Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
No Southern state was more resistant to segregation than Mississippi. Initiating a ‘southern respectable’ resistance, Mississippi set out to create a permanent authority for the maintenance of racial segregation, fully staffed and state funded. On May 20, 1956, Mississippi state legislators passed House Bill 880 establishing the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC) as part of the executive branch, under the protection of the U.S. Constitutional 10th amendment, [“powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution or prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (Bill of Rights Transcript Text, 2014)] and the institutional order of federalism.
HOUSE BILL 880
House Bill (HB) 880 creating the Sovereignty Commission was a legitimate effect to legally protect ‘segregation’ and prevent federal mandated ‘integration.’ Cleverly constructed, HB 880 under the guise of ‘protect the sovereignty of Mississippi’ [Mississippi’s segregated way of life] from federal encroachment [forced integration], reflected its true purpose, “the perfect weapon in the battle against segregation” (Williams, 2011, p. 139). Jackson Daily News reported; the powers vested to the sovereignty commission “virtually amount to a blank check” (Katagiri, 2001, p. 6) citing a generous budget and ambiguous powers.
Section 5 of HB 880 granted authority to do and perform “any and all acts and things deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of Mississippi and her sister states from encroachment thereon by the federal government or any other branch, department or agency thereof…” then goes on to affirm through Section 6, “the commission may co-operate with on...
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.... A. (1992). In The Color of Their Skin: Eduation and Race in Richmond Virgina 1954 - 1989 (p. 4). Charlottesville: The University Press of Virigina.
Southern Manifesto on Integration . (1956 ). Congressional Record (pp. 4459 - 4460 ). Washington, D.C.: Goverment Printing Office .
Sovereignthy Commission Online. (2002). Retrieved from MIssissippi Department of Archives and History : http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_archives/sovcom/scagencycasehistory.php.
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Vaught, S. (2003 ). The White Citizen’s Council of Montgomery, 1955-1958: The Politics of Countermovement, Moral Culture and Civic Bigotry. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University.
Williams, M. V. (2011). Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr. Fayetteville : The University of Arkansas Press .
...e to breach Supreme Court sovereignty would render the different minorities, residing in the United States, helpless to further governmental legislature justifying racial discrimination. In their struggle to preserve racial inequality segregationists immorally resorted to using violence against children. Through “a sharp realisation of the shameful discrimination directed at small children” the world perceived an inconsistency in a nation that preached freedom for all, though denied the very same right to its children. Ernest Green and the other eight students “learned unmistakably that they possessed irresistible power” during the crisis but only if they realised it and united against discrimination and racism.
Making Whiteness: the culture of segregation in the south, 1890-1940 is the work of Grace Elizabeth Hale. In her work, she explains the culture of the time between 1890 and 1940. In her book she unravels how the creation of the ‘whiteness’ of white Southerners created the ‘blackness’ identity of southern African Americans. At first read it is difficult to comprehend her use of the term ‘whiteness’, but upon completion of reading her work, notes included, makes sense. She states that racial identities today have been shaped by segregation, “...the Civil War not only freed the slaves, it freed American racism
Over the course of five chapters, the author uses a number of sources, both primary and secondary, to show how the National Negro Congress employed numerous political strategies, and allying itself with multiple organizations and groups across the country to implement a nationwide grassroots effort for taking down Jim Crow laws. Even though the National Negro Congress was unsuccessful in ending Jim Crow, it was this movement that would aide in eventually leading to its end years later.
...isely. This book has been extremely influential in the world of academia and the thinking on the subject of segregation and race relations in both the North and the South, but more importantly, it has influenced race relations in practice since it was first published. However, Woodward’s work is not all perfect. Although he does present his case thoroughly, he fails to mention the Negroes specifically as often as he might have. He more often relies on actions taken by whites as his main body of evidence, often totally leaving out the actions that may have been taken by the black community as a reaction to the whites’ segregationist policies.
...skegee Institute at that time, thought it was a great idea to because it would afford much professional opportunities for blacks in Macon County. Moton wanted an all black administration but would settle for a white chief administrator if he were of northern origin. Both money and power were the issues in the Veterans Administration hospital controversy. A white man who said pointed out another issue, "if niggers are put at the head of this hospital, they'll be responsible only to the United States and we don't want and we don't want any niggers in Alabama we can't control." (p. 28). Thus saying that whatever blacks do whites should have some kind of control in essence is still a form of slavery.
The original edition of The Strange Career of Jim Crow had as its thesis that segregation and Jim Crow Laws were a relative late comer in race relations in the South only dating to the late 1880s and early 1890s. Also part of that thesis is that race relations in the South were not static, that a great deal of change has occurred in the dynamics of race relations. Woodward presents a clear argument that segregation in the South did not really start forming until the 1890s. One of the key components of his argument is the close contact of the races during slavery and the Reconstruction period. During slavery the two races while not living harmoniously with each other did have constant contact with each other in the South. This c...
Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...
Integration and the University of Mississippi. Cartoon. New York Times [New York] 30 Sept. 1962: 1.
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Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.
Wu, F. H. (2002). Yellow: race in america beyond black and white. New York: Basic
In April of 1963 the Southern Christian Leaders Conference (SCLC) organized a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. African Americans in Birmingham in part with the SCLC arrang...
The consolidated cases of students who sought admission to segregated schools argued that their Fourteenth Amendment Rights were being violated on account of how State-enforced segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause. The quality of education made available to them was not equal to that of Caucasian population at that time. For example, it was noted that because segregated schools in KS were underfunded, the students were not being provided adequate textbooks and instructiona...