What does disgust have to do with citizenship? How might pain and pleasure, movement, taste, sound and smell be configured as aspects of national belonging? Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life examines the intersections between sensory phenomena and national and supra-national forms of belonging, introducing the new concept of sensory citizenship. Expanding upon contemporary understandings of the rights and duties of citizens, the volume presents anthropological investigations of the sensory aspects of participation in collectivities such as face-to-face communities, ethnic groups, nations and transnational entities. Rethinking relationships between ideology, aesthetics, affect and bodily experience, the authors reveal the multiple political effects of the senses. The book demonstrates how various elements of political life, including some of the most fundamental aspects of citizenship, rest not only upon our senses, but on their perceived naturalization. Vivid ethnographic examples of sensory citizenship in Europe, the United States, the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East explore themes such as sight in political constructions; smell and ethnic conflict; pain in the constitution of communities; national soundscapes; taste in national identities; movement, memory and emplacement.

Theoretically, the right to privacy is an individual's right to space away from the public gaze to make life choices that are best for her or him, regardless of the beliefs of the majority. Yet the right to privacy in the United States has proven problematic for both political theorists and constitutional scholars, as it does not conform to theoretical conceptions of privacy or to existing theories of constitutional development. Mary McThomas provides a new model that helps us to think about both the right to privacy as well as constitutional development. She first divides privacy issues into two categories, and then illustrates how the two categories are treated differently. The first category, proprietary privacy, covers such issues as medical records and wiretapping. The second category, decisional privacy, involves making decisions about intimate matters such as the right to die, same-sex marriage, and abortion. McThomas tracks and assesses higher court cases in conversational privacy, representative of proprietary privacy, and court cases in marital privacy, representative of decisional privacy. She concludes that the most notable difference between the different types of privacy is that decisional privacy has evolved more slowly towards constitutionalization, and so is much more likely to be limited by community standards and social norms. This book brings the theoretical conceptions and the practice of privacy rights together, explaining what has happened in the area up until this point, and offering ways to predict how the courts will handle some of today's most contentious issues.

An essential examination of black youth activism since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act What happened to black youth in the post-civil rights generation? What kind of causes did they rally around and were they even rallying in the first place? After the Rebellion takes a close look at a variety of key civil rights groups across the country over the last 40 years to provide a broad view of black youth and social movement activism. Based on both research from a diverse collection of archives and interviews with youth activists, advocates, and grassroots organizers, this book examines popular mobilization among the generation of activists—principally black students, youth, and young adults—who came of age after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Franklin argues that the political environment in the post-Civil Rights era, along with constraints on social activism, made it particularly difficult for young black activists to start and sustain popular mobilization campaigns. Building on case studies from around the country—including New York, the Carolinas, California, Louisiana, and Baltimore—After the Rebellion explores the inner workings and end results of activist groups such as the Southern Negro Youth Congress, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Student Organization for Black Unity, the Free South Africa Campaign, the New Haven Youth Movement, the Black Student Leadership Network, the Juvenile Justice Reform Movement, and the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer campaign. Franklin demonstrates how youth-based movements and intergenerational campaigns have attempted to circumvent modern constraints, providing insight into how the very inner workings of these organizations have and have not been effective in creating change and involving youth. A powerful work of both historical and political analysis, After the Rebellion provides a vivid explanation of what happened to the militant impulse of young people since the demobilization of the civil rights and black power movements—a discussion with great implications for the study of generational politics, racial and black politics, and social movements.

Explores the unintended consequences of civic activism in a disaster-prone city After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of people swiftly mobilized to rebuild their neighborhoods, often assisted by government organizations, nonprofits, and other major institutions. In Rethinking Community Resilience, Min Hee Go shows that these recovery efforts are not always the panacea they seem to be, and can actually escalate the city's susceptibility to future environmental hazards. Drawing upon interviews, public records, and more, Go explores the hidden costs of community resilience. She shows that-despite good intentions-recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina exacerbated existing race and class inequalities, putting disadvantaged communities at risk. Ultimately, Go shows that when governments, nonprofits, and communities invest in rebuilding rather than relocating, they inadvertently lay the groundwork for a cycle of vulnerabilities. As cities come to terms with climate change adaptation-rather than prevention-Rethinking Community Resilienceprovides insight into the challenges communities increasingly face in the twenty-first century.

