Elite White Men Ruling by Feagin Joe R.; Ducey Kimberley; & Kimberley Ducey

Author:Feagin, Joe R.; Ducey, Kimberley; & Kimberley Ducey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Lyndon Johnson: The 1960s Civil Rights Era

Let us consider some of this variation in racial framing and action across several contemporary presidencies. The white elite’s more moderate and liberal members, though historically often the smaller group in the elite, have periodically been more positive in their framing of Americans of color and people’s movements protesting discrimination. Under pressure from the latter, these moderates and liberals have been largely responsible for white contributions to liberalizing U.S. society on racial, class, gender, and other social hierarchy issues. This included their active support in getting rid of slavery in the 1860s Civil War era and eliminating legal segregation during the 1960s civil rights era. In that 1960s era, President Lyndon Johnson and a majority of members of Congress—most of them white men—did belatedly enact important civil rights laws—the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Legal scholar Derrick Bell has suggested that this type of political change in racial patterns usually entails significant “interest convergence” between some part of the elite and certain dissenting groups of ordinary Americans.5 Ending totalitarian Jim Crow segregation involved convergence between interests of the white elite’s moderate/liberal faction and the interests of black civil rights leaders and civil rights organizations.6 The main goal of elite moderates was, then as now, the preservation of societal order by ending overt racial conflicts. The 1950s–1960s civil rights movements generated a legitimation crisis for this elite in the United States and abroad. They were concerned with how the Soviet Union seemed to be winning the “Cold War” with the United States by circulating media information (e.g., photos of black children attacked by police) to countries across the globe. This mostly white, mostly male elite has acted to end some racial discrimination only when it as a group profits in significant ways—in this case, from positive international press coverage about the end of Jim Crow segregation, and thus from the resulting greater U.S. influence in its international struggle with the Soviet Union.

The belated federal enactment of the 1960s civil rights laws, as well as the support of them by key Democratic Party leaders, has had significant effects on U.S. politics. Democratic Party commitments to civil rights laws have brought a major increase in the number of voters of color, and a positive orientation among them to the Democratic Party in numerous elections. Additionally, party reforms since the civil rights era have helped voters and officials of color to gain greater power within the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Still, these important civil rights laws and government attempts at enforcing them have persistently stirred up the racial fears of many whites and led them to move their allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party since the 1960s.7

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