Obtaining Civil Rights, Not Human RIghts

this program is brought to you by Emory University one of the things that I find absolutely fascinating is how the the possibility of what the Civil Rights Movement could have been as a human rights movement in the 1940s the NAA c p had begun to conceptualize the issue facing black people in America not as civil rights the right to vote the right to a fair trial um the right to a jury of your peers the right not to be illegally searched and ceased those things that we know as the Bill of Rights but instead as human rights the right to education the right to Health Care the right to housing the right to employment and the thing that was driving the NAACP to in fact look at this was the condition of of Black America in the 1940s you know the massive discrimination the kinds of of public policies that were being put in place that systematically excluded African-Americans from the the Bounty of America for instance um there was the Social Security Act in the 1930s we understand Social Security today but in n in the 1930s it was put in place because people had worked so hard only to have the the economic destuction of the of the um depression throw them out of work with absolutely nothing not barely the clothes on their backs and these are people who had work for 30 40 years so what happened with the Social Security Act is that you have this powerful wonderful piece of legislation and then the southern Democrats made sure that what was inserted in this legislation to provide the safety net was to in fact exclude two of the major occupations that that African-Americans held domestic workers and the agricultural field so in fact you had 70% of African-Americans excluded from Social Security for decades this is part of what the NAACP is looking at what they're also seeing in terms of Education you know we think about the brown decision of 1954 but going before that as the NAACP was looking at the conditions in these pole tax states such as as South Carolina Georgia Alabama Mississippi Louisiana because the quality of Education was so horrific for African-Americans over 50% of adult African-Americans over the age of 25 had less than 5 years of formal education begin to think about what that means when you've got over half of your adult population having less than 5 years of formal education think about how well you're able to navigate in a a society in an economy that is becoming more technologically advanced with five years of formal education this is what the NAACP is looking at what they're also seeing is that in terms of healthcare you've got this Jim Crow education system the American Medical Association is saying that for every uh 1,500 in the population you need one doctor the average for African-Americans was one for every 3,337 think about what it takes to be able to go in and see your doctor if you got one for every 3,337 in Mississippi it was one for every 18,5 127 this is what the NAACP is saying and and when they're looking at this they're saying you know the right to vote is important it is power F the right to a fair trial given what we've been looking at in terms of the lynchings in terms of the Southern Justice absolutely but it's not going to be enough to break centuries of slavery and Jim Crow we need to have human rights and one of the vehicles that they began to look at was the founding of the United Nations which came out of the second world war which came out of the atrocities of Nazi Germany which came out of the atrocities of Japan that Japan had committed in Asia in China in Indonesia in Korea so with this framework of Human Rights the NAACP decided particularly after the violence in 1946 that went absolutely unabated against African-Americans particularly black veterans that they needed to go to the UN because as the NAACP had tried to talk to the state legislatur as they tried to talk to the White House as they talked to the attorney general everybody was saying there's nothing we can do and so as you're looking for these levers of power they breached the The Citadel of the United Nations and the commission on human rights and they presented a petition an appeal to the world now this petition was beautifully done it was led by web de boo who was a co-founder of the NAACP and it began to document the systematic violation of human rights in the United States against against African-Americans now the Cold War has begun in 1947 and the US looked at this document by the NAACP with its 400,000 dues paying members cuz this is now a big dog the the NAACP has credibility and they have put top Scholars working on this document that they're presenting to the UN when you read through the state department fa State Department is going oh my God what are we going to do we have got to stop this thing if the Soviets get a hold of this the Soviet Union is going to have a field day it's just going to prove everything that they said we can SWAT away some of this other stuff as propaganda this stuff is so beautifully documented we can't call this propaganda okay we know it's the truth but we so we've got to figure out a way how to stop the truth from from being aired in the UN we do not want our Dirty Laundry aired during the Cold War one of the ways that they went about trying to stop the NAACP was to use the power of Elanor Roosevelt who had incredible cache she was the chair of the commission on human rights she was also a member of the NAACP board of directors as that petition is moving its way through the UN Eleanor and the state department pulled that thing back stomped on it beat on it used every Roberts r Rules of Order to strangle that thing bury it in the bowels of the UN hoping that it would never see the light of day now the Soviets are in there fighting going oh no I think this is a really good thing and we really we really need to talk about this and the US is like no we don't but no we really no we don't we no we do what talk about what thing there's no petition here when that thing got strangled part of what then leads to the NAACP move moving off of