Reading Questions and Discussion

Bringing Human Rights Home

Volume 1

A History of Human Rights in the United States

Edited by

CYNTHIA SOOHOO, CATHERINE ALBISA, AND MARTHA F. DAVIS

Foreword by Louise Arbour

Praeger Perspectives

Westport, Connecticut London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bringing human rights home/ edited by Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa, and

Martha F. Davis ; foreword by Louise Arbour. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-275-98821-0 (set: alk. paper)­ ISBN 978-0-275-98822-7 (vol.l: alk. paper)­ ISBN 978-0-275-98823-4 (vol. 2: alk. paper)­ ISBN 978-0-275-98824-l (vol.3: alk. paper) 1. Human rights-United States. 2. Human rights-United States-History. 3. Civil

rights-United States-History. 4. Social justice-United States. 5. United States-Foreign relations. I. Soohoo, Cynthia. II. Albisa, Catherine. III. Davis, Martha F., l 957-

JC599.U5.B694 2008 323.0973-dc22 2007040492

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright © 2008 by Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa, and Martha F. Davis

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007040492 ISBN-13: 978-0-275-98821-0 (set)

978-0-275-98822-7 (vol. 1)

978-0-275-98823-4 (vol. 2) 978-0-275-98824-l (vol. 3)

First published in 2008

Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39 .48-1984 ).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword by Louise Arbour

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Introduction to Volume 1 Martha F. Davis

A Human Rights Lens on U.S. History: Human Rights at Home and Human Rights Abroad Paul Gordon Lauren

FDR's Four Freedoms and Wartime

Vll

lX

Xlll

xv

1

Transformations in America's Discourse of Rights 31

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Elizabeth Bm:gwardt

Louis Henkin and Human Rights: A New Deal at Home and Abroad Catherine Powell

A "Hollow Mockery": African Americans, White Supremacy, and the Development of Human Rights in the United States Carol Anderson

"New" Human Rights: U.S. Ambivalence Toward the International Economic and Social Rights Framework Hope Lewis

57

75

103

VI

Chapter 6

Appendixes

Index

Blazing a Path from Civil Rights to Human Rights: The Pioneering Career of Gay McDougall Vanita Gupta

About the Editors and Contributors

CONTENTS

145

161

249

255

CHAPTER4

A "Hollow Mocl(ery": African Americans, White

Supremacy, and the Development of Human

Rights in the United States

Carol Anderson

Compelled to state the obvious, Walter White, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), explained to several congressional leaders that "Democracy doesn't mean much to man with an empty belly." 1 Although the context of that discussion was on human rights in the emerging nations, White (and the NAACP) had earlier grasped that that particular maxim was equally applicable to the United States. From the organization's long, hard years battling Jim Crow, the Asso­ ciation realized that political and economic rights had to converge. One could not carry the heavy burden of equality all alone. The NAACP fully recog­ nized, nonetheless, that most people of color had never even experienced political democracy. For millions of African Americans, the right to vote, to participate in civil society, to enjoy the freedoms associated with checks on government abuse, and to benefit from the protection of civil rights had be­ come articles of faith, pillars of hope, and the ephemera of dreams, but cer­ tainly not the substance of reality. Indeed, much of black life in America fo­ cused on how systematically and completely those basic civil rights were repeatedly denied, ignored, and trampled on.

A new, major study, for example, focuses on the NAACP's almost 100-year­ long battle to integrate African Americans into the political life of the United States.2 In the early years, the white primary, election-day terrorism, and the poll tax had eliminated generations from the voting booth. Historian Man­ fred Berg, therefore, notes that by the time of the 1942 congressional elec­ tions one report "estimated that ... only 3 percent of the total population of the seven poll tax states had cast their ballots, compared to 25 percent in the rest of the nation." In fact "[m]ore votes were cast in Rhode Island, the

76 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

smallest state in the Union with roughly seven hundred thousand residents and two representatives, than for all of the thirty-seven representatives of Ala­ bama, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina, with a total popu­ lation of more than 11 million."3 Yet, as important as the right to vote was and is, the quest for equality would require more than simply ending disen­ franchisement. As Walter White indicated, if black life was really going to be about life and not just survival, there was something beyond civil rights that had to be achieved.

The NAACP, the nation's largest, oldest, and most influential civil rights organization, had, therefore, slowly but surely begun to grasp the power and importance of economic rights in the struggle for equality.4 The first glint came during the Great Depression. That economic meltdown had brought a horrific spike in the killing of black America as the number of lynchings and the degree of sadistic, spectacle violence increased. The Depression had also led to scores of impoverished black sharecroppers being driven off the land so that plantation owners could reap multimillion-dollar windfalls from the New Deal. And, while the overall unemployment rate in the United States was a crushing 25 percent, the jobless rate in the black community hovered well above 50 percent overall and in some cities lingered at a death-defying 80 percent. The right to vote, or any other civil right, was not going to solve this alone. Stark, raving abject poverty had black America buckling under the strain. 5

The onset of World War II did little, initially, to ease this burden. While the United States's emergence as the "arsenal of democracy" finally gave most whites freedom from the economic devastation of the Great Depres­ sion, rampant discrimination in the defense industries and, frankly, through­ out most sectors of the employment market kept African Americans locked out and locked down. More than half of the defense industries surveyed by the United States Employment Service, for example, "stated flatly that they would not" hire an African American for any position.6

Thus, as the United States prepared to destroy regimes championing Aryan and Japanese supremacy, economic and political oppression continued to con­ verge like a vise on black life in America. From education, to medical care, to housing, to employment, to the court systems, even to the hallowed ground of the vote, there was no escaping the fact that there was, indeed, a "flagrant disparity" between the lofty rhetoric and the actual practice of American de­ mocracy. Presidential candidate Wendell Willkie would call it the "mocking paradoxes."7 The Japanese government was even more blunt. The American people, Emperor Hirohito's regime declared, have "'run amuck' in an orgy ofJim Crowism. "8

The killing of Cleo Wright, less than a month after the attack on Pearl Har­ bor, was painfully illustrative. In January 1942, while the United States was spelling out for the entire world its postwar human rights vision, Wright was lynched in Sikeston, Missouri. There was no question that he had brutally assaulted a white woman. There was also no doubt that, while resisting arrest, the black laborer had slashed a cavernous hole through half of a deputy's face. And it was, therefore, equally certain that Cleo Wright, staggering under the effects of "bad whiskey," had just committed the ultimate transgressions,

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 77

especially for a black man in Jim Crow America, in an area of the country where African Americans barely earned $50 a year, where nearly 100 African American families, denied access to new public housing, stayed in tents year­ round, and where other blacks "lived in cabins behind the northeast homes of wealthy whites, or in . .. alley quarters ... 'unfit for human habitation.' "9

The attempted rape of a white woman and the knifing of a sheriff led to a blistering counterattack. When it was over, Wright, bloodied, pistol-whipped, and suffering from at least eight gunshot wounds, was taken to the only avail­ able medical facility in the area, a "whites only" hospital, where, with no pain­ killers, the doctor patched, stitched, and plugged up what he could. An over­ night stay was, of course, out of the question. Bandaged and hovering near death, Wright was eventually packed off to the local jail. Although the end was a foregone conclusion, either through his numerous wounds or Missouri's criminal justice system, the "good folk " of Sikeston had concluded that a plain, old, run-of-the-mill death was not going to be enough. Black men may have accounted for nearly 90 percent of all executions in the United States for the offense of rape, but there were some lessons that no judge, no jury, and no hooded executioner could ever deliver.10 The criminal justice system was just not fast enough or brutal enough to compensate for the fact that "[t]hese damn niggers are getting too smart, " "too cocky, " and were "just looking for a lynching." 1 1

