International Politics and Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941–1960

Layton shows how revolutionary changes in world politics helped reform postwar US race policies.

Azza Salama Layton (Author)

9780521669764, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 February 2000

232 pages
21.5 x 13.9 x 1.9 cm, 0.31 kg

'An empirically rich, theoretically important account of the role of international pressure in the Cold War shift in US civil rights policy. Not only does the book represent a significant contribution to the historiography of the civil rights struggle, but an important corrective to the 'nation-centric' focus of most social movement research.' Douglas McAdam, Stanford University

Despite the impressive volume of literature on the civil rights movement and US race policies, the connection between American foreign policy during World War II and the postwar years and America's race policy remains largely unexplored. Focusing on this gap, Professor Layton's book shows that the revolutionary changes in world politics in the wake of WWII created new opportunities and pressure points for reforming US race policies. The Holocaust, the dismantling of colonial empires, the Cold War, and the establishment of the United Nations had a major impact in creating the Executive and Judicial branch of the Federal government shifts from a seventy year old hands-off policy to the advocacy of civil rights reform. This book further reveals how civil rights leaders utilized foreign policy issues and Cold War politics to press for domestic policy reforms in the United States.

1. Introduction
2. Mobilizing and utilizing international pressure
3. Civil Rights Commissions
4. International pressure and the state's response to racial segregation
5. Conclusion: implications of this study.

Subject Areas: Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], History of the Americas [HBJK]