From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 23
Perspectives on the Present
Legal Challenges
 The 2000 Presidential Election
 African Americans denied right to vote in Florida
 Polls moved; closed early; voters purged from rolls
 Despite irregularities, Supreme Court halted
recount
 Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) limited states’ ability
to create congressional districts with African
American majorities
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Legal Challenges
 Challenges to Affirmative Action
 George W. Bush appointed conservatives John G.
Roberts and Samuel Alito to Supreme Court
 Challenges to affirmative action
 Grutter v. Bollinger – admissions policy constitutional
because it was narrowly tailored to further the
compelling state interest of diversity
 Gratz v. Bollinger – struck down “points based”
admissions policy, finding the assignment of additional
points on basis of race not narrowly tailored to achieve
educational diversity
3
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Legal Challenges
 Voluntary desegregation plans that allowed race
to be considered as a factor for some student
assignments struck down in 2007 in cases from
Seattle in Louisville
 Cases struck down long agreed on school integration
ideals outlined in Brown
 Demands for Reparations
 Renewed demands for reparations for slavery
 Hampered by issues of sovereign immunity and statute
of limitations
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Legal Challenges
 Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended
compensation for survivors in 2001
 Legislature refused to pay; did allocate funds to
redevelop area and establish memorial
 Survivors went to court; lost on grounds of
expired statute of limitations
 Unsuccessful appeal to Supreme Court, where
they argued for a more favorable statute of
limitations in cases of historic wrongdoing
5
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Enduring Disparities: Health,
Education, and Incarceration
 Socioeconomic Stressors
 African Americans have highest rates of
mortality and morbidity from almost all disease
 Asthma; diabetes; cancer; cardiovascular disease
 Chief factor in poor health may be where
blacks live
 High density neighborhoods with environmental
pollution; substandard housing and schools, high
crime rates
 Healthy food is also expensive and relatively
inaccessible
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Enduring Disparities: Health,
Education, and Incarceration
 Blacks have less access than other Americans to
private or employment-based insurance
 Lack of awareness of differing cultural
perceptions of illness among medical community
 The AIDS Crisis
 African Americans disproportionately affected
by HIV/AIDS (50% in 2005)
 Homophobia; injection drug use; the “Down Low”;
incarceration
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Enduring Disparities: Health,
Education, and Incarceration
 Incarceration and Education
 47% of nation’s prison population is black;
majority are male, and 40% are between the ages
of 17 and 27
 Lack of educational attainment huge factor
 More Than Just Race – William Julius Wilson
 Nexus of race, education, and employability
 Long sentences for nonviolent drug crimes;
little rehabilitation or job-skills training in prison
 Left with few options for legal employment
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Forgotten in Hurricane Katrina
 Forgotten in Hurricane Katrina
 Many African Americans perceived a racial bias
in government’s response to Hurricane victims
 Allocation of FEMA trailers
 Disproportionately affected black and poor
population – often one and the same
 Media bias; differing characterizations of white
and blacks getting food – “looting”
 2006 Mayor Ray Nagin proclaimed that New
Orleans would once again be a “chocolate city”
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New Orleans
residents in the
aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina
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Hip Hop’s Global Generation
 Hip Hop Abroad
 Hip Hop used to mobilize social and political
movements, resist political marginalization, and
raise awareness of health issues
 Hip Hop assumes two forms
 Commercialized; identified with record industry
 “Underground”; more locally-based voice
 Hip Hop Nation
 Members of hip hop community have become a
global community
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Hip Hop’s Global Generation
 Remaking American Hip Hop
 Growing interest in reorienting the U.S. Hip Hop
generation
 Project Blowed
 Hip Hop for Social Change Conference
 National Hip Hop Political Convention
 Hip Hop Summit Action; “One Mind, One Vote”
 Citizen Change; “Vote or Die”
 Hip Hop entertainers became cultural
ambassadors for Obama’s campaign
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New Great Migrations
 New Great Migrations
 Two important demographic trends of the
twenty-first century
 Movement of large number of African Americans out
of North to the South
 Increasing diversity among black population
 Reverse Migration
 Blacks headed south as reaction to real estate
prices, shrinking job markets, high cost of living
 Greatest drain in Northeast and California; greatest
gains in Upper South
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New Great Migrations
 Blacks accounted for 13% of U.S. population in
2000 census
 Black population not homogeneous
 Quarter of increase in black population in last
decade attributed to immigration from Africa and
Caribbean
 Numbers growing faster than African American
population
 Significant differences among “black”
communities
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Black
Population
Growth and
Percentage of
U.S.
Population,
1790-2000
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New Great Migrations
 Afro-Caribbean and African Migrants
 Most Afro-Caribbean immigrants come from
Jamaica and Haiti
 Greatest number of African immigrants come
from the sub-Saharan countries of Nigeria,
Ghana, Ethiopia, and Somalia
 Diversity Visa; escape from country’s conditions
 Afro-Caribbeans tend to live in mostly
metropolitan areas
 More likely to overlap with African American
community
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Emigrants from the Caribbean Admitted
to the United States, 1989-2002
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New Great Migrations
 Africans more likely to live outside metropolitan
areas in states without large black populations
 More likely to reside in community where 50 percent
of residents are white
 Africans generally have highest education levels
 98% have high school degrees
 Competing Interests and Ethnic Identities
 Tension surrounding employment and social
mobility between groups
 Sociologists believe foreign-born blacks “less
psychologically handicapped by the stigma of race”
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New Great Migrations
 Immigrants from majority black countries less
acutely aware of structural racism, while African
Americans hypersensitive to it
 Hyper-ethnicity among black immigrants
 In Search of Origins
 Genetic testing technology enables blacks to
determine location and ethnicity of their African
ancestry
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The Politics of Change
 A New Campaign Style
 Obama fashioned himself as new-style leader,
portraying himself as an outsider
 Campaign conveyed sense of inclusiveness
 Senate seat gave him a heightened degree of
political legitimacy
 Central premise of campaign was change, began
at grassroots
 Brought in young people; revolutionized organizing
 Used Internet to mobilize support; digital strategy
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The Politics of Change
 The Democratic Primaries
 Obama’s coalition of African Americans,
college-educated whites, and young voters faced
off against Clinton’s coalition of women,
Latinos, and non-educated whites
 Revelations about Jeremiah White’s
inflammatory and unpatriotic remarks
 March 18, 2009 Obama confronted issue by
making a stirring speech about race in America
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The Politics of Change
 The Election
 Obama won 53% of vote; first time Democrat
won more than 51% since Lyndon Johnson
 “The passing of an old order”
 Key battleground states went to Obama
 Won Hispanic vote; increased Hispanic turnout
 Young voters’ role in get-out-the-vote efforts
 Noticeable new voters in the electorate
 President Obama’s swearing-in, historic moment
for all Americans
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