In the twilight hours, angry whites stormed the jail, overpowered the state troopers, pulled an unconscious Wright from his cell, hooked his bullet­ riddled body to the bumper of a car, and set out for the black neighborhood. After trolling Sikeston's black district that Sunday morning with their maca­ bre bumper ornament in tow, his lynchers cut Wright's mangled body from the car, soaked him in five gallons of gasoline, and lit a match. Wright, some­ how miraculously still alive, let out an agonizing wail. In his last grasp for life, Wright's flame-whipped arms "reached skyward as if pleading for a mercy that did not come " while the thick putrid smoke from his roasting carcass poured through the windows of the packed local black church.12 "This was, " of course, "not a matter of executing justice." The point, as the lynchers made clear, was "to terrify the Negro population and to show them who was boss. " 13 The lessons, however, were still not over. Although it was well known who, precisely, had participated in every phase of the lynching-from the storming of the jail to tossing the lit match on the black man's gasoline­ soaked body-a "federal grand jury refused to return any indictments " because although the murderers "had denied Wright due process, ... they had committed no federal offense since Wright was either already dead or dying." 14

The black press erupted, "Remember Pearl Harbor ... and Sikeston, Missouri." 15 The NAACP's report, while more restrained, was in its own way equally incendiary. This was war. Although the battle against the Axis powers was evident, there was an equally important battle to be fought at home. African Americans ( and whomever their allies may be) were going to have to eliminate, root and branch, the economic and political conditions that had led to the killing of Cleo Wright and all of the thousands of Cleo Wrights that had gone before him. "[N]o change in legal procedure alone will solve the

78 A HISTORY 01' HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

problem," the NAACP concluded. "Its roots are buried too deep in racial feeling and in our economic set-up. In southeast Missouri today Negroes ... have never had an opportunity to develop beyond their position as serfs." In fact, because blacks "were imported to pick cotton," the report continued, there had been a concerted, conscious effort to ensure that they would have "little education and little earning power." The general fear was that "if they were educated they" might actually refuse to toil for pennies a day in the plantation owners' fields and, as a consequence, just "might be more trouble­ some." The NAACP's investigators concluded that it was the economic sys­ tem that had left African Americans mercilessly exposed to the political and economic ravages of white supremacy. As a result, the Association insisted, there was only one way out of this abyss. "The change from feudalism to a system whereby Negroes can earn enough to stand independently on their own, can only come . . . when the Negro reaches a point where he merits and receives respect as an independent individual with human rights." 16

The Association, in short, recognized that that horrible moment in Missouri-a lynching designed to terrorize and remind the economically de­ pressed and politically vulnerable African American population of their "place" in the racial hierarchy; a "whites only" hospital that virtually ignored the medical needs of thousands of its residents; a readily identifiable black part of town that reflected the housing segregation, substandard education, and poverty wages that haunted African Americans; an all-white political power structure that fretted over the excessive violence of the lynching but was more concerned about maintaining a cheap, exploitable labor supply; and a judicial system that weighed guilt and innocence on racially rigged scales that denigrated black life and privileged whiteness-was but a microcosm of the human rights violations that had dogged African American communities for centuries. Cleo Wright was no aberration. 17

That had to change. For the NAACP, the right to education was the well­ spring of that change. 18 Education could broaden employment opportuni­ ties, provide access to better-paying jobs, create the wherewithal for quality housing, break the back of and expose the racist underpinnings of literacy tests, poll taxes, and other tools of disenfranchisement, and develop the healthcare system to meet the needs of millions who had little or no access to decent medical treatment.

That kind of education, however, was decidedly unavailable, especially for blacks in the America of World War II. One report on the status of black America in the early 1940s noted that "[ a ]pproximately four-fifths of all Ne­ groes in the United States have had access to none other than segregated schools for their public education. To thousands of Negroes in the South, not even segregated schools have been available." 19 And, to be clear, the education served up to black people may have been separate, as Plessy al­ lowed, but it certainly lacked the equality, which Plessy required. The federal government estimated in 1941 that it would take the equivalent, in 2005 dollars, of more than $4.2 billion to equalize the black school system in the United States.20 The NAACP noted that when it came to state investment in school facilities "252% more money was spent on each white child than was spent on each Negro child in the same community-ranging from 28.5%

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 79

in Oklahoma to 731.9% in Mississippi. In some counties the difference is 1500%."21 A newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, was even compelled to remark on the staggering disparities. Although African American children comprised nearly 60 percent of the school age population in Jackson, they received "only 9 percent of the budget. "22 This pattern repeated itself throughout the state like a debilitating refrain. By 1940, more than half of all African Ameri­ can adults in Mississippi had less than five years of formal education; almost 12 percent had no schooling whatsoever. The figures for the "mis-education of the Negro" were even higher in South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama.23

The fact that there were millions of uneducated, barely educated, and mis­ educated held major repercussions for nearly every sector of black life in America. The effect on the healthcare system was immediately apparent. There was a critical need for African American physicians throughout the United States's segregated healthcare system but there were only a few who could slog through the miasma of Jim Crow education to meet that overwhelming demand. This chronic shortage was, unfortunately, exacerbated by the dis­ criminatory admissions policies of universities and medical schools through­ out the United States. In Philadelphia, for example, which housed five different medical schools, "only eighteen Negroes have been graduated ... in twenty­ seven years." In New York, "no Negro enrolled at Cornell University College of Medicine at any time between 1920 and 1942 " and Columbia University destroyed its admissions records when asked to provide racial data on medical school applicants and enrollees. In fact, only "eighty-five colored students are currently enrolled in twenty Northern and Western schools, as against 25,000 whites. About fifteen Negroes are graduate from these schools each year."24

With the bulk of higher education closed to African Americans, two his­ torically black universities, Howard University Medical School and Meharry Medical College, accounted for nearly "85 per cent of all the Negro doctors now in practice." 25 Despite their herculean effort, however, those two medi­ cal colleges did not have the capacity to produce a sufficient number of doctors to meet the healthcare needs of a malnourished, impoverished popu - lation, whose life expectancy rate was nearly a decade less than whites and whose infant mortality rates were double. That is to say, while the American Medical Association had determined that the minimum ratio of doctor to population was one for every 1,500, the ratio in the black community was more than twice that. On average, in the 1940s, there was only one African American "doctor for every 3337 Negroes .... In Mississippi the ratio is one to 18,527."26

Dr. Roscoe Conkling Brown, Chief of the Office of Negro Health Work for the United States Public Health Service, summarized the conditions that had created this crisis. "Poor housing, malnutrition, ignorance, and inadequate access to basic health essentials-hospitals, clinics, medical care-are among the social factors contributing to the Negro's health status. This racial group 'has a problem of such size and complexity,' " he noted, "as to challenge the leadership of both the Negro and white races to intelligently, coura­ geously, and persistently prosecute for the nation a definite program of general health betterment for all people without recrimination or discrimination. "27

80 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

The NAACP, whose chairman of the board was Dr. Louis T. Wright, chief of surgery at Harlem Hospital, decided that this challenge and all of the other challenges surrounding the human rights of African Americans had to be met.

