Durso, Laura E., and Gates, Gary J.
2012. Serving Our Youth: Findings from a National Survey of Service Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth Who Are Homeless or at Risk of Becoming Homeless. Williams Institute. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Durso-Gates-LGBT-Homeless-Youth-Survey-July-2012.pdf (accessed December 15, 2015).Google Scholar
Dyson, Michael Eric.
2006. Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? New York: Basic Civitas Books.Google Scholar
Eagles, Charles.
2000. Outside Agitators: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Edsall, Thomas Byrne, and Edsall, Marry D.
1992. Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and Munger, Frank W.
2003. Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Equality Maine. 2009. All Families. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QLirv1-vBY (accessed September 29, 2013).Google Scholar
Eskew, Glenn T.
1997. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S.
1998. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fejes, Fred.
2008. Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America's Debate on Homosexuality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Franke, Katherine.
2004. The Domesticated Liberty of Lawrence v. Texas
. Columbia Law Review
104:1399–1426.Google Scholar
Franke, Katherine.
2015. Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Barry.
2010. The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Fry, Richard.
2014. New Census Data Shows More Americans Are Tying the Knot, But Mostly it's the College Educated. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/06/new-census-data-show-more-americans-are-tying-the-knot-but-mostly-its-the-college-educated/(accessed April 8, 2014).Google Scholar
Gallagher, Maggie.
2007. Banned in Boston: The Coming Conflict Between Same‐Sex “Marriage” and Religious Liberty. Family Research Council. http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF07I18.pdf (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Gallup.
2014. Gay and Lesbian Rights. http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/Gay-Lesbian-Rights.aspx (accessed April 8, 2014).Google Scholar
Gates, Gary J.
2013. GBT Parenting in the United States. Williams Institute. http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/lgbt-parenting-in-the-united-states (accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Gerstmann, Evan.
1999. The Constitutional Underclass: Gays, Lesbians, and the Failure of Class‐Based Equal Protection. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin.
1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race Media and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gilliom, John.
2001. Overseers of the Poor: Surveillance, Resistance, and the Limits of Privacy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Chad Alan.
2007. Citizens and Paupers: Relief, Rights, and Race, from the Freedmen's Bureau to Workfare. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg‐Hiller, Jonathan, and Milner, Neal. 2003. Rights as Excess: Understanding the Politics of Special Rights. Law & Social Inquiry. 28 (4): 1075–1118.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin.
2014. Racial Gaps in Income and Wealth, 1989–2013. http://inequality.org/racial-inequality (accessed November 24, 2014).Google Scholar
Greenwood, Jeremy, Guner, Nezih, Kocharkov, Georgi, and Santos, Cezar. 2014. Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality. National Bureau of Economic Research. http://pareto.uab.es/nguner/ggksPandP-December2013.pdf (accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd.
2005. The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past. Journal of American History
91 (4): 1233–59.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ange‐Marie. 2004. The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Hatalsky, Lanae, and Trumble, Sarah. 2012. How Marriage Won in Washington State. Third Way Social Policy and Politics Program. http://content.thirdway.org/publications/623/Third_Way_Report_‐_How_Marriage_Won_in_Washington_State.pdf (accessed June 7, 2016).Google Scholar
Herman, Didi.
1997. The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Phillip. 2004. Moral Panic: Changing Conceptions of the Child Molester in Modern America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1963. Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Atlantic Monthly
212 (2): 78–88.Google Scholar
Klarman, Michael.
2004. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kruse, Kevin M.
2005. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lassiter, Matthew D.
2006. The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
López, Ian Haney.
2006. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Lovell, George I.
2012. This Is Not Civil Rights: Discovering Rights Talk in 1939 America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lowndes, Joseph E.
2008. From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Origins of Modern Conservatism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Macartney, Suzanne, Bishaw, Alemayehu, and Fontenot, Kayla. 2013. Poverty Rates for Selected Detailed Race and Hispanic Groups by State and Place: 2007–2011. US Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-17.pdf (accessed November 24, 2014).Google Scholar
Mainers United for Marriage.