Debates about children's rights not only concern those things that children have a right to have and to do but also our broader social and political community, and the moral and political status of the child within it. This book examines children's rights and citizenship in the USA, UK and Australia and analyses the policy, law and sociology that govern the transition from childhood to adulthood. By examining existing debates on childhood citizenship, the author pursues the claim that childhood is the most heavily governed period of a liberal individual's life, and argues that childhood is an intensely monitored period that involves a 'politics of becoming adult'. Drawing upon case studies from the USA, the UK and Australia, this concept is used to critically analyse debates and policy concerning children's citizenship, criminality, and sexuality. In doing so, the book seeks to uncover what informs and limits how we think about, talk about, and govern children's rights in liberal societies. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, governance, social policy, ethics, politics of childhood and public policy.

Does "Asian American" denote an ethnic or racial identification? Is a person of mixed ancestry, the child of Euro- and Asian American parents, Asian American? What does it mean to refer to first generation Hmong refugees and fifth generation Chinese Americans both as Asian American?

In Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation State, Robert Chang examines the current discourse on race and law and the implications of postmodern theory and affirmative action-all of which have largely excluded Asian Americans-in order to develop a theory of critical Asian American legal studies.

Demonstrating that the ongoing debate surrounding multiculturalism and immigration in the U.S. is really a struggle over the meaning of "America," Chang reveals how the construction of Asian American-ness has become a necessary component in stabilizing a national American identity-- a fact Chang criticizes as harmful to Asian Americans. Defining the many "borders" that operate in positive and negative ways to construct America as we know it, Chang analyzes the position of Asian Americans within America's black/white racial paradigm, how "the family" operates as a stand-in for race and nation, and how the figure of the immigrant embodies a central contradiction in allegories of America.

"Has profound political implications for race relations in the new century"
"--Michigan Law Review, May 2001"

Government is currently committed to radical reform of the welfare system underpinning social citizenship in Britain. Welfare rights and responsibilities is a response to this, focusing on welfare reform and citizenship. Specifically it explores three issues central to citizenship's social element: provision, membership and the link between welfare rights and responsibilities(conditionality). Part 1 discusses competing philosophical, political and academic perspectives on citizenship and welfare. Part 2 then moves discussions about social citizenship away from the purely theoretical level, allowing the practical concerns of citizens (particularly those at the sharp end of public provision) to become an integral part of current debates concerning citizenship and welfare. The author gives voice to the 'ordinary' citizens who actually make use of welfare services. The book offers an accessible overview of contemporary debates about the contested concepts of citizenship and welfare, linking them to recent developments and discussions about the new welfare settlement and values that underpin it. It combines relevant debates within political philosophy, social policy and sociology that relate to social citizenship with recent policy developments. Welfare rights and responsibilities allows the presently marginalised voices of welfare service users to become a valued element in contemporary debates about the extent of social citizenship and the reform of the welfare state. It is therefore important reading for students and teachers of social policy, sociology and politics. It will further appeal to a wider audience of policy makers and professional social workers with an interest in welfare reform/service users accounts.

Genealogies of Citizenship is a remarkable rethinking of human rights and social justice. As global governance is increasingly driven by market fundamentalism, growing numbers of citizens have become socially excluded and internally stateless. Against this movement to organize society exclusively by market principles, Margaret Somers argues that socially inclusive democratic rights must be counter-balanced by the powers of a social state, a robust public sphere and a relationally-sturdy civil society. Through epistemologies of history and naturalism, contested narratives of social capital, and Hurricane Katrina's racial apartheid, she warns that the growing authority of the market is distorting the non-contractualism of citizenship; rights, inclusion and moral worth are increasingly dependent on contractual market value. In this pathbreaking work, Somers advances an innovative view of rights as public goods rooted in an alliance of public power, political membership, and social practices of equal moral recognition - the right to have rights.