The war and the language of war proved an important vehicle in the As­ sociation's fight to make human rights a viable force in the United States. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and despite President Franklin Roosevelt's con­ cerns as he watched one European nation after the next being mowed under by the German Wehrmacht, isolationists had effectively blocked American entry into the war. Although Britain now stood alone as the thin dividing line between the democratic West and the global domination of Nazi Germany, the isolationists, haunted by the legacy of World War I, dug in. Senator George Aiken (R-VT) summarized the sentiment best when he noted that: "The farm and village folk of my State ... would go all the way, down to the last dollar and the last man, to protect Canada. But they do not see why Ameri­ can boys should give their lives to define the boundaries of African colonies, or to protect American promoters or exploiters in Indochina or New Guinea. Neither do I."28 This was the implacable resistance that President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had to overcome.

On August 14, 1941, they issued the Atlantic Charter to make clear that this was not like World War I. This was not about secret treaties, secret clauses, colonial swap meets, and territorial envy. Rather, the war against the Nazis was different. A victory this time would create a better, new world order. This brave new world, the Atlantic Charter proclaimed, would be predicated on justice, democracy, and human rights. Historian Elizabeth Borgwardt bril­ liantly lays out, though, that the message in the Atlantic Charter was, in fact, many messages. It had one specific meaning for the British, another for the American government, and a decidedly different one for those living under racial oppression.29

The Atlantic Charter's language was specific enough, eloquent enough, and vague enough to envelope a range of interpretations. African Americans clearly saw it as a way out of no way. The second and third points of the At­ lantic Charter, for example, spoke of self-determination, that all people had the right to choose their own government. That bedrock principle of democ­ racy would, ironically enough, prove particularly troublesome for the two leaders. The people who lived in Britain's colonial possessions did not have the right to vote, could not choose their leaders or what form of government they wanted. Was Churchill finally saying that Hitler's attack, besides bring­ ing Britain to its knees, had also brought the nation to its senses? And in the United States, African Americans, particularly in the South, were systemati­ cally denied the right to vote, denied the right to choose their governmental officials and the right to have a political voice in shaping the conditions under which they lived, worked, and died. Did this pledge from the president of the United States mean that the federal government was now finally going to compel Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, and the rest of the states to adhere to the Constitution and the Atlantic Charter? The African American leadership certainly thought that it did.

The Atlantic Charter offered more than mere self-determination, how­ ever. The fifth point in that historic document truly seemed to be the dawn

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 81

of a new world order. The United States and Britain pledged "to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security."30 The phrase "for all" was unintentionally but decidedly revolutionary. The leaders seemed to promise that the world's citizens would finally have human rights-better working conditions, better and increasing pay, and a safety net of economic security. The British and American leader­ ship had grasped that it was the destabilization in the world markets, which had then avalanched into the Great Depression, that had made Hitler so ap­ pealing to the Germans. Roosevelt and Churchill were determined that never again would a nation's economy be so ravaged that the only way out of dark­ ness was through a raving demagogue like Adolf Hitler. Although this may have been the intention of the president and prime minister, African Ameri­ cans, whose living conditions were simply appalling, interpreted this as a pledge by the federal government to remove the barriers that had systemati­ cally prevented them from reaping the benefits from centuries of the unpaid and barely paid hard labor, which had built the wealthiest nation on earth.

Moreover, this vision of a new world, where there would never, ever be another Cleo Wright, was, for African Americans, encapsulated in the sixth principle of the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt and Churchill averred that "after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which ... will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want. "31 This, of course, was intended to put a halt to military invasions and all the Gestapo-like goon squads who abused power and terrorized people. But it meant more than that to African Americans. It was not the Nazis that terrorized them day after day. It was the Ku Klux Klan, it was the police and sheriff's departments, it was the lynch mob, it was racial oppression in the United States. Indeed, African Americans looked at Nazi Germany and saw an evil that was distinctly, painfully familiar. In 1941, after reviewing a series of Nazi edicts such as the sterilization of the mulatto "Rhineland bastards" and the application of the Nuremberg Laws to Germany's black population, Pittsbu1lJh Courier journalist George Schuyler remarked that "what struck me . .. was that the Nazi plan for Negroes ap­ proximates so closely what seems to be the American plan for Negroes. "32

Walter White and NAACP board member Earl Dickerson echoed that senti­ ment by continuously pointing to the similarities between white supremacy in the United States and Aryan supremacy in Nazi Germany and the inevita­ ble destruction that rained down on so-called marginal populations whenever either of those supremacist doctrines came into play.33 Had this picture of racial oppression been frightening enough, like the portrait of Dorian Gray, to compel the American government to reclaim its soul and honor its oft­ spoke commitment to equality and democracy?

The black leadership, of course, had no illusions that this reclamation project would or could happen overnight. The sobering and unforgettable false promises of World War I still resonated like a bitter refrain. African Americans' unrequited faith in democracy and misguided "patriotic" silencing of agitation for equality, had not helped make the world, or the United States for that matter, "safe for democracy." Instead, after World War I, African Americans

82 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

felt the cold, malevolent embrace of a nation that had reified white suprem­ acy, welcomed the resurgence of the Klan, and drowned America in the black blood of Red Summer. Hardened by that unflinching betrayal, African Amer­ icans learned an invaluable lesson. White House aide Philleo Nash immedi­ ately noticed the difference. The tenor and tone of the black community during World War II was like nothing he had ever seen before. "Negroes," he warned the Roosevelt administration, were not the Negroes of World War I. This time, he noted with alarm, they are "in a militant and demanding mood."34 Indeed, one black soldier encapsulated that militancy best when he declared, "I'm hanged if I'm going to let the Alabama version of the Ger­ mans kick me around when I get home . . . . I went into the Army a nigger; I'm coming out a man. "35

This was a new day. African Americans were demanding "freedom [and] rejecting [the] idea of racial inferiority." The language of the Atlantic Char­ ter's Four Freedoms, particularly freedom from fear and freedom from want, meant that the "[ c ]ontinued humiliation to Negroes who are segregated in the armed forces," the perpetuation of persistently "[b ]ad and inadequate housing," and rampant "[u]nemployment even where man-power shortages are present," were not going to be tolerated. Not this time.36 A "war for the Four Freedoms," the NAACP declared, had erupted in black America.37

Therefore, when Churchill insisted that the Atlantic Charter was, for all intents and purposes, a "whites only" affair, Walter White and other members of the black leadership repudiated the prime minister and called on President Roosevelt to issue a Pacific Charter "so that dark-skinned and colonial peo­ ples may be given greater hope of real political democracy and freedom from economic exploitation." White then challenged Roosevelt to "prove to the colored peoples . . . that you are not hypocrites when you say this is a war for freedom. Prove it to us and we will show you that we can and will fight like fury for that freedom. But," White added, "we want-and we intend to have-our share of that freedom. "38

The "moral cross roads of the war has been reached. "39 The communist­ dominated National Negro Congress (NNC) saw it, as well. There "is no middle road today," the leadership asserted, "there are only two paths before us." One "strives to secure for mankind the four freedoms that characterize a democratic government-freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear." For "15,000,000 American Negroes," the NNC insisted, "this spells freedom from oppression." The other pathway, as the Axis powers, as well as the lynchers in Sikeston, Missouri, had made abun­ dantly clear, "drowns in bloodshed the lives, dignity and culture of minority peoples."40 The African American leadership had seized upon the reality that the needs in black America had converged with the wartime language of human rights to provide the road map for freedom.

