Reading and Discussion Questions
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights
1. Why did the Cold War turn domestic race relations into an international
issue?
2. “Civil rights reform came to be seen as crucial to U.S foreign
relations” (6). “In spite of the repression of the Cold War
era, civil rights reform was in part a product of the Cold War” (12). “Federal
government action on civil rights was an aspect of Cold War policymaking” (15)
Explain these statements.
3. In her introduction, the author explains that civil rights advocates
in the U.S. had to walk a fine line during an era of global anti-Communism.
What was that fine line?
4. What evidence does the author present about international interest
in the civil rights movement? Why would people around the world have
cared about it? Were responses similar or different in the countries
of Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Africa? How did leaders of the Soviet
Union respond to the struggle for civil rights in the United States?
5. What role did the United Nations play in transforming domestic race
relations into an international issue? Give an example or two.
6. Where did anti-communism fit into both support for and opposition
to racial equality and legal change?
7. What particular story about race relations did U.S. agencies (State
Department, USIA, etc.) and officials disseminate overseas?
8. Why does Dudziak emphasize the USIA pamphlet, The
Negro in American Life, written in 1950 or 1951?
9. Who was Chester Bowles? Paul Robeson? W.E. B. DuBois?
10. In 1951, William Patterson and the Civil Rights Congress called
on the UN to treat “the Negro question” as an instance of
genocide. Why? What was the response?
11. Dudziak explains the “unwritten rule” of civil rights
activism during the early Cold War era on p. 66. What was it? How and
why did musician Louis Armstrong and entertainer Josephine Baker violate
it?
12. How does Dudziak characterize the Truman administration’s
position on civil rights? What was To Secure These
Rights? When and why
were the armed forces desegregated? Why does the author emphasize the
role that the Justice Department played in civil rights cases (Shelley,
Henderson, McLaurin, and Sweatt) during the Truman years?
13. In the 1954 Brown decision, which interpreted the 14th Amendment,
members of the U.S. Supreme Court were influenced by global events, according
to the author. What evidence does she offer? Are you persuaded? Why or
why not?
14. What exactly did the Brown decision do? What didn’t it do?
What reception did it receive internationally?
15. How does Dudziak characterize the Eisenhower administration’s
position on civil rights? What is her interpretation of Eisenhower’s
action in Little Rock in 1957?
16. During a time when there were numerous newly independent African
nations, how did domestic segregation impede practical diplomacy with
their ambassadors and other representatives? What was the significance
of Maryland’s Highway 40?
17. Dudziak describes Kennedy’s relationship to civil rights as “reluctant
engagement” until the fall of 1963. What factors, domestic and
international, pushed his administration toward a more active position
during the last few months of his life?
18. Johnson was the strongest advocate of racial equality in the post-1945
White House, yet during his presidency civil rights lost ground as a
factor in U.S. foreign policy. Why?
19. The turn toward nationalism among U.S. civil rights activists in
the mid-1960s was also a turn toward internationalism. Explain.
20. Dudziak argues that the Cold War imperative for civil rights decreased significantly
in the mid-1960s, at just the moment when the civil rights movement grew significantly
more diverse and radical. Explain her thinking.
21. What difference do you believe it makes that many Presidents
and Secretaries of State advocated racial reforms in order to enhance
the international stature of the United States rather than the domestic
status of African Americans and other minority groups? Do you think it
led to the gap between formal, legal equality and meaningful social change
that Dudziak points out? Why or why not?
22. Does a global perspective on the civil rights movement alter your
perspective on racial change in the United States after 1945? How?
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