This book is the first investigation on how official organizers built and sustained the national militant campaign of the Women's Social and Political Union between 1903 and 1918. Whilst the overall policy of the Union was devised by an ever-decreasing circle of women, centred around the mother-daughter team of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, much of its actual activity, including its more extreme militant actions such as arson, was devised and implemented by these organizers who worked in the provinces and in London. Women of the right spirit reveals organizers to be a diverse bunch of women, whose class backgrounds ranged from the aristocratic to the extremely impoverished. It describes the ways in which they were recruited and deployed, and the work they undertook throughout Britain. The exhausting pace of their itinerant life is revealed as well as the occasions when organizers fell out with their employers or their own branches. Taking the story of the WSPU's workers up to the end of the First World War, it considers what directions they took when votes for women became a reality. The book will appeal to academics, postgraduates and undergraduates with an interest in women's history, as well as a more general readership wishing to understand the extent of support for the votes for women campaign and the mechanisms through which it organized. -- .

As an ethnic minority the Nubians of Kenya are struggling for equal citizenship by asserting themselves as indigenous and autochthonous to Kibera, one of Nairobi's most notorious slums. Having settled there after being brought by the British colonial authorities from Sudan as soldiers, this appears a peculiar claim to make. It is a claim that illuminates the hierarchical nature of Kenya's ethnicised citizenship regime and the multi-faceted nature of citizenship itself. This book explores two kinds of citizenship deficits; those experienced by the Nubians in Kenya and, more centrally, those which represent the limits of citizenship theories. The author argues for an understanding of citizenship as made up of multiple component parts: status, rights and membership, which are often disaggregated through time, across geographic spaces and amongst different people. This departure from a unitary language of citizenship allows a novel analysis of the central role of ethnicity in the recognition of political membership and distribution of political goods in Kenya. Such an analysis generates important insights into the risks and possibilities of a relationship between ethnicity and democracy that is of broad, global relevance.

One out of every seven people in the world today is on the move, voluntarily and involuntarily, within countries and between them. More and more people belong to several communities at once and yet the social contract between state and citizen is still bounded by questions of nationality. Where will the cultural building blocks come from with which we can imagine a different kind of nation, and different kinds of institutions, that better reflect this reality? This book looks at the potential role of international music competitions, beauty magazines, elite social clubs, and religious movements, among others, as potential breeding grounds for the creation of global citizenship. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

The Subject of Human Rights is the first book to systematically address the "human" part of "human rights." Drawing on the finest thinking in political theory, cultural studies, history, law, anthropology, and literary studies, this volume examines how human rights—as discourse, law, and practice—shape how we understand humanity and human beings. It asks how the humanness that the human rights idea seeks to protect and promote is experienced. The essays in this volume consider how human rights norms and practices affect the way we relate to ourselves, to other people, and to the nonhuman world. They investigate what kinds of institutions and actors are subjected to human rights and are charged with respecting their demands and realizing their aspirations. And they explore how human rights shape and even create the very subjects they seek to protect. Through critical reflection on these issues, The Subject of Human Rights suggests ways in which we might reimagine the relationship between human rights and subjectivity with a view to benefiting human rights and subjects alike.

The Dred Scott decision of 1857 is widely (and correctly) regarded as the very worst in the long history of the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision held that no African American could ever be a U.S. citizen and declared that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and void. The decision thus appeared to promise that slavery would be forever protected in the great American West. Prompting mass outrage, the decision was a crucial step on the road that led to the Civil War. Dred Scott and the Dangers of a Political Court traces the history of the case and tells the story of many of the key people involved, including Dred and Harriet Scott, President James Buchanan, Chief Justice Roger Taney, and Abraham Lincoln. The book also examines in some detail each of the nine separate Opinions written by the Court's Justices, connecting each with the respective Justices' past views on slavery and the law. That examination demonstrates that the majority Justices were willing to embrace virtually any flimsy legal argument they could find at hand in an effort to justify the pro-slavery result they had predetermined. Many modern commentators view the case chiefly in relation to Roe v Wade and related controversies in modern constitutional law: some conservative critics attempt to argue that Dred Scott exemplifies "aspirationalism" or "judicial activism" gone wrong; some liberal critics in turn try to argue that Dred Scott instead represents "originalism" or "strict constructionism" run amok. Here, Judge Ethan Greenberg demonstrates that none of these modern critiques has much merit. The Dred Scott case was not about constitutional methodology, but chiefly about slavery, and about how very far the Dred Scott Court was willing to go to protect the political interests of the slave-holding South. The decision was wrong because the Court subordinated law and intellectual honesty to politics. The case thus exemplifies the dangers of a political Court.