NAACP board member William Hastie, former dean of Howard Univer­ sity's law school, carefully and meticulously articulated this human rights vi­ sion. He declared that "When we as victors lay down our arms in this struggle against . .. enslavement" by the Nazis and other Axis powers, "we take up arms immediately in the great war against starvation, unemployment, and the rigging of the markets of the world." "Starvation," he observed, "has no Bill

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 83

of Rights nor slavery a Magna Carta." For this powerful member of the NMCP's board of directors and future federal judge, housing, education, and health care were now the newly enshrined rights. "We cannot, " he in­ toned, "offer the blueprints and the skills to rebuild the bombed-out cities of other lands and stymie the rebuilding of our own cities. Slums have no place in America. We cannot assist in binding the wound of a war-stricken world and fail to safeguard the health of our own people. We cannot hope to raise the literacy of other nations and fail to roll back the ignorance that clouds many communities in many sectors of our own nation ... all people [must] have the opportunity for the fullest education." Hastie then laid out that "Our choice is between democracy for everybody or for the few-between the spreading of social safeguards and economic opportunity to all the peo­ ple " as outlined in the Atlantic Charter or, in sliding down into the hole of the "good old days of Americanism, " which meant "the concentration of our abundant resources in the hands of ... a few " who epitomized "selfishness and greed. "41

It is within this framework of the Four Freedoms and human rights that the African American leadership soon began "formulating a program of post war needs for the American Negro." At the top of that list was "first-class citizenship " as defined by "basic civil rights " such as "the right to vote in all parts of the country." There was also a recurring emphasis on "essential eco­ nomic rights " such as the "right to compete in fields of employment on equal levels, " "the right to work, " "the right to remuneration for work on the basis of merit and performance, " and "the right to advance in rank and salary in terms of ability and productive contribution." In addition, African Americans sought the right to "unsegregated and unrestricted housing " and the "right to live without the burdens and embarrassments that are provoked by the unwarranted segregation " in education, health care, and in public accom­ modations.4 2 Yet, as the Association leadership and its allies in the African American community continued to thrash out what a definitive platform for equality looked like, it soon became obvious that all the discussions, all the debates, all the meetings, and all the conferences would have little or no impact unless African Americans were at the peace table. Black people had to have a meaningful role in shaping this new world order. It was simply too important to leave to the British, the Soviets, and, yes, even the Americans.43

This point was made abundantly clear at Dumbarton Oaks, which was the British, American, and Soviet conference to determine the shape, power, and form of the new international organization, the United Nations. The short­ comings of the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks agreement sent a warning shot across the bow to the black leadership about the ways in which the supposed new world order was, if the Allies had their way, going to look painfully like the old world order. One of the most striking and glaring deficiencies was that despite the Atlantic Charter, despite Nazi atrocities, and despite Japanese brutality, human rights had barely-and just barely- made a cameo appear­ ance in the draft plan for the United Nations.

Venerable scholar and NMCP co-founder, W.E.B. Du Bois, who had re­ joined the Association specifically to address the human rights and colonial­ ism issues that World War II had so rawly exposed, leveled a searing critique

84 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

at the Dumbarton Oaks plans for the United Nations. The weaknesses, he warned, were predicated on the continuation of white supremacy and if al­ lowed to become embedded in the operating code of the proposed United Nations, would prove fatal not only to the organization but to the hundreds of millions of people of color throughout the globe.44 Du Bois, therefore, began to lobby the State Department to have the NAACP attached as an of­ ficial consultant to the U.S. delegation at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco. Officially known as the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), it was here where the organization's structure and powers would be finalized.

As incredibly unrealistic as Du Bois's demand may have seemed, the State Department had learned one key lesson from the debacle following World War I : Without popular support, no peace treaty could ever get through the Senate. Hence, the invitation to the NAACP and more than forty other major organizations to join the U.S. delegation in San Francisco. Hence, as well, the dilemma. For the United States the crafting of a new world order that denounced Aryan supremacy and all of its vestiges as abhorrent and unac­ ceptable to civilized society while at the same time shielding, protecting, and privileging white supremacy in the United States was going to be a difficult feat. As one journalist noted, "It is easy to talk about freedom for all; but it isn't easy to mean it. All is a [mighty] big word. "45 And the United States government knew it. Caught between the bitter harvest of the Holocaust and the "Strange Fruit" of lynching, the United States searched desperately to find some way to "assert ... [America's] moral leadership in [the] field " of human rights while still maintaining the status quo of Jim Crow and racial inequality.46 That was the dilemma that the powerful Southern Democrats had no intention of solving for the United States. As far as the Southern Democrats were concerned World War II had not changed a thing; there was no "American Dilemma, " no new world order, and no emerging human rights regime. There was only the sacred old order that white supremacy had established. Mississippi Senator James 0. Eastland, in his own patriotic, Capra-esque moment, "explained that white southerners were fighting [in World War I I ] ... 'to maintain white supremacy and control of our election machinery.' "47 The Southern Democrats had, therefore, fought every piece of civil rights legislation that dared to come near Capitol Hill. They consis­ tently blasted the NAACP as the "nigger advancement society, " defended "lynching as necessary 'to protect the fair womanhood of the South from beasts,' " and foamed at the thought of "burr headed niggers " having equal opportunity in employment, education, or health care. This was no mere rant­ ing from the ideological fringe. The Southern Democrats "dominate[ d] more than sixty percent of the Senate and House Committees which determine[ d] not only domestic legislation but foreign affairs and the shape of the post war world."48

Early on they flexed their political muscle in determining the U.S. response to the founding of the United Nations and the UN's human rights initiatives. The hostility to a strong UN Charter, with explicit guarantees of rights, ema­ nated from the same supremacist swamp that drowned federal anti-lynching bills, anti-poll tax measures, Fair Employment Practices Committees, and

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 85

other civil rights legislation. A major part of the clout they were able to exert came from Texas Senator Tom Connally, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and who had also been instrumental in scuttling three anti-lynching bills in Congress. Connally was now a key member of the U.S. delegation at the founding conference for the United Nations. State Depart­ ment officials were well aware of this and even admitted that "when you had men like .. . Connally [on the U.S. delegation to the UN] ... you didn't go sailing off into the blue. You had to keep your eye all the time on not putting too much limitation on American sovereignty. "49 For Connally, that trans­ lated into ensuring that states' rights would never be challenged or curtailed by any international treaty. States' rights was the sine qua non of the South's power. The region had effectively used the doctrine to enshrine white su­ premacy, bar African Americans from enjoying their rights as U.S. citizens, and ensure that, like Dred Scott, blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. "50

At the UNCIO Connally immediately wielded his power in the cause of white supremacy. The senator, despite numerous pleas from other delega­ tions and the consultants, refused to even entertain the notion that all people, regardless of race, had the right to education. If the cacophony continued and the United States gave in, he warned, any UN Charter with the right to education embedded in it would never pass through his committee. Con­ nally, in short, was willing to scuttle the entire treaty in order to maintain the Jim Crow education that was essential to black political and economic disen­ franchisement. This was a high-stakes, political game of chicken that the American delegates were not prepared to play. While Connally stood firm, they blinked. The Americans, therefore, worked overtime to quell the clamor at the UNCIO by presenting Connally's indefensible position as viable, logi­ cal, and politically teasible.5 1 That scramble to shroud in reasonableness the totally unreasonable would repeat itself over and over again as the United States, with one eye always on the Southern Democrats, tried to craft human rights language that would leave white supremacy untouched.

