Litwack, Leon F.:North Of Slavery: The Negro In The Free States 1790-1860 :
- signed or inscribed book 1996, ISBN: 9780226485867
Paperback
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1967. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. Very good. vii, [1], 133, [3] pages. This is a Report of the United States Co… More...
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1967. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Wraps. Very good. vii, [1], 133, [3] pages. This is a Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Includes Letter of Transmittal, Acknowledgments, Introduction, Conclusion, and Footnotes. Chapters discuss "...All We Can See is Darkness Ahead; "...A Slum Neighborhood Is What You Would Call It;" "The Main Problem Is Money." "You Just Can't Make It."; "...An Isolated, Elite Type of Community." ''Look, Baby, Nobody Is Going To Help You But Yourself." This report summarizes the testimony given at Commission hearings and at open meetings of the Commission's State Advisory Committees concerning urban racial problems. The testimony--generally given by persons who live in slum ghettos or who deal with ghetto problems daily--provides insights into what slum residents think and feel about the conditions in which they live. The nature of the Commission hearings and state Advisory Committee meetings permitted slum residents and those who work with them to discuss their problems candidly in a dispassionate atmosphere. the public and its elected representatives, through listening to these voices, may obtain a better understanding of the conditions and the problems as they exist or are perceived in the cities of the Nation. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is a bipartisan, independent commission of the United States federal government, created in 1957, that is charged with the responsibility for investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations concerning civil rights issues in the United States. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1975d, all statutory authority for the commission terminated on September 30, 1996, and Congress has not passed new legislation, but has continued to pass appropriations. The commission is composed of eight commissioners. Four are appointed by the President of the United States, two by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (upon the recommendations of the Senate majority leader and minority leader), and two by the Speaker of the House of Representatives (upon the recommendations of the House majority leader and minority leader). The commission was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to a recommendation by an ad hoc President's Committee on Civil Rights. In a democratic society, the systematic, critical review of social needs and public policy is a fundamental necessity. This is especially true of a field like civil rights, where the problems are enduring, and range widely [and where] ... a temporary, sporadic approach can never finally solve these problems. Since the 1957 Act, the Commission has been re-authorized and re-configured by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Acts of 1983 and 1991 and the Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994. A revolution in public opinion occurred during the late 1950s and early 1960s on issues of civil rights. The activities and reports of the Commission on Civil Rights contributed to that change. In 1956, the year before the 1957 Act, less than half of white Americans agreed with the statement, "White students and Negro students should go to the same schools." By 1963, the year before the 1964 Act, that figure had jumped to 62%. In 1956, a healthy majority of white Americans-60%-opposed "separate sections for Negroes on streetcars and buses." By 1963, the number had grown to 79% opposed-an overwhelming majority. Even in the South, minds were being changed. In 1956, 27% of Southern whites opposed separate sections on public transportation for blacks and whites. By 1963, the number had become a majority of 52%. The change in views about the desirability of a federal law was even more dramatic. As late as July 1963, 49 percent of the total population favored a federal law that would give "all persons, Negro as well as white, the right to be served in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and similar establishments," and 42 percent were opposed. By September of the same year, a majority of 54 percent was in favor, and 38 percent opposed. In February 1964, support had climbed to 61 percent and opposition had declined to 31 percent., U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1967, 3, University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books. Very Good. 1966. 3rd Printing. Softcover. 0226485862 . The hand on front of my book is red, not blue. Despite the wealth of literature on the Negro and slavery, the northern Negro has remained almost the forgotten man in historical research. At long last, this subject has been attacked by Leon Litwack in his book, North of Slavery. The author attempts in eight chapters to survey the life of the Negro in the North from his rise to freedom to his condition on the eve of the Civil War. The book begins with a chapter on the extinction of slavery in the North and concludes with a study of the Negro's position during the 1850's. Other chapters deal with the attitude of the federal government toward the free Negro, his economic, social, and political status in the free states, and his efforts to win equality in these areas. This book paints a bleak picture of the North as a haven for the Negro. Discrimination followed him from the cradle to the grave. He found it at school, church, courtroom, polls, work, and even at the abolition society. Political disfranchisement, economic discrimination, segregation in education, and social ostracism was the lot of the Negro in the North. Where laws failed to accomplish this end, custom and prejudice produced the same result. Pronouncements from the free states on the capacity of the Negro differed little from proslavery arguments voiced in the South. Color lines divided even the abolition societies. Although willing to improve the economic and political position of the Negro, white abolitionists often refused him social equality. The author also suggests that attention devoted to such men as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Weld has obscured the importance of the Negro abolitionist. The top history books of last year picked by Amazon Book Review Editor, Chris Schluep. Moderate cover wear with faint fold crease on front cover upper corner ; Small 8vo 7½" - 8" tall; 318 pages; 29366 ., University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 1966, 3<