2012. Pat & Dan Lawson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdUCLgjxanQ (accessed October 16, 2013).Google Scholar
Mason, Robert.
2004. Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Mauer, Marc.
2011. Addressing Racial Disparities in Incarceration. Prison Journal
91 (3): 87S–101S.Google Scholar
Mayer, Jeremy D.
2002. Running on Race: Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns 1960–2000. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David.
1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael.
1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McGerr, Michael.
2003. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
McMillan, Neil R.
1971. The Citizen's Council; Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction 1954–1964. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
McWhorter, Diane.
2001. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, 2nd ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John H.
2000. Losing the Race: Self Sabotage in Black America. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Mello, Joseph.
2015. Rights Discourse and the Mobilization of Bias: Exploring the Institutional Dynamics of the Same‐Sex Marriage Debates in America. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society
66:1–35.Google Scholar
Mello, Joseph.
2016. The Courts, the Ballot Box, and Gay Rights: How Our Governing Institutions Shape the Debate Over Same‐Sex Marriage. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick.
1965. The Negro Family. US Department of Labor. http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/webid-meynihan.htm (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Murray, Charles.
1984. Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Murray, Mellissa.
2012. What's So New About the New Illegitimacy?
American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, & the Law
20 (3): 387–436.Google Scholar
No On Prop 8.
2008. Unfair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsIoPmGJmmw (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Obama, Barack.
2008. Father's Day Speech. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11094.html (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Passavant, Paul. 2002. No Escape: Freedom of Speech and the Paradox of Rights. New York: New York University Free Press.Google Scholar
Perlstein, Rick.
2008. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Phillips, Kevin P.
1969. The Emerging Republican Majority. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.Google Scholar
Queers for Economic Justice.
2009. Poverty, Public Assistance, and Privatization: The Queer Case for a New Commitment to Economic Justice. http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/q4ej/pages/22/attachments/original/1375202425/poverty-public-assistance-and-privatization.pdf?1375202425 (accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Rauch, Jonathan.
2004. Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Roberts, Paul Craig, and Stratton, Lawrence M.
1995. The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy. Washington, DC: Regnery.Google Scholar
Rubio, Marco.
2015. American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone. New York: Sentinel.Google Scholar
Schacter, Jane S.
1994. The Gay Civil Rights Debate in the States: Decoding the Discourse of Equivalents. Harvard Civil‐Rights Civil‐Liberties Law Review
29:283–317.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A.
1974. The Politics of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy, and Political Change. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Self, Robert O.
2012. All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Sokol, Jason.
2006. There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945–1975. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Sowell, Thomas.
2015. Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: An International Perspective. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Sprigg, Peter.
2006. The Other Side of Tolerance. Family Research Council. http://www.frc.org/(accessed December 1, 2009).Google Scholar
Stein, Arlene.
2013
. What's the Matter with Newark? Race, Class, Marriage Politics, and the Limits of Queer Liberalism. In The Marrying Kind? Debating Same‐Sex Marriage Within the Lesbian and Gay Movement, ed. Bernstein, Mary and Taylor, Verta, 39–66. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Toobin, Jefffrey.
2008. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Vaid, Urvashi.
2012. Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics. New York: Magnus Books.Google Scholar
Walker, Anders.
2009. The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Warner, Michael.
1999. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Washington United for Marriage.
2012. Boehler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcHeBWQJAXI (accessed December 5, 2014).Google Scholar
Williams, Kristi.
2014. Promoting Marriage Among Single Mothers: An Ineffective Weapon in the War on Poverty. Council on Contemporary Families. https://contemporaryfamilies.org/marriage-ineffective-in-war-on-poverty-report/(accessed December 16, 2015).Google Scholar
Wilson, Joshua.
2013. The Street Politics of Abortion: Speech, Violence, and America's Culture Wars. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, C. Vann.
1955. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zemans, Frances Kahn.
1983. Legal Mobilization: The Neglected Role of the Law in the Political System. American Political Science Review
77:690–703.Google Scholar