This would not go unchallenged. With forty-seven other nations and a con­ tingent of headstrong consultants, the United States could not keep human rights the nice symbolic, meaningless gesture that the State Department in­ tended. The consultants, led by the NAACP and the American Jewish Con­ gress, exposed this problem when they demanded, of all things, establishment of a human rights commission. The American delegation may have been ap­ palled at the suggestion, but the horrors of the Holocaust and, frankly, the horrors of America compelled the Jewish and African American consultants to view an international commission as absolutely essential. 52

Understanding the problem, the revulsion at Nazi atrocities on one hand and the need to maintain Jim Crow on the other, foreign policy guru John Foster Dulles was confident that he could devise a human rights plan that would pacify the consultants and satisfy the Southern Democrats. His solu­ tion was simple. Amid an unequivocal statement "guaranteeing freedom from discrimination on account of race, language, religion, or sex, " Dulles inserted an amendment that "nothing in the Charter shall authorize ... intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the State

86 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

concerned. " This "domestic jurisdiction" clause meant that the United States could continue to use the rhetoric of "freedom " but would not "be put in a position of having matters of domestic concern interfered with by the Secu­ rity Council . " More specifically the clause would ensure that the UN could not "requir[ e ] " a state to "change [its] .. . immigration policy or [Jim Crow] legislation. "53 While the American and Soviet delegations immediately em­ braced Dulles's stroke of genius, the other nations and the consultants sent up a wail of protest. 54

Dulles did not care.55 He insisted that the United States had to protect itself. The future secretary of state then made it abundantly clear that the domestic jurisdiction clause was America's price for allowing human rights to seep into the UN Charter. This "is as far as we can go, " he said. "If [ the do­ mestic jurisdiction clause] is rejected, " Dulles warned, "we shall be forced to reexamine our attitude toward increases in the economic and social activities of this Organization. " After Dulles clarified the American position, the de­ bate stopped and the other nations agreed to accept the domestic jurisdiction clause. The United States had just won an important battle in keeping human rights from darkening America's doorstep.56

This battle, however, was far from over. The State Department, given the emerging Cold War and the depth of atrocities in the Soviet Union, was con­ vinced that a key strategy in highlighting the moral bankruptcy of Marxism was to position America as "the tower of strength and the innovator and the pioneer in the field of human rights . " Yet, no matter how hard the depart­ ment tried, it simply could not do it. 57 The truth of the matter, one depart­ ment oflicial admitted, was that no nation had an exemplary human rights record-not even the United States. "[T]he United States with all its power, " he explained to his supervisors, "has not yet been able even to get up on the first rung of the ladder, namely elections which are free enough to provide the prerequisite basis for the honoring of even the most tangible of human rights, which are the legal ones. "58

Human rights, however, was too important a Cold War arena in which to concede defeat, especially to the Soviets. The goal, as novelist Ralph Ellison so eloquently stated, was to find a way to "reconcile democratic ideas with an anti-democratic reality. "59 That is, the United States had to find a way to fight for human rights to expose the sham of the Soviets' people's democracy, while doing so in a manner that left intact the racial inequality that kept the Southern Democrats firmly ensconced in the Senate and House of Rep­ resentatives and blocked Jim Crow and all its progeny from international scrutiny.

This was going to be tricky. While, to be sure, the Soviet Union ruthlessly quashed civil liberties, constructed a lethal gulag system, and saw to the destruction of millions of "political opponents " through forced starvation, mock trials, and real executions, the United States had a thriving and harsh convict lease-labor system, rampant debt slavery, widespread political and economic disenfranchisement, and extensive legal and extra-legal violence aimed at millions of minority citizens. Nonetheless, despite their track records, these flawed superpowers began playing their disingenuous human rights game.

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 87

The Americans made the first move; on their terms; on their turf-the First Amendment. Knowing that it would be beyond impossible for the Soviet­ controlled organs Izvestia and Pravda to compare favorably to the New York Times, Le Monde, the London Times, and thousands of other independently owned newspapers throughout the West, the United States quickly arranged to have the UN investigate the status of freedom of the press throughout the globe. For the Kremlin, this looming international exposure could prove highly embarrassing.

The Soviets, therefore, quickly counterattacked at America's weakest point­ Jim Crow. The USSR successfully urged the United Nations to form a Sub­ commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minori­ ties (MINDIS) . With the Nuremberg Trials fully underway, the United States had no choice but to assent to the sub-commission's creation. That grudging assent, however, was about as far as the United States was willing to go. In addition to trying to sabotage MINDIS outright by changing its member­ ship and scuttling its meeting schedule, the State Department also filleted the definition of "minority" so finely that it automatically excluded African Americans from the sub-commission's purview. Although MINDIS was cre­ ated to address the plight of minorities, the State Department argued that, in actuality, "national minorities" were the targeted group. For the State De­ partment, "national minorities" had a separate language, a separate culture, and separatist political aims. African Americans, the department reasoned, therefore, were not a "national minority. " Nor did it appear were Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and even Native Americans. In fact, the State Department concluded that, "there probably are no national minorities in the United States. "60 In other words, national minorities-Kurds, Armenians, and Basques-were a European problem, not an American one.

The State Department also decided, as a self-protective measure, to take the lead on the drafting of the Covenant on Human Rights, which, unlike the Declaration, was a treaty. The U.S. delegation worked hard to navigate around the "obstacles to the United States support for a Covenant," which were the "non-discrimination article" and "[i]ts import for other articles of substance" such as provisions dealing with the right to education, health care, housing, voting, and employment. Equally important was the fact that "we don't want others meddling in our affairs. "61 Thus, in order to get this treaty through the Southern-dominated Senate, the Truman administration broke the Covenant in two, separated civil and political rights from economic and social rights (which were seen as communistic), proposed removing the most "offensive" rights, like voting, from the Covenant because it violated Southern electoral policies, and inserted a federal-state clause that meant that even though the federal government may sign and ratify the treaty, no state in the system would be bound by its tenets. In championing the federal-state clause, Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), emphasized three key, important areas in which the current balance of federal-state power would be sacredly preserved. The federal government, she promised the South, would never interfere in "murder cases," investigate concerns over "fair trials," or insist on "the right to education. " In essence, Eleanor Roosevelt had just assured the Dixiecrats that the sacred troika of

88 A HISTORY 01' HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

lynching, Southern justice, and Jim Crow schools would remain untouched even with a Covenant on Human Rights.6 2

