Gomillion Versus Lightfoot

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot PDF Author: Bernard Taper
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787204111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Originally published in 1962, this book is the true account of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, a case concerned with the denial of Negro voting rights in Tuskegee, Alabama in order to politically manipulate that township’s boundaries, and the first case of its kind to be argued before the Supreme Court. Brilliantly and accurately documented, this is a probing report by Bernard Taper, one of the leading reporters for The New Yorker magazine, who traveled first to Tuskegee and later to Washington, in order to skilfully weave together the background material and the entire case. Taper followed the case from its inception in 1957, through to the personal reactions of Tuskegee’s citizens as they became involved, and finally to the Supreme Court in 1960, where he provides a remarkable portrait of the court action and of the Justices as they worked toward their final decision... A gripping read. “Bernard Taper has done an extraordinary job of reporting not only the tangled facts of the Tuskegee Affair, but the feelings of those who were involved in it. With discernment and sympathy he deals with the deep currents of emotion that are eroding the sense of community that once marked the small towns of the South—a far more significant phenomenon than the occasional spectacular flares of racial violence.”—Harry Ashmore, Pulitzer prize-winning newspaper editor, author of An Epitaph for Dixie, and editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica “I only wish that every great constitutional cause could be illuminated by such a valuable and absorbing account of its background as the one Mr. Taper has given us for the Gomillion case.”—Professor Charles L. Black, Jr., Yale Law School

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot PDF Author: Bernard Taper
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787204111
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Get Book

Book Description
Originally published in 1962, this book is the true account of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, a case concerned with the denial of Negro voting rights in Tuskegee, Alabama in order to politically manipulate that township’s boundaries, and the first case of its kind to be argued before the Supreme Court. Brilliantly and accurately documented, this is a probing report by Bernard Taper, one of the leading reporters for The New Yorker magazine, who traveled first to Tuskegee and later to Washington, in order to skilfully weave together the background material and the entire case. Taper followed the case from its inception in 1957, through to the personal reactions of Tuskegee’s citizens as they became involved, and finally to the Supreme Court in 1960, where he provides a remarkable portrait of the court action and of the Justices as they worked toward their final decision... A gripping read. “Bernard Taper has done an extraordinary job of reporting not only the tangled facts of the Tuskegee Affair, but the feelings of those who were involved in it. With discernment and sympathy he deals with the deep currents of emotion that are eroding the sense of community that once marked the small towns of the South—a far more significant phenomenon than the occasional spectacular flares of racial violence.”—Harry Ashmore, Pulitzer prize-winning newspaper editor, author of An Epitaph for Dixie, and editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica “I only wish that every great constitutional cause could be illuminated by such a valuable and absorbing account of its background as the one Mr. Taper has given us for the Gomillion case.”—Professor Charles L. Black, Jr., Yale Law School

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot PDF Author: Bernard Taper
Publisher: Fire Ant Books
ISBN: 9780817350444
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The account of the landmark constitutional law decision on racial redistricting. "Bernard Taper's small but meaty book . . . is an example of how the human considerations that lie behind a Supreme Court decision can be brought to life. . . . By applying the microscope to a single case, Mr. Taper has said a great deal about how and why issues reach the Supreme Court, and how they are decided." New York Times This book was first published in 1962 to critical acclaim. It details the lawsuit that Charles C. Gomillion, chairman of Tuskegee Institute's Division of Social Sciences and president of the Tuskegee Civic Association, filed against that Alabama city's mayor, Philip M. Lightfoot, to protest the black community's loss of voting rights. Because Tuskegee's black population in 1957 (5,300) far outnumbered its white population (1,400) and because the highly educated black community had made persistent and successful efforts to register as voters, the Alabama Legislature redrew the city's boundaries to exclude most of the African-American districts, effectively converting Tuskegee to a white city. Gomillion's lawsuit, which was lost twice in lower courts, alleged that Tuskegee's black citizens had been illegally gerrymandered out of their constitutional right to vote. In 1960 the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, writing, "The inescapable human effect of this . . . is to despoil colored citizens, and only colored citizens, of their theretofore enjoyed voting rights." As a result of Gomillion vs. Lightfoot, the Supreme Court unanimously questioned the constitutionality of redistricting voting precincts along racial lines, not only in Tuskegee but nationwide. Taper's well-written, thorough account will be welcomed by students and scholars of constitutional law, Alabama and southern history, and civil rights.