This book brings together scholars from various disciplines to explore current issues and trends in the rethinking of migration and citizenship from the perspective of three major immigrant democracies - Australia, Canada, and the United States. These countries share a history of pronounced immigration and emigration, extensive experience with diasporic and mobile communities, and with integrating culturally diverse populations. They also share an approach to automatic citizenship based on the principle of jus soli (as opposed to the traditionally common jus sanguinis of continental Europe), and a comparatively open attitude towards naturalization. Some of these characteristics are now under pressure due to the "restrictive turn" in citizenship and migration worldwide. This volume explores the significance of political structures, political agents and political culture in shaping processes of inclusion and exclusion in these diverse societies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

Stella has always looked forward to changing the world. It's what she was brought up to do, by a suffragette mother who knew all about fighting and rebellion. But it's November 1918. The great flu pandemic sweeping the world has robbed Stella of her mother and her home, and she's alone in a strange country, with an aunt she's never met. But change is coming - the war is over, and women are about to vote for the first time. History is being made, but how can she help make it? As election day approaches, a day that will transform Ireland forever, Stella realises that she can indeed change the world. Not alone, and not all at once. But just as stars come one by one to brighten the night sky, so history is made person by person, girl by girl. An invigorating tale of suffragettes and heroes, courage and survival, as war ends, flu sweeps the land - and women get to vote!

Many thousands of Irish peasants fled from the country in the terrible famine winter of 1847-1848, following the road to the ports and the Liverpool ferries to make the dangerous passage across the Atlantic. The human toll of "Black '47", the worst year of the famine, is notorious, but the lives of the emigrants themselves have remained largely hidden, untold because of their previous obscurity and deep poverty. In The End of Hidden Ireland, Robert Scally brings their lives to light. Focusing on the townland of Ballykilcline in Roscommon, Scally offers a richly detailed portrait of Irish rural life on the eve of the catastrophe. From their internal lives and values, to their violent conflict with the English Crown, from rent strikes to the potato blight, he takes the emigrants on each stage of their journey out of Ireland to New York. Along the way, he offers rare insights into the character and mentality of the immigrants as they arrived in America in their millions during the famine years. A brilliant analysis, rich with metaphors, The End of Hidden Ireland demonstrates the impact of modernization on Irish peasant behavior and makes a major contribution to migration, peasant, and famine studies. This book is also a tale of adventure and human survival, one that does justice to a tragic generation with sympathy but without sentiment.

Taking into account the political and intellectual forces that shape Supreme Court decisions, Constitutional Debate in Action examines how and why the U.S. Constitution continues to grow and adapt to human wants, passions, and values. Not your traditional constitutional-law textbook, this three-volume set views the Constitution as an institutionalized form of debate by which people press their political demands and arguments upon the Supreme Court. This process-oriented approach goes beyond a straightforward examination of how the decisions of Supreme Court justices have transformed constitutional doctrine through the ages; it explores the actual process of adjudication itself. Each case study covers the legal and political background; including relevant out-of-court discussions, to help students understand the political framework in which the Supreme Court operates. Actual legal briefs filed in landmark cases, and corresponding oral arguments before the Supreme Court, provide students with a front-row seat to the process of constitutional argumentation. As they evaluate the opposing viewpoints, students are better equipped to evaluate critically final Supreme Court decisions and opinions. In addition, students gain a valuable perspective on the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional democracy. Each volume provides in-depth and updated examinations of key landmark decisions. Civil Rights & Liberties covers: Racial Discrimination: Brown v. Board of Education, Affirmative Action: Regents of University of Calif. v. Bakke, and Grutter v. Bollinger, Abortion: Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Hate Speech and Cross Burning: R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, and Virginia v. Black, Peyote Use and Religious Freedom: Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; and new to the second edition, Campaign Finance Regulation and Freedom of Speech: McConnell v. Federal Election Commission.

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters created a sea of change in labour and race relations in the US. For the first time in US history, a black labour union played a central role in shaping labor and civil rights policy. Based on interviews and archival research, this new book tells the story of the union and its charismatic leader C.L. Dellums, starting from the BSCP's origins as the first national union of black workers in 1925. In 1937, the BSCP made history when it compelled one of the largest US corporations - the Pullman Company - to recognize and negotiate a contract with a black workers' union. C. L. Dellums was a leading civil rights activist as well as a labor leader. In 1948, he was chosen to be the first West Coast Regional Director of the NAACP. This book is an inspiring testament to both him and the unions transformative impact on US society.