The State Department also decided to use the unimpeachable cachet of Eleanor Roosevelt as chair of the Commission on Human Rights to ensure that the CHR would not have the authority to do anything with the thou­ sands of petitions the UN received. The last thing the United States wanted was a Commission on Human Rights with power. If the United States had its way, a key State Department otlicial Durward Sandifer admitted, the Commission would be "of little use " regardless of the extent of the human rights violation. Sandifer remarked that in his estimation even the "ghastly " treatment of the "natives of the Belgian Congo or the persecution of the Christian Armenians by the Turkish Empire," would not have been enough to warrant international intervention. Given that nearly 90 percent of the Armenians in Turkey and 10 million Africans had been killed, Sandifer had set the bar for UN intervention at an extremely high and dangerously lethal level.63

All of this maneuvering to turn the CHR into "the most elaborate waste­ paper basket ever invented " was driven by the State Department's concern that those who lived below the Mason-Dixon line would try to find redress for their "domestic maladjustments " at the UN. The State Department knew how unresponsive the American political arena was to black demands for equality. The "trinity of constitutional guarantees, judicial decisions and ad­ ministrative support, " the State Department admitted, had certainly proven impotent in breaking the shackles of African Americans' second-class citizen­ ship.64 "No other American group is so definitely subordinate in status or so frequently the victim of discriminatory practices " as the Negro, one State Department analysis averred. The report then detailed what those discrimi­ natory practices were.

Among the more important of these practices are: segregation legislation in Southern and border states; restrictive covenants which limit the residen­ tial mobility of Negroes in many of the municipalities of the United States; economic restrictions and vocational discrimination-about 80 percent of the complaints before the Fair Employment Practice Committee from July 1943 to December 1944 were from Negroes; lynching; restriction of the Negro's access to the courts and various limitations on his participation in political activities, particularly in reference to the use of the franchise and otlice-holding; unequal access to schools, public facilities, and social services generally; and the social restrictions placed on the Negro by custom and convention. These practices, many of which are nationwide, are obviously in conflict with the American creed of democracy and equality of opportunity for all.65

These conditions, the State Department understood, made the United States a prime candidate for a UN hearing. "There is an alert and intelligent public, composed of Negroes and whites, keenly aware of the disabilities suf­ fered by the Negro. Elements within this public," the report warned, "may be inclined to press for consideration of the Negro's case before the Human Rights Commission." The State Department further realized that the good­ will intentions of American democracy were simply not enough to forestall a

A "Hou,0w MocKERY" 89

determined international inquest. Although in "theory discrimination is not allowable under the American constitution and law" and

segregationists legislation of southern and border states has been interpreted in the courts as not discriminatory, on the assumption that the facilities and ser­ vices provided Negroes . . . are not of necessity unequal. In fact, however, fa­ cilities are on an unequal basis; and this and other discriminatory practices may give us some trouble before an international body concerned with preventing discrimination.66

This was not a trivial matter because the Cold War had intensified America's "mocking paradoxes" and made the cost of exposure almost too much to bear.67 "The peculiar disadvantage of the United States," one official wrote to the assistant secretary of state, "would be that with the seat of the United Nations in this country and with a freer flow of information here than else­ where the United Nations could be flooded with petitions relating to United States abuses .. . thus giving the impression that the United States was the chief offender against rather than defender of civil liberties."68

In 1947, the State Department's worst nightmare came true. Following the example of the National Negro Congress, the NAACP decided to chal­ lenge the domestic jurisdiction clause. The Association petitioned the UN Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions under which African Americans lived and died in the United States. In doing so the NAACP made the disastrous error of overestimating its allies and underestimating its opposition. The petition, however, was first-rate. An Appeal to the World!, written under Du Bois's leadership, stated that although "there is general agreement that the 'fundamental human rights' which" members of the "United Nations are pledged to promote .. . 'without distinction as to race,' include Education, Employment, Housing and Health" it is clear that "the Negro in the United States is the victim of wide deprivation of each of these rights." In his chapter of the petition, Washington Bureau chief and trained sociologist, Leslie S. Perry, began first and foremost with the right to educa­ tion because, he noted, "those who would continue to exploit the Negro, politically and economically have first tried to keep his mind in shackles. "69

The petition had, therefore, carefully documented the gross disparities in educational attainment, opportunity, quality, and funding. It had noted that in school districts where African Americans comprised over 75 percent of the school-age population, only $2.12 per capita was spent on them as opposed to $28.50 per white student. The Association had further documented that in 1943-1944, while the United States was at war with the Nazis, Southern states spent 111 percent more on white students than black. Mississippi led the way, of course, with a staggering 499 percent difference between its fund­ ing of black and white schools.70 Moreover, because of the South's insistence on paying black teachers significantly less than white ones, African Americans lost $25 million per year in wages, which in 2005, would equal nearly $1.6 billion annually.71 As statistic after statistic rolled through the pages of the NAACP's petition to the United Nations about state-sponsored racial inequality-in education, in employment, in housing, in health care-one U.S. diplomat at the United Nations insisted that the Jim Crow Leader of the

90 A HISTORY Or HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Free World could not afford to be exposed as a "nation of hypocrites " and he used his influence to bury the petition deep within the UN bureaucracy.7 2

Additional opposition came from "friend of the Negro, " NAACP board member, and chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights Eleanor Roosevelt. In an article and a series of letters that read like "The Education of Walter White" she emphasized that the NAACP had made a big mistake in going to the UN to air African Americans' grievances because the petition played into the Soviets' hands, and, she intimated, the only petitions the USSR ever supported were those authored by known communist-dominated groups. White also needed to understand, she continued quite sternly, that the U.S. delegation "could not let the Soviet (sic) get away with attacking the United States " and dodge having their own shortcomings exposed. 73 Roosevelt also warned Du Bois that the NAACP did not ever want to run the risk again of "exposing the United States to distorted accusations by other countries . " She firmly believed that the "colored people in the United States .. . would be better served in the long run if the NAACP Appeal were not placed on the Agenda." Then, in the ultimate lesson, Roosevelt submitted her resignation from the NAACP board of directors. Although she did not mention the peti­ tion that she had helped squash, the timing of her resignation seemed to carry with it a very distinct, ominous message. White, of course, pleaded with her to reconsider. The Association "would suffer irreparable loss if you were to resign." She held firm. He begged her again. "[U]nder no circumstances would we want you to resign from the Board. Your name means a great deal to us." His pleas, astutely, never mentioned the UN but only how much needed to be done domestically and how only she had the clout to make that happen. Roosevelt eventually agreed to stay. And White began to seriously rethink the NAACP's investment in the struggle for human rights.74 Indeed, the following year, as part of the growing fissure between Du Bois and him, which was then buttressed by the hard, cold reality of Roosevelt's displeasure with An Appeal to the World!, White announced to a State Department offi­ cial that the NAACP "had no intention " of pressing its case ever again before the United Nations.75

Even with all of that, by the time Dwight D. Eisenhower came to power in the early 1950s, a group of Republicans joined with the Southern Demo­ crats and decided that the Truman administration had not done enough to protect the United States from the UN and human rights. That "evil combi­ nation" of the GOP and Dixiecrats, as the NAACP called it, charged that the U.S. Constitution and America were under attack by human rights, human rights proponents, and the United Nations, as that foreigner-dominated or­ ganization set out to subvert American values with socialistic, even commu­ nistic, ideas about freedom and democracy.

