I Am a Man!: Race, Manhood, and the Civil Rights MovementThe civil rights movement was first and foremost a struggle for racial equality, but questions of gender lay deeply embedded within this struggle. Steve Estes explores key groups, leaders, and events in the movement to understand how activists used race and manhood to articulate their visions of what American society should be. Estes demonstrates that, at crucial turning points in the movement, both segregationists and civil rights activists harnessed masculinist rhetoric, tapping into implicit assumptions about race, gender, and sexuality. Estes begins with an analysis of the role of black men in World War II and then examines the segregationists, who demonized black male sexuality and galvanized white men behind the ideal of southern honor. He then explores the militant new models of manhood espoused by civil rights activists such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and groups such as the Nation of Islam, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Black Panther Party. Reliance on masculinist organizing strategies had both positive and negative consequences, Estes concludes. Tracing these strategies from the integration of the U.S. military in the 1940s through the Million Man March in the 1990s, he shows that masculinism rallied men to action but left unchallenged many of the patriarchal assumptions that underlay American society. |
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Page 108
... black families and black men in particular . Believing that the breakdown of the black family was " the principal cause " of urban violence and other forms of delinquency in the ghetto , Moynihan proposed a national policy to " bring ...
... black families and black men in particular . Believing that the breakdown of the black family was " the principal cause " of urban violence and other forms of delinquency in the ghetto , Moynihan proposed a national policy to " bring ...
Page 112
... family structure . In the cities , according to the 1960 census , women headed 23 percent of African American families as opposed to 11 percent in rural black farming communities . For support of this thesis , Moynihan quoted liberally ...
... family structure . In the cities , according to the 1960 census , women headed 23 percent of African American families as opposed to 11 percent in rural black farming communities . For support of this thesis , Moynihan quoted liberally ...
Page 126
... Family with research that highlighted the black family's resiliency under the strains of slavery and poverty . Recognizing the existence of a matrifocal family structure that Moynihan had pointed to as an indication of family breakdown ...
... Family with research that highlighted the black family's resiliency under the strains of slavery and poverty . Recognizing the existence of a matrifocal family structure that Moynihan had pointed to as an indication of family breakdown ...
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Aaron Henry African American argued began Beifuss black and white black community black family black male black manhood Black Panther Party black soldiers black women Bobby Seale California campaign Carter Citizens civil rights activists civil rights leaders civil rights movement Council culture defend Eldridge Cleaver Elijah Muhammad federal fight folder Freedom Summer gender guns honor integration interracial interview with author Jim Crow Johnson Labor liberation Malcolm Malcolm X March Martin Luther King masculinist masculinity McLaurin memo Memphis militant military ministers Mississippi Moynihan Report Muhammad Speaks Muslim NAACP Nation of Islam Negro Family Newton nonviolent North Carolina officers OHRO organization police political Press programs protest race racial racism recruits revolutionary rhetoric River I Stand role sanitation strike sanitation workers segregation segregationists sexual SNCC SNCC Papers social South southern white speech strategy struggle University veterans violence volunteers vote white male supremacy white supremacy white women York