Peter Ling's acclaimed biography of Martin Luther King Jr provides a thorough re-examination of both the man and the Civil Rights Movement, showing how King grew into his leadership role and kept his faith as the challenges facing the movement strengthened after 1965. Ling combines a detailed narrative of Martin Luther King's life with the key historiographical debates surrounding him and places both within the historical context of the Civil Rights Movement. This fully revised and updated second edition includes an extended look at Black Power and a detailed analysis of the memorialization of King since his death, including President Obama's 50th anniversary address, and how conservative spokesmen have tried to appropriate King as an advocate of colour-blindness. Drawing on the wide-ranging and changing scholarship on the Civil Rights Movement, this volume condenses research previously scattered across a larger literature. Peter Ling's crisp and fluent style captures the drama, irony and pathos of King's life and provides an excellent introduction for students and others interested in King, the Civil Rights movement, and America in the 1960s.

When newly-liberated African American slaves attempted to enter the marketplace and exercise their rights as citizens of the United States in 1865, few, if any, Americans expected that, a century and a half later, the class divide between black and white Americans would be as wide as it is today. The United States has faced several potential key turning points in the status of African Americans over the course of its history, yet at each of these points the prevailing understanding of African Americans and their place in the economic and political fabric of the country was at best contested and resolved on the side of second-class citizenship. The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865-Present seeks to answer the question of what the United States would look like today if, at the end of the Civil War, freed slaves had been granted full political, social and economic rights. It does so by tracing the historical evolution of African American experiences, from the dawn of Reconstruction onward, through the perspectives of sociology, political science, law, economics, education and psychology. As a whole, the book is the first systematic study of the gap between promise and performance of African Americans since 1865. Over the course of thirty-four chapters, written by some of the most eminent scholars of African American studies and across every major social discipline, this Handbook presents a full and powerful portrait of the particular hurdles faced by African Americans and the distinctive contributions African Americans have made to the development of U.S. institutions and culture. As such, it tracks where African Americans have been in order to better illuminate the path ahead.

MCKINSEY TOP 5 RECOMMENDED READ 'An underground hit' – Best Politics Books, Financial Times 'Jon has one of the few big ideas that's easily applied' – Sam Conniff, Be More Pirate 'A wonderful guide to how to be human in the 21st Century' –  Ece Temelkuran, How to Lose a Country: the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship Citizens opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive as individuals, organisations, and nations. Over the past decade, Jon Alexander’s consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain’s biggest organisations including the Co-op, the Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows how history is about to enter age of the Citizen. Because when our institutions treat people as creative, empowered creatures rather than consumers, everything changes. Unleashing the power of everyone equips us to face the challenges of economic insecurity, climate crisis, public health threats, and polarisation.  Citizens is an upbeat handbook, full of insights, clear examples to follow, and inspiring case studies, from the slums of Kenya to the backstreets of Birmingham – and a foreword by Brian Eno. It is the perfect pick-me-up for leaders, founders, elected officials –and citizens everywhere. Organise and seize the future! Reviews 'Society is like an out of control house party – eating, drinking and consuming everything. Jon is the organiser of the campfire gathering behind the party. It’s calm and welcoming and you won’t want to leave. In Citizens, Jon and Ariane show how to leave the burning house of the Consumer Story and join the campfire that is the Citizen Story.' – Stephen Greene, CEO of RockCorps and founding Chair of National Citizen Service UK 'The belief that every single one of us has both the potential and the desire to make the world better drives me every day, in everything I do. In Citizens, Jon shows how taking that belief as a starting point really could transform our world. This is a truly powerful book, in every sense of the word.' - Josh Babarinde, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur 'Every great transformation requires a new story. A story that reveals new possibilities and points toward an optimistic alternative to the current situation. Citizens presents just such a story.' – Tim Brown, Chair of IDEO and author of Change By Design 'The shift from consumer to citizen is a truly big idea. If you’re in a position of strategic influence, I strongly recommend you engage with this and consciously explore what it might mean for your organisation.' – Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, Former Director General, National Trust, and Trustee, BBC 'There is such a thing as an idea whose time has come. This is that idea.' – James Perry, Board Member, B Lab Global, and Founding Partner, Snowball Investment Management