To rescue America and its children from the UN, Republican Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio proposed the ultimate weapon-a constitutional amend­ ment to alter the treaty approval process. This was an incredibly radical move for such an arch-conservative because it attacked the very foundational Amer­ ican heritage that he claimed he was fighting to preserve. From the days of the Founding Fathers, treaties had to be ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate to become the "law of the land." But now, for the senator and his

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 91

allies, that was no longer enough. With the UN and human rights stalking America's shores, threatening to breach the bridgehead of American sover­ eignty and states' rights, a mere two-thirds of the Senate seemed like an in­ credibly weak and permeable line of defense. The Bricker amendment was, therefore, designed to reinforce significantly America's battlements against the foreign invasion of human rights law. Although the amendment would maintain the requirement that all treaties had to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, Bricker then added executive agreements as part of the package. The point of including these instruments of diplomacy was to keep the pres­ ident from using them to bypass the legislative branch and congressional oversight. Yet, that was only the beginning. After ratification by two-thirds of the Senate, the executive agreement or treaty would then need to pass both houses of Congress with enabling legislation. Despite the enormous difficulties of transforming a bill into a law, as the stillborn anti-lynching, poll tax, and fair employment bills demonstrated, America's rampart, in Bricker's opinion, was still not high enough. The isolationist wing of the GOP and Southern Democrats, therefore, determined that state legislatures would be the final, impenetrable brick in the wall that could stop these human rights initiatives, especially the much-dreaded Genocide Convention, dead in their tracks. The reliance upon the recalcitrance of state governments was not sur­ prising. The Southern Democrats had repeatedly voiced their fears that the Genocide Convention, if ratified, could trump states' rights, transform lynch­ ing into an international crime, and obligate the federal government to pros­ ecute those who had, heretofore, killed black Americans with impunity.76

The Bricker Amendment, as a result, included the provision that all forty­ eight state legislatures had to ratify treaties and executive agreements. The Ohio senator crowed that this amendment, with its multiple lines of defense­ two-thirds of the Senate; majority votes in both Houses of Congress; and approval by all forty-eight state legislatures-would rein in the "eager beavers in the UN " and prevent "some Americans " from using UN treaties "as a substitute for national legislation on purely domestic matters. "77

The much-heralded Bricker Amendment enjoyed the support of a number of conservative, "patriotic " organizations and, even more important, enough senators from both parties to ensure its ratification. With over sixty senators sponsoring the amendment and the Republican Party firmly behind Bricker, President Eisenhower realized that he had a fight on his hands because although the target was clearly the UN's human rights treaties, the Bricker Amendment's language was broad enough to strip the executive branch of any real authority whatsoever in foreign policy. In order to preserve his pres­ idential role in foreign relations, Eisenhower now desperately searched for some sort of compromise.78

The solution that Dulles and the president seized upon was the complete abandonment of both the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, even though it was designed to mimic the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Covenant on Eco­ nomic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which in the State Department's estima­ tion was no more than a Pandora's box filled with the "inarticulate Slavic desire for the economic well-being of the masses. "79 For good measure Sec­ retary of State Dulles added the Convention on the Political Rights of Women

92 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

and the Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. 80 In the process, Eisenhower particularly withdrew support for the Genocide Convention because, as Vice President Richard Nixon noted, that treaty was the primary catalyst for the Bricker Amendment. The Southern Democrats, everyone recognized, were afraid that the human rights treaties, in general, just "might affect the Col­ ored question " and that the Genocide Convention, in particular, could be­ come, in the hands of the NAACP's attorneys, "a backdoor method to a federal anti-lynching bill."8 1 These were the burnt offerings that Eisenhower presented to the senate in exchange for saving presidential power.

Walter White, who had been relatively quiet on the human rights front since Eleanor Roosevelt had taken him and the NAACP to the woodshed, was outraged. He asserted that the Bricker Amendment, with its proviso that all forty-eight state legislatures had to approve any treaty, would drag the United States down to the "moral and intellectual level of the most backward state of the nation." That frightening scenario, he exclaimed, meant "that as a nation we could take no higher moral ground than that permitted by states like Mississippi or South Carolina." But, of course, he added, that was the whole point. The NAACP chieftain stated that it was no accident that Sena­ tor Bricker's crusade gained momentum only after a California court ruled that a racially discriminatory law violated the Declaration of Human Rights. That ruling, White explained, caused "consternation in conservative circles lest our international moral commitments require us to live up to those com­ mitments here at home. "82 The "more we study this amendment, " he noted in an address to congressional leaders, "the more dangerous we believe it to be."83 The Senate, however, would not budge.

Only an idolized World War II hero like Eisenhower could stop the Bricker juggernaut and it took him nearly a year to muster the will to do so. When the president finally came out openly against the Bricker Amendment, the battle in the Senate began in earnest.84 The old general knew that this was a campaign he. could not afford to lose and his considerable influence pulled several Republican supporters away from the senator. This loss of key votes led one version of the amendment after another to fail. But just when it looked like victory was imminent, into the breach stepped Senator Walter George (D-GA), who, as everyone knew, "commanded attention and got respect from members of the Senate."85 That influence combined with his Southern Democrat values portended disaster. George, an ardent states' rights champion, made no secret of the fact that he was particularly concerned that the Genocide Convention "would bring within the area of Congressional power anti-lynching legislation." As a result, George wanted the Bricker Amendment to succeed at all costs. He introduced his own substitute pro­ posal and, with his cachet and clout, immediately breathed new life into the amendment's sagging chances.86

As historian Duane Tananbaum noted, this was the "showdown . " After intense debates, the voting began. "As the clerk began calling the roll that evening for the final vote ... , the outcome remained uncertain." At one point, it "looked bleak " especially after several Eisenhower Republicans jumped ship and "voted with Bricker and George." But then, several Democrats, who had previously supported the amendment, swung to the other side. Back and

A "HOLLOW MocKF,RY" 93

forth it went until "as the vote was ending, 60 senators had voted for the amendment and only 30 had voted against it, " Bricker had his two-thirds! But then out of the blue, or more accurately, out of the tavern, "staggered into the Senate chamber " Harley Kilgore, "a liberal Democrat from West Virginia. " The drunken lawmaker was "propped up by various aides and col­ leagues " and when the clerk "asked for the senator's vote ... a 'nay' was heard-whether from Kilgore or one of the others is uncertain." What was certain, however, was that the George resolution had just gone down to defeat- by one drunken vote.87

Although Eisenhower clearly felt vindicated, it was a pyrrhic victory for African Americans. The fact that the president chose to confront the Bricker forces only at the very last minute and instead attempted, at least initially, to appease the right wing by auctioning off the human rights treaties, cost Afri­ can Americans dearly. The administration's sacrifice of the Covenants and Genocide Convention, the loss of real American involvement in the develop­ ment of international human rights protocols, and, most important, the per­ vasive notion that there was something un-American and foreign, if not to­ tally communistic and dangerous, about human rights converged to severely constrict the agenda for real black equality, particularly as its advocates got destroyed by the McCarthy witch hunts.88