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot

Gomillion Versus Lightfoot PDF Author: Bernard Taper
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Trials
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The Tuskegee Student Uprising

The Tuskegee Student Uprising PDF Author: Brian Jones
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479831042
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
BCALA 2023 Nonfiction Award Winner The untold story of a dynamic student movement on one of the nation’s most important historically Black campuses The Tuskegee Institute, one of the nation’s most important historically Black colleges, is primarily known for its World War II pilot training program, a fateful syphilis experiment, and the work of its founder, Booker T. Washington. In The Tuskegee Student Uprising, Brian Jones explores an important yet understudied aspect of the campus’s history: its radical student activism. Drawing upon years of archival research and interviews with former students, professors, and administrators, Brian Jones provides an in-depth account of one of the most dynamic student movements in United States history. The book takes the reader through Tuskegee students’ process of transformation and intellectual awakening as they stepped off campus to make unique contributions to southern movements for democracy and civil rights in the 1960s. In 1966, when one of their classmates was murdered by a white man in an off-campus incident, Tuskegee students began organizing under the banner of Black Power and fought for sweeping curricular and administrative reforms on campus. In 1968, hundreds of students took the Board of Trustees hostage and presented them with demands to transform Tuskegee Institute into a “Black University.” This explosive movement was thwarted by the arrival of the Alabama National Guard and the school’s temporary closure, but the students nevertheless claimed an impressive array of victories. Jones retells these and other events in relation to the broader landscape of social movements in those pivotal years, as well as in connection to the long pattern of dissent and protest within the Tuskegee Institute community, stretching back to the 19th century. A compelling work of scholarship, The Tuskegee Student Uprising is a must-read for anyone interested in student activism and the Black freedom movement.

On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought "One Person, One Vote" to the United States

On Democracy's Doorstep: The Inside Story of How the Supreme Court Brought Author: J. Douglas Smith
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 0374712085
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Winner of the Henry Adams Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction A Slate Best Book of 2014 The inside story of the Supreme Court decisions that brought true democracy to the United States As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren is most often remembered for landmark rulings in favor of desegregation and the rights of the accused. But Warren himself identified a lesser known group of cases—Baker v. Carr, Reynolds v. Sims, and their companions—as his most important work. J. Douglas Smith's On Democracy's Doorstep masterfully recounts the tumultuous and often overlooked events that established the principle of "one person, one vote" in the United States. Before the Warren Court acted, American democracy was in poor order. As citizens migrated to urban areas, legislative boundaries remained the same, giving rural lawmakers from sparsely populated districts disproportionate political power—a power they often used on behalf of influential business interests. Smith shows how activists ranging from city boosters in Tennessee to the League of Women Voters worked to end malapportionment, incurring the wrath of chambers of commerce and southern segregationists as they did so. Despite a conspiracy of legislative inaction and a 1946 Supreme Court decision that instructed the judiciary not to enter the "political thicket," advocates did not lose hope. As Smith shows, they skillfully used the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause to argue for radical judicial intervention. Smith vividly depicts the unfolding drama as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pressed for change, Solicitor General Archibald Cox cautiously held back, young clerks pushed the justices toward ever-bolder reform, and the powerful Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen obsessively sought to reverse the judicial revolution that had upended state governments from California to Virginia. Today, following the Court's recent controversial decisions on voting rights and campaign finance, the battles described in On Democracy's Doorstep have increasing relevance. With erudition and verve, Smith illuminates this neglected episode of American political history and confronts its profound consequences.

The Crisis

The Crisis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP, is a journal of civil rights, history, politics, and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color. For nearly 100 years, The Crisis has been the magazine of opinion and thought leaders, decision makers, peacemakers and justice seekers. It has chronicled, informed, educated, entertained and, in many instances, set the economic, political and social agenda for our nation and its multi-ethnic citizens.

