Democracy, Race, and Justice

Democracy, Race, and Justice PDF Author: Sadie T. M. Alexander
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300246706
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The first book to bring together the key writings and speeches of civil rights activist Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander--the first Black American economist In 1921, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander became the first Black American to gain a Ph.D. degree in economics. Unable to find employment as an economist because of discrimination, Alexander became a lawyer so that she could press for equal rights for African Americans. Although her historical significance has been relatively ignored, Alexander was a pioneering civil rights activist who used both the law and economic analysis to challenge racial inequities and deprivations. This volume--a recovery of Sadie Alexander's economic thought--provides a comprehensive account of her thought-provoking speeches and writings on the relationship between democracy, race, and justice. Nina Banks's introductions bring fresh insight into the events and ideologies that underpinned Alexander's outlook and activism. A brilliant intellectual, Alexander called for bold, redistributive policies that would ensure racial justice for Black Americans while also providing a foundation to safeguard democracy.

Democracy, Race, and Justice

Democracy, Race, and Justice PDF Author: Sadie T. M. Alexander
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300246706
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first book to bring together the key writings and speeches of civil rights activist Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander--the first Black American economist In 1921, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander became the first Black American to gain a Ph.D. degree in economics. Unable to find employment as an economist because of discrimination, Alexander became a lawyer so that she could press for equal rights for African Americans. Although her historical significance has been relatively ignored, Alexander was a pioneering civil rights activist who used both the law and economic analysis to challenge racial inequities and deprivations. This volume--a recovery of Sadie Alexander's economic thought--provides a comprehensive account of her thought-provoking speeches and writings on the relationship between democracy, race, and justice. Nina Banks's introductions bring fresh insight into the events and ideologies that underpinned Alexander's outlook and activism. A brilliant intellectual, Alexander called for bold, redistributive policies that would ensure racial justice for Black Americans while also providing a foundation to safeguard democracy.

The Black Child-Savers

The Black Child-Savers PDF Author: Geoff K. Ward
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226873161
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
During the Progressive Era, a rehabilitative agenda took hold of American juvenile justice, materializing as a citizen-and-state-building project and mirroring the unequal racial politics of American democracy itself. Alongside this liberal "manufactory of citizens,” a parallel structure was enacted: a Jim Crow juvenile justice system that endured across the nation for most of the twentieth century. In The Black Child Savers, the first study of the rise and fall of Jim Crow juvenile justice, Geoff Ward examines the origins and organization of this separate and unequal juvenile justice system. Ward explores how generations of “black child-savers” mobilized to challenge the threat to black youth and community interests and how this struggle grew aligned with a wider civil rights movement, eventually forcing the formal integration of American juvenile justice. Ward’s book reveals nearly a century of struggle to build a more democratic model of juvenile justice—an effort that succeeded in part, but ultimately failed to deliver black youth and community to liberal rehabilitative ideals. At once an inspiring story about the shifting boundaries of race, citizenship, and democracy in America and a crucial look at the nature of racial inequality, The Black Child Savers is a stirring account of the stakes and meaning of social justice.

Citizen Brown

Citizen Brown PDF Author: Colin Gordon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022664748X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, ignited nationwide protests and brought widespread attention police brutality and institutional racism. But Ferguson was no aberration. As Colin Gordon shows in this urgent and timely book, the events in Ferguson exposed not only the deep racism of the local police department but also the ways in which decades of public policy effectively segregated people and curtailed citizenship not just in Ferguson but across the St. Louis suburbs. Citizen Brown uncovers half a century of private practices and public policies that resulted in bitter inequality and sustained segregation in Ferguson and beyond. Gordon shows how municipal and school district boundaries were pointedly drawn to contain or exclude African Americans and how local policies and services—especially policing, education, and urban renewal—were weaponized to maintain civic separation. He also makes it clear that the outcry that arose in Ferguson was no impulsive outburst but rather an explosion of pent-up rage against long-standing systems of segregation and inequality—of which a police force that viewed citizens not as subjects to serve and protect but as sources of revenue was only the most immediate example. Worse, Citizen Brown illustrates the fact that though the greater St. Louis area provides some extraordinarily clear examples of fraught racial dynamics, in this it is hardly alone among American cities and regions. Interactive maps and other companion resources to Citizen Brown are available at the book website.

