AS: Week 1, 2 reading notes

Katznelson

New Deal (1930): advantaged whites, excluded AAs.
o Social Security pays old age pensions in 1939; excludes blacks until 1950s
o Framework of protection by labor laws exclude domestic workers, African Americans!
o GI Bill: state rights, deny aid based on occupational exclusions; job ceilings imposed on
veterans; dont offer loans to blacks even when ensured by federal govt
Affirmative action (1960) created opportunities for middle-class blacks seeking access to higher
education, top-tier jobs. Civil Rights Act 1964 by LBJ is what established it as type of repair of
discriminatory policies.
o Advanced AA middle class, but not assertive/mass oriented enough as LBJ wanted
New Deal, Fair Deal: 30s, 40s, Johnson (Social Secrity, GI Bill, union promotion; worker
protection via minimum wage, max hours, right to join unions)
Veteran benefits administered LOCALLY, though, so local officials didnt offer loans to blacks
University of CA v Bakke (1978): Powell requirements for proving somethings worthy of affirm
action
o Tie between past action and present policy must be precise and indicate clear racial
injuries
Prez Johnson: racial gap has widened
o Must justify suspending race-blind policy. There has to be a clear public purpose to the
proposed racial remedy
Prez Johnson: divide distinguishing racial groups is a major public concern
Officially sanctioned racism: exclusion of particular occupations, administrative decentralization
(when the South created loopholes to justify not giving blacks aid) = dont refer to race
DIRECTLY, but still outcome is race-specific (non racial racism)
African Americans get compensation not cuz theyre BLACK, but because theyre subject to
earlier unfair treatment due to being black
Corrective justicedont just give remedies to one group, AAs, but give to grps whose
circumstances are affected by discriminatory institutions and practices.
Judicial legitimacy of corrective justice depends on CORRELATION between harms and remedies
2 programs:
o 1) Rectification program: search for INDIVIDUALS who were harmed (even in the past
generations) and try to compensate them
Ex, AAs cant access minimum wage, so provide tax credits. Could give
subsidized mortgage, small biz loans, educational grants for GI Bill reprations.
o 2) Target group is poor Americans suffering under South handling of New Deal
programs. Less exact, but major assault.
Offer: subsidized mortage (govt pays interest), grants, small business loans, job
opportunities
o Hierarchy of discrimination: individual private acts vs. institutional ones.

