Michiko Yasui
1) What a fascinating country America is!
2) Jena Six: The recent dispute in the South.
‘White Only’ sign in the schoolyard.
Six African American boys are going to be imprisoned as long as 50 years.
3)Philadelphia in the early 1960s
*Affirmative Action was born in Philadelphia.
What is Affirmative Action?
a) To distinguish members of minority groups and prepare them for better opportunities in business, industry and education.
b) ‘Affirmative or positive measure or step to eliminate social injustice such as racial or sexual discrimination
c) To give equal opportunities or preferential treatments to those who have been discriminated and could not have had access to job or education
* Affirmative Action policies / abortive flowers?
a) America in the early 60s
President Kennedy: New Frontier
Civil Rights Movements in the South
b) African American people in the North; Under what conditions did they live?
Joblessness
Discriminations in hiring, wage, and housing were common.
De facto equal rights were what they demanded.
Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
c) Growing Population of the Black People in Philadelphia
25%
North of Philadelphia
Black Community
4) The Struggles
a) Selective Patronage Program
Let’s not buy where they discriminate.
Leon Sullivan and 400 preachers
“Unite or die! That is our Power.”
b) NAACP moved.
Lily- white construction companies and unions
Construction boom in Philadelphia
Cecil Moore, newly elected chairman of NAACP Philadelphia branch
The city government should be blamed.
New tactics; demonstrations, pickets, mass meetings and negotiations
5) Fair Employment Practice Ordinance
Model of federal affirmative action policies
Every contractor with the city must be in compliance with the city ordinance and should be under surveillance of CHR.
No quota included
References
Philadelphia Bulletin, 1963-1964.
Philadelphia Tribune, 1963-1967.
Annual Reports, 1948-1951, 1953-1969, Commission on Human Relations, Archival Record Series, Location; City Archives of Philadelphia.
AFL-CIO NEWS, June 27, 1963
John David Skrentny, The Ironies of Affirmative Action Politics, Culture, And Justice in America, The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Hugh Davis Graham, The Civil Rights Era Origins and Development of National Policy 1960-1972, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Philip F. Rubio, A History of Affirmative Action 1619-2000, University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Thomas J. Sugrue, “Affirmative Action from Below: Civil Rights, the Building Trades, and the Politics of Racial Equality in the Urban North, 1945-1969,” in Journal of American History Vol. 91 No. 1, June 2004.
Mathew J. Countryman, Up South; Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Leon H. Sullivan, Build Brother Build, Macrae Smith Company, 1969.
Richard A. Keiser, “The Rise of a Racial Coalition in Philadelphia,” in Rufus P. Browning, Dale Rogers Marshall and David H. Tabb (ed.), Racial Politics in American Cities, Longman,
Questions and Answers
Q. Why Philadelphia became a big struggle stage?
A. The main reason is that in Philadelphia the Black had the middle class who played the main role in the struggles. They were interested in upgrading employment of Black people. So, there was a basic historical factor for the movement.
Q. Affirmative action is often considered that it makes another discrimination against white people. What do you think about it?
A. Most white people who attack Affirmative action say it’s a reverse discrimination. Quota system is not reasonable. But the Affirmative action policies had been changed and the early version of affirmative action did not include ‘quota’. It became more controversial after 1969.
Q. What about present situation of Philadelphia?
A. As for the federal law, in Pennsylvania University, there is still quota system.
Q. Is this the first version of Affirmative action in America?
A. Yes. It was the first affirmative action from below.
Q. You say, “Back to Africa” movement is not influential. Why?
A. Liberia’s condition was very bad, and African American people who moved to that country were disappointed with the situation. They had already become more American rather than African. They even tried to make Black nation inside of America. Actually most of the movements and the leaders of the movements demanded to be integrated in the American society and to be treated as an American citizen.