Champion of Civil Rights

Champion of Civil Rights PDF Author: Joel William Friedman
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807134821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
One of the least publicly recognized heroes of the civil rights movement in the United States, John Minor Wisdom served as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1957 until his death in 1999 and wrote many of the landmark decisions instrumental in desegregating the American South. In this revealing biography, law professor Joel William Friedman explores Judge Wisdom's substantial legal contributions and political work at a critical time in the history of the South. In 1957, President Eisenhower appointed Wisdom to the Fifth Circuit, which included some of the most deeply segregated southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. In the tumultuous two decades following its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court issued only a few civil rights decisions, preferring instead to affirm Fifth Circuit Court opinions or let them stand without hearing an appeal. Judge Wisdom, therefore, authored many of the decisions that transformed the South and broke down barriers of all kinds for African Americans, including the desegregation of public schools. In preparing this first full-length biography of Judge Wisdom, Friedman had unrestricted access to Wisdom's voluminous repository of personal and professional papers. In addition, he draws on personal interviews with law clerks who served under Judge Wisdom, resulting in a unique, behind-the-scenes account of some of the nation's most important legal decisions: the admission of the first black student to the University of Mississippi, the initiation of contempt proceedings against Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, and the destruction of obstacles that had previously kept black Americans from voting. Friedman also explores Wisdom's political life prior to joining the federal bench, including his pivotal role in resurrecting the Louisiana Republican Party and in securing the Republican presidential nomination for Eisenhower. A compelling account of how a child of privilege from one of America's most socially and racially stratified cities came to serve as the driving force behind the legal effort to end segregation, Champion of Civil Rights offers judicial biography at its best.

Bus Ride to Justice

Bus Ride to Justice PDF Author: Fred D. Gray
Publisher: NewSouth Books
ISBN: 1588382869
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
"Lawyer for Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Montgomery bus boycott, the Tuskegee syphilis study, the desegregation of Alabama schools and the Selma march, and founder of the Tuskegee human and civil rights multicultural center."

Alabama Justice

Alabama Justice PDF Author: Steven P. Brown
Publisher: University Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817320709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Winner of the Anne B. & James B. McMillan Prize in Southern History Examines the legacies of eight momentous US Supreme Court decisions that have their origins in Alabama legal disputes Unknown to many, Alabama has played a remarkable role in a number of Supreme Court rulings that continue to touch the lives of every American. In Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation, Steven P. Brown has identified eight landmark cases that deal with religion, voting rights, libel, gender discrimination, and other issues, all originating from legal disputes in Alabama. Written in a concise and accessible manner, each case law chapter begins with the circumstances that created the dispute. Brown then provides historical and constitutional background for the issue followed by a review of the path of litigation. Excerpts from the Court's ruling in the case are also presented, along with a brief account of the aftermath and significance of the decision. The First Amendment (New York Times v. Sullivan), racial redistricting (Gomillion v. Lightfoot), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Frontiero v. Richardson), and prayer in public schools (Wallace v. Jaffree) are among the pivotal issues stamped indelibly by disputes with their origins in Alabama legal, political, and cultural landscapes. In addition to his analysis of cases, Brown discusses the three associate justices sent from Alabama to the Supreme Court--John McKinley, John Archibald Campbell, and Hugo Black--whose cumulative influence on the institution of the Court, constitutional interpretation, and the day-to-day rights and liberties enjoyed by every American is impossible to measure. A closing chapter examines the careers and contributions of these three Alabamians.

Crime, Law and Society

Crime, Law and Society PDF Author: MalcolmM. Feeley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351570633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Malcolm Feeley‘s work is well-known to scholars around the world and has influenced two generations of criminologists and legal scholars. He has written extensively on crime and the legal process and has published numerous articles in law, history, social science and philosophy journals; two of his books, The Process is the Punishment and Court Reform on Trials, have won awards. This volume brings together many of his better-known articles and essays, as well as some of his lesser-known but nevertheless important contributions, all of which share the common theme of the value of the rule of law, albeit a more sophisticated concept than is commonly embraced. The selections also reveal the full range of his interests and the way in which his research interests have developed.