its framework of thinking about the struggle for black equality as a human rights struggle was because this was the Cold War Eleanor Roosevelt and the state department said oh you must be a communist only a communist dominated organization would have the audacity the tarity the nerve to create a document like this and send it to the United Nations that's a communist stunt and as you're talking about the right to housing the right to Health Care the right to education that sounds like a Marxist you must be Marxist now again this is the Cold War this is the beginning of the second Red Scare this is when being even hinted at that you're a communist means the kiss of death in American society and the NAACP is going no no we're not communist we're just fighting for the human rights of African-Americans I mean look at this we have African-Americans over 50% who have less than 5 years of education that's a problem no the problem is is that you went to the United Nations well we tried to no the problem is you must be a communist but we no the problem is you must be read do you want to end up on the Attorney General's List of communist dominated or organizations and the NAACP was like oh my God we have got to figure out a way how to how to how to how to how to how to how to how oh my what do we do now and what you begin to see them do is to pull back from human rights as the foundation for black equality in the United States and this pullback becomes reinforced by the time we get to 1954 there were a whole series of events that happened one of the final events that happened is this thing called the Bricker Amendment and the Bricker amendment was launched by um a Conservative Republican uh Senator out of Ohio John Bricker that was to change the ways that treaties were ratified in the United States they were particularly going after these un treaties dealing with human rights and the way that they were doing it you know now you know almost this is almost a basic Civic lesson 101 now to ratify a treaty takes 2third of the Senate under the Bricker Constitutional Amendment it was going to take two-thirds of the Senate both houses of Congress and All 48 state legislatures begin to think about the Mississippi State Legislature discussing the genocide convention the southern Democrats were already clear as they looked at the genocide convention which came out of the Holocaust they said oh this look like a backdoor method to a federal anti- lynching Bill we've got to stop this the southern Democrats were very clear Senator Walter George out of Georgia said as I look at these human rights treaties they just might affect the colored question meaning that it was going to change the place of African-Americans in American society that it was in fact going to be freeing that in fact the by providing educ ation then all of a sudden economic opportunities begin to open up and as economic opportunities begin to open up then that laboring that happens in the fields that the South so depended upon all of a sudden wouldn't be there this was frightening because it was going to change the balance of power so what it took to bring down the Bricker Amendment because it had the necessary 2/3 votes in the Senate to go out into the states for the constitu amendment to be ratified is is that you got for for one thing you got massive lobbying by Eisenhower president Eisenhower is looking up going man this looks like the old Articles of Confederation and you know we're trying to do this NATO thing we're trying to be the leader of the Free World and now all of a sudden if I have absolutely no power and the states have to ratify everything we're not going to get anything done and we're trying to wa we're trying to fight the Cold War and yes we know that all of this stuff about the right to health care that's socialism I have no problem with that but we already have a a a process in place to stop that from darkening America's doorstep do not pass the Bricker Amendment Senate looked at him and went sh we got work to do and so when this bill is coming down and they're voting and they're counting their heads 1 and it's like yes yes yes it looks like they've got their 2/3 and then somebody says where's Harley where's Harley where's Harley Kilgore Democrat out of West Virginia and they're looking for Harley they're looking for Harley somebody says they're running all over the building trying to find them somebody says has anybody tried the bar across the street so they send the Senate Pages out going to trying to find harly there he is at the bar across the street in the middle of this Landmark historic vote and he is lit I mean he's he's you know they talk about three sheets to the win he's about nine sheets to the win I mean Harley is lit so one Aid gets under this arm one Aid gets under that arm they kind of drag him back across the street they open up the Senate doors as they're doing the final count they look up and they say oh we see our esteemed senator from West Virginia how do you vote and you hear from the background nay now nobody knows if that was really Harley because we think he was passed out so it could have been one of the AIDS but the Bricker Amendment went down by one drunk vote but in that debate it made it very clear that human rights the right to education the right to housing the right to health care we seen as communistic foreign to American soil when the Bricker amendment is defeated in 1954 the things the themes that course through it are still there so when the official Civil Rights Movement begins in 1954 with the brown decision and then in 55 with Montgomery you already have a very narrowed frame in order to fight for black equality you have the narrowed frame of civil rights and not human rights the preceding program is copyrighted by Emory University

Channel: Emory University

Views: 30,550

Keywords: NAACP, Carol Anderson, Emory University, Lynching, African American Studies, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Black, African American

Id: 2VvE1jyFvMs

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2012