Sugrue
Key actors: racial liberals (shape antidiscrim policies postwar); civil rights activists (chafe at
limitations of liberalism), white construction unionists
Philadelphia protests 1963, Birmingham, CORE and NAACP siege on city-sponsored construction
projects
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
1963, Kennedy, Executive Order 11114 calls for affirmative action
Philadelphia Plan: announced by Nixon, requires all construction contractors bidding on
government-funded construction projects to submit affirmative action program and
establishes % range of minority workers
o Blueprint for federally mandated affirmative action in employment
Affirmative action caused us to shift from color blind to color conscious
Arguments against:
o Collapse of integrationist liberalism, rise of identity politics, MERIT championed
o Affirmative action led to collapse of integrationist liberalism, rise of identity politics,
culminates in expansion of rights notions and substitution of principle of equality of
outcome for that of equality of opportunity
o Its racial engineering of new sort that grew out of a racism that blacks were too
crippled to be judged on individual merit
o Working class whites had to absorb penalties for past discrimination by other whites
o AA as revolution in American regulatory state, bureaucrats fashion equal results
approach resting on statistical measures of group representation
But affirm action WASNT just top-down policymaking, it has GRASS-ROOTS ACTIVISM
Jobs and Freedom: from Militancy to Gradualism
Roosevelt, 1941, EO 8802 created Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), first fed agency
to handle civil rights matters (threat from group to march on Washington)
Rhetoric of rights after WWII: US, live up to your preaching of democracy!
Left-labor activists in NAACP and in key trade unions used FEPC to push for equal opp
1945: employment marginality for blacks. Economic opportunities for blacks IMPROVE,
Concentrated in insecure jobs without opp for upward movement
Postwar moral suasion tactics: wartime activists target discriminatory employers with protests
and walkouts, but postwar NAACP purged radical activists, tried to convince people.
Integrationism thought the problem was in INDIVIDUALS not accepting blacks.
Until early 1960s: NAACP, Committee on Equal Job Opp (CEJO), etc. try to persuade employers
to hire blacks for breakthrough jobs, show blacks are capable of working in any economic
sector, make white people face their own irrationality. AVOID coercive action! (boycotting, etc)
Didnt work. Look to local govt, Philly enacts fair employment (FEP) ordinance to try and get
black voters; create Commission on Human Relations (CHR), which investigates FEP on case-by-
case. But need workers themselves to come forward, and lack staff/funding to investigate
everything properly!
Penn Human Relations Commission (PHRC) handles cases, but doesnt use state power, just
informally adjusts cases, barely placed token # of blacks.
**FEP made STATE an ally of civil rights activists**
The New Militants
Blacks overrepresented in unskilled industrial/service jobs, underrepresented in
sales/management/professional jobs. Vulnerable to layoffs. High unemployment
Gradualist liberalism tossed out; Committee of 400 launch selective patronage campaign
against employers; says govt isnt FAST. Want to upgrade blacks ahead of whites with seniority
o Demand for LOTS of blacks to be hired at EVERY LEVEL in the firm
CORE, NAACP attracts more militants
1962: Cecil Moore head of NAACP, hated black moderates, streetwise demeanor made him
popular in poor/working class neighborhoods
Local activism moves against building trades, union-run apprenticeship programs; target
discrimination at its weak point, dependence on government largess!
The Building Trades
New Deal helped building trades more secure
Fed gov supports apprenticeship training programs
o Congress creates Federal Housing Admin, Home Owners Loan Corp, Fed Public Housing
Authority
o Supports building hospitals, schools etc, so lots of building trade jobs
Philly has Urban Renewal programs, public housing
Blacks trapped in worst jobs
Key to high wages, job security of building trades: constriction of labor supply through
exclusionary barriers
o Preferential hiring, friendship/kin networks
o Father-son tradition
o Disregard civil rights organizers, ignore requests
o We arent prejudiced, blacks just dont apply!
Whose Rights?
Negro Trade Union Leadership Council: unionists demand black inclusion in apprenticeship
programs/skilled trades
CORE calls for change
Major Tate (Philly democrat) silent; supports civil rights in South, ignores racial issues in Philly
o Cant ignore civil rights, nor whites
o Middle ground: CHR, go investigate contractor/trade union hiring practices!
o Accused of inaction by CORE; NAACP joins
o Occupy mayors office, Tate stops construction on Municipal Services Bldg until
employment offered to all
o Work stops!!
o City hall sit-in (NAACP, CORE, Committee of 400)

Toward Affirmative Action
Civil Rights push for preferential hiring policies
Racial quotas for city contracts/apprenticeship programs demanded (15% jobs to black workers)
1963 Kennedy finally goes against federal construction racism. Mobilizes task force to examine
cities construction workers.
o Issues EO 11114 prohibiting discrimination against minorities on govt contracted
construction projects
State officials get statistics, bargain with union leaders over voluntary acceptance of affirmative
action plans; Philly Board of Edu pledge to close apprenticeship programs excluding blacks; US
Dept of Labor threatens to withhold certification of union-sponsored apprenticeship programs
Protest: racists say I cant give job to JUST ANY NEGRO GAWD T_T
Becomes injustice. RACISM
o White identity politics: didnt even see white building trades unions as reflecting racial
separation and privilege. Rather, saw it as outcome of natural process of group
identification and affiliation
Antidiscrimination is govt power expansion, overwhelms workers independence!
AFL-CIO encourages construction unions to adopt antidiscrim language in their contracts
Craft unions try to do racial gradualism, emphasize PROCESS not OUTCOME
1969 Philadelphia Plan changed that
Job fairs, outreach, pre-apprenticeship programs made. Not enough
Protest, Policy Making
1965 LBJ creates EO 11246 which lets Dept of Labor terminate govt contracts with firms not
practicing affirmative action
Pre award evidence in St Louis Plan grants federal contracts contingent on recruitment of
minorities
Cleveland Plan, pre-award manning tables specifying how many minority workers would be
hired on federally funded job sites. Philly plan makes federal officials visit job sites, head counts
on minority workers
LBJ saddles fence. Tries to stem black discontent, but not alienate building trades unionists
Philly Plan (Nixon 1969) deploys PERCENTAGE RANGES
Vietnam War, economy sours, less $ to construction projects, white people blame civil rights