Education, Justice & Democracy

Education, Justice & Democracy PDF Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601293X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

Trading Democracy for Justice

Trading Democracy for Justice PDF Author: Traci Burch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606509X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
The United States imprisons far more people, total and per capita, and at a higher rate than any other country in the world. Among the more than 1.5 million Americans currently incarcerated, minorities and the poor are disproportionately represented. What’s more, they tend to come from just a few of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the country. While the political costs of this phenomenon remain poorly understood, it’s become increasingly clear that the effects of this mass incarceration are much more pervasive than previously thought, extending beyond those imprisoned to the neighbors, family, and friends left behind. For Trading Democracy for Justice, Traci Burch has drawn on data from neighborhoods with imprisonment rates up to fourteen times the national average to chart demographic features that include information about imprisonment, probation, and parole, as well as voter turnout and volunteerism. She presents powerful evidence that living in a high-imprisonment neighborhood significantly decreases political participation. Similarly, people living in these neighborhoods are less likely to engage with their communities through volunteer work. What results is the demobilization of entire neighborhoods and the creation of vast inequalities—even among those not directly affected by the criminal justice system. The first book to demonstrate the ways in which the institutional effects of imprisonment undermine already disadvantaged communities, Trading Democracy for Justice speaks to issues at the heart of democracy.

To Redeem the Soul of America

To Redeem the Soul of America PDF Author: Adam Fairclough
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820323466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
To Redeem the Soul of America looks beyond the towering figure of Martin Luther King, Jr., to disclose the full workings of the organization that supported him. As Adam Fairclough reveals the dynamics within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference he shows how Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, Wyatt Walker, Andrew Young, and others also played a hand in the triumphs of Selma and Birmingham and the frustrations of Albany and Chicago. Joining a charismatic leader with an inspired group of activists, the SCLC built a bridge from the black proletariat to the white liberal elite and then, finally, to the halls of Congress and the White House.

Difference without Domination

Difference without Domination PDF Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022668122X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Around the globe, democracy appears broken. With political and socioeconomic inequality on the rise, we are faced with the urgent question of how to better distribute power, opportunity, and wealth in diverse modern societies. This volume confronts the dilemma head-on, exploring new ways to combat current social hierarchies of domination. Using examples from the United States, India, Germany, and Cameroon, the contributors offer paradigm-changing approaches to the concepts of justice, identity, and social groups while also taking a fresh look at the idea that the demographic make-up of institutions should mirror the make-up of a populace as a whole. After laying out the conceptual framework, the volume turns to a number of provocative topics, among them the pernicious tenacity of implicit bias, the logical contradictions inherent to the idea of universal human dignity, and the paradoxes and problems surrounding affirmative action. A stimulating blend of empirical and interpretive analyses, Difference without Domination urges us to reconsider the idea of representation and to challenge what it means to measure equality and inequality.

Caring Democracy

Caring Democracy PDF Author: Joan C. Tronto
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814782787
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Americans now face a caring deficit: there are simply too many demands on people’s time for us to care adequately for our children, elderly people, and ourselves.At the same time, political involvement in the United States is at an all-time low, and although political life should help us to care better, people see caring as unsupported by public life and deem the concerns of politics as remote from their lives. Caring Democracy argues that we need to rethink American democracy, as well as our fundamental values and commitments, from a caring perspective. The idea that production and economic life are the most important political and human concerns ignores the reality that caring, for ourselves and others, should be the highest value that shapes how we view the economy, politics, and institutions such as schools and the family. Care is at the center of our human lives, but Tronto argues it is currently too far removed from the concerns of politics. Caring Democracy traces the reasons for this disconnection and argues for the need to make care, not economics, the central concern of democratic political life. Joan C. Tronto is a Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (Routledge).

Between Justice and Beauty

Between Justice and Beauty PDF Author: Howard Gillette, Jr.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
As the only American city under direct congressional control, Washington has served historically as a testing ground for federal policy initiatives and social experiments—with decidedly mixed results. Well-intentioned efforts to introduce measures of social justice for the district's largely black population have failed. Yet federal plans and federal money have successfully created a large federal presence—a triumph, argues Howard Gillette, of beauty over justice. In a new afterword, Gillette addresses the recent revitalization and the aftereffects of an urban sports arena.

Global Challenges

Global Challenges PDF Author: Iris Marion Young
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 074563835X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
In the late twentieth century many writers and activists envisioned new possibilities of transnational cooperation toward peace and global justice. In this book Iris Marion Young aims to revive such hopes by responding clearly to what are seen as the global challenges of the modern day. Inspired by claims of indigenous peoples, the book develops a concept of self-determination compatible with stronger institutions of global regulation. It theorizes new directions for thinking about federated relationships between peoples which assume that they need not be large or symmetrical. Young argues that the use of armed force to respond to oppression should be rare, genuinely multilateral, and follow a model of law enforcement more than war. She finds that neither cosmopolitan nor nationalist responses to questions of global justice are adequate and so offers a distinctive conception of responsibility, founded on participation in social structures, to describe the obligations that both individuals and organizations have in a world of global interdependence. Young applies clear analysis and cogent moral arguments to concrete cases, including the wars against Serbia and Iraq, the meaning of the US Patriot Act, the conflict in Palestine/Israel, and working conditions in sweat shops.