Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State

Description

Did the civil rights movement impact the development of the American state? Despite extensive accounts of civil rights mobilization and narratives of state building, there has been surprisingly little research that explicitly examines the importance and consequence that civil rights activism has had for the process of state building in American political and constitutional development. Through a sweeping archival analysis of the NAACP's battle against lynching and mob violence from 1909 to 1923, this book examines how the NAACP raised public awareness, won over American presidents, and secured the support of Congress. In the NAACP's most far-reaching victory, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional rights of black defendants were violated by a white mob in the landmark criminal procedure decision Moore v. Dempsey. This book demonstrates the importance of citizen agency in the making of new constitutional law in a period unexplored by previous scholarship. 01.0_pp_i_iv_Frontmatter 02.0_pp_v_vi_Dedication Blank Page 03.0_pp_vii_vii_Contents 04.0_pp_viii_viii_List_of_Figures_and_Table 05.0_pp_ix_x_Illustrations 06.0_pp_xi_xvi_Acknowledgments 07.0_pp_xvii_xviii_Abbreviations 08.0_pp_1_28_Rethinking_Civil_Rights_and_American_Political_Development 09.0_pp_29_58_The_Birth_of_the_NAACP_Mob_Violence_and_the_Challenge_of_Public_Opinion 10.0_pp_59_97_The_Unsteady_March_into_the_Oval_Office 11.0_pp_98_126_Anti-Lynching_Legislation_and_the_Sinking_of_the_Republican_Ship_in_Congress 12.0_pp_127_163_Defending_the_Right_to_Live 13.0_pp_164_184_Civil_Rights_Bound 14.0_pp_185_190_Manuscript_Sources 15.0_pp_191_192_Bibliography 16.0_pp_193_197_Index