The biography of Carl Schurz is a story of an amazing life. At the age of 19, Schurz, a student at the University of Bonn, became involved in the Revolution of 1848. Participating in the revolutionary army, he managed to escape through a sewer during the siege of Rastatt, flee across the Rhine to France, and come back to rescue his professor, Gottfried Kinkel, from a jail near Berlin. This deed made him famous, and when he came to American in 1852, Schurz was nominated for lieutenant governor of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket. He quickly rose in the party and was the head of the Wisconsin delegation at the 1860 National Convention. He worked hard for the cause, and Lincoln rewarded him with the post of Minister to Spain. At the outbreak of war he returned to join the Union Army, became a Major General, and took part in several important battles. After the war, he moved to Missouri, was elected Senator from that State, and became a role model for his fellow German Americans. In 1871 he became one of the main figures in the Liberal Republican movement, and in 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Secretary of the Interior. After his retirement from the cabinet, Schurz became active in the politics of New York, as an advocate of municipal and civil service reform. He was a leading Mugwump who supported Grover Cleveland in 1884 and at the end of his life became a violent opponent of imperialism. He died in 1906. Carl Schurz, the man, his story, his ideals and his example, are particularly appropriate today because of the light his life sheds on the never-ending problems of immigration, assimilation, and the retention of ethnic identity. Carl Schurzas career furnishes a modelexample for all of these.

What does it mean for a society to be modern ? What beliefs, habits and behaviour does a modern state require of its citizens? How can these be fostered? In many non-Western contexts, modernization has tended to be equated with Westernization, and hence with an abandonment of authentic indigenous identities and values. This is evident in the recent history of many Asian societies, where efforts to modernize spurred on by the spectre of foreign domination have often been accompanied by determined attempts to stamp national variants of modernity with the brand of local authenticity: Asian values, Chinese characteristics, a Japanese cultural essence and so forth. Highlighting (or exaggerating) associations between the more unsettling consequences of modernization and alien influence has thus formed part of a strategy whereby elites in many Asian societies have sought to construct new forms of legitimacy for old patterns of dominance over the masses. The apparatus of modern systems of mass education, often inherited from colonial rulers, has been just one instrument in such campaigns of state legitimation.

This book presents analyses of a range of contemporary projects of citizenship formation across Asia in order to identify those issues and concerns most central to Asian debates over the construction of modern identities. The book main focus is on schooling, but also features other vehicles for citizenship-formation, such as museums and the internet; the role of religion (in particular Islam) in debates over citizenship and identity in certain Asian societies; and the relationship between state-centred identity discourses and the experience of increasingly globalized elites.

With chapters from an international team of contributors, this interdisciplinary volume will appeal to students and scholars of Asian culture and society, Asian education, comparative education and citizenship."

Between the 1950s and 1970s, Black Power coalesced as activists advocated a more oppositional approach to fighting racial oppression, emphasizing racial pride, asserting black political, cultural, and economic autonomy, and challenging white power. In Concrete Demands, Rhonda Y. Williams provides a rich, deeply researched history that sheds new light on this important social and political movement, and shows that the era of expansive Black Power politics that emerged in the 1960s had long roots and diverse trajectories within the 20th century. Looking at the struggle from the grassroots level, Williams highlights the role of ordinary people as well as more famous historical actors, and demonstrates that women activists were central to Black Power. Vivid and highly readable, Concrete Demands is a perfect introduction to Black Power in the twentieth century for anyone interested in the history of black liberation movements.

The term 'civil rights' has such a familiar presence in discussions about American politics and law that we tend to use it reflexively and intuitively, but rarely do we stop to think about what exactly we mean when we use the term and why certain uses strike us as right or wrong. In this book, Professor Christopher W. Schmidt tells the story of how Americans have fought over the meaning of civil rights from the Civil War through today. Through their struggles over what it means to live in a nation dedicated to protecting civil rights, each generation has given the label new life and new meaning. Civil Rights in America shows how the words we use to understand our world become objects of contestation and points of leverage for social, political, and legal action.