In many ways, that retreat from human rights, particularly as the civil rights movement erupted in Alabama the next year in 1955, bequeathed an agenda for equality that was too restricted to even ask the right question, much less provide the answer, about the root cause of systemic and perpetual inequality.89 Over the next decade, as one civil rights triumph after the next left virtually untouched the human rights catastrophe brewing in the black communities, the limits of the movement became painfully apparent.90 In 1985, Bayard Rustin, the logistics genius behind the 1963 March on Wash­ ington told a college audience that two decades after the apogee of the civil rights movement, all still was not well. The "problems of the early sixties ... were more easily solved than our current dilemma," Rustin observed. "First of all, it did not cost the government billions of dollars to do away with seg­ regation in public accommodations, to give us the right to vote, to integrate the schools." These gains, Rustin made clear, were not without costs. It "took the bombing of churches and the murder of innocents " but "it was fairly easy to get most Americans to understand that it was un-American to continue segregation." Rustin warned, however, that the next phase of the struggle would be even more trying because "We are now asking for education, med­ ical care, jobs and housing. "9 1

In many horrific ways, nearly a generation later, the 2005 disaster in New Orleans exposed how black Americans were still in search of those basic human rights. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) summarized it best when he intoned, "I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane." "They were abandoned long ago- . .. to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness. "92 Oddly enough, in 1952, U.S. Ambassa­ dor to the UN, Warren Austin had told the NAACP that if the United States did not deal with human rights "at home, ... all our Declarations on Human

94 A HISTORY OF HUMAN R.rGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Rights would be a hollow mockery." This Cassandra-like prediction came true as Hurricane Katrina "exposed some shocking truths about " the United States: "the bitterness of its sharp racial divide, the abandonment of the dis­ possessed, the weakness of critical infrastructure. But the most astonishing and most shaming revelations has been of its government's failure to bring succour to its people at their time of greatest need. "93 Or, as Walter White said more than fifty years earlier, "Democracy doesn't mean much to a man with an empty belly. "94

NOTES

Parts of this chapter first appeared in Carol Anderson's Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

1 . Walter White to Herbert Lehman, Dennis Chavez, and Leverett Saltonstall, telegram, July 1 1 , 1950, Box A61 7, File "State Department: Point IV Program, 1949-54," Papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Cnlnred People, Series I I , General Office File, 1940-1955, Library of Congress, Washington, DC (hereafter Papers of the NAACP) .

2. Manfred Berg, «The Ticket to Freedom)): The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005 ) .

3 . Berg, Ticket to Freedom, p. 105 . 4 . For the rationale behind the NAACP's initial rejection of economic issues dur­

ing the organization's founding in 1909 see, Berg, Ticket to Freedom, pp. 14-1 5 . 5 . David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and

War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 87, 164, 186, 193; Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941, 2nd ed. (New York: Times Books, 1993), pp. 187-195; Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope: Race and Democ­ racy in the New Deal Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996) .

6. Roi Ottley, New World A-Coming ( 1943; New York: Arno Press, 1968), p. 290. 7. Paul Gordon Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions

Seen, 2nd ed. ( Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p. 150 . 8 . Philleo Nash to Jonathan Daniels, memo, August 15 , 1944, Box 29, File "OWi­

Files Alphabetical-Race Tension-Jonathan Daniels File-News Analysis," Philleo Nash Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO.

9 . Gary R. Kremer and Antonio F. Holland, Missouri's Black Heritage, rev. ed. (Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1993), p. 1 6 1 ; Dominic J . Capeci Jr., The Lynching of Cleo Wright (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1998 ) , pp. 5-6.

10 . U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial

Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1975 ) , p. 422. From 1940-1955, African Americans accounted for 234 out of263 of those executed for rape.

1 1 . "An Informal Report on Attitudes in Southeast Missouri Relative to the Lynching of Cleo Wright, Negro, January 25 , 1942, for the NAACP by Mr. and Mrs. L. Benoist Tompkins, Saint Louis, Mo.," Box 42, File "Internal Secnrity File: Trea­ sury File-NAACP Misc ( folder 2 of2) , Stephen ]. Spingarn Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO (hereafter Spingarn Papers); Capeci, Lynch­ ing, pp. 1 3-37.

12 . Capeci, Lynching, p. 23 . 13 . An informal Report, Spingarn Papers.

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 95

14. Kremer and Holland, Missouri's Black Heritage, pp. 1 58-159. 15. Kremer and Holland, Missouri's Black Heritage, p. 1 59 . 16. An Informal Report, Spingarn Papers. 17. See, for example, Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching

of Black America (New York: Random House, 2002) ; Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (New York: Pantheon, 1998 ); James Allen (ed . ) , Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2000) .

1 8 . Also see, NAACP, "Education i n a Democracy," March 1 , 1938, Papers of William H. Hastie (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984), Part 2, Reel 33 ( hereafter Hastie Papers) .

19. Jessie Parkhurst Guzman (ed . ) , Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life, 1 941-1946 (Tuskegee, AL: Tuskegee Institute, 1947), p. 56.

20. In 194 1 , the U.S . Office of Education estimated that it would take $43 million to equalize schools. Using the relative GDP for 2005, that estimate equals $4,227,303,867.40. Available online at eh.net/hmit/compare/. For the initial re­ port see Emery M. Foster to Walter White, December 2, 194 1 , Box B l 73, File "Sta­ tistics: Education of Negroes, 194 1 ," Papers of the National Association for the Ad­ vancement of Colored People, Series B (Legal Files) , Part III, 1940-1955, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.NAACP.

2 1 . NAACP, "Education in a Democracy," March 1 , 1938, Hastie Papers, Part 2, Reel 33. Emphasis in original.

22. Quoted in Guzman, Negro Year Book, p. 57. 23. Guzman, Negro Year Book, p. 70. The actual percentages for African Americans

age twenty-five and older with less than five years education are: Alabama: 54. 1 percent; Georgia: 58.6 percent; Louisiana 60.9 percent; Mississippi: 52.5 percent; and South Carolina: 62.4 percent. For comparison, the figures for whites in those states with less than five years education are: Alabama: 1 6.3 percent; Georgia 16.6 percent; Louisiana 21 .9 percent; Mississippi: 1 0. 3 percent; and South Carolina: 1 8 percent.

24. Henry F. Pringle and Katharine Pringle, "The Color Line in Medicine," Sat­ urday Evening Post, January 24, 1948, found in Box 54, File "United Nations: Negro Question, 194 7-1952," Papers of Warren Austin, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont (hereafter Austin Papers) .

25. "The Color Line," Austin Papers. 26. Guzman, Negro Year Book, pp. 324, 326, 33 1-332; "The Color Line," Austin

Papers. To see the continuation of these health care disparities well into the civil rights movement see, Walter J . Lear, "Testimony of the Medical Committee for Civil Rights on the H.R. 7 152 , The President's Civil Rights Bill before the Judiciary Committee," July 17, 1963, Bayard Rustin Papers (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1988), Reel 4 (hereafter Rustin Papers).

27. Guzman, Negro Yearbook, p. 320. 28. Senator George Aiken in Opposition to Lend Lease, Congressional Record,

February 25, 194 1 , pp. 1 360-1 363. For World War I's unsavory colonial legacy, see Wm. Roger Louis, "The Repartition of Africa during the First World War," in Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization (London: IB Tauris, 2006) , pp. 205-224.

29. Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rw-hts (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005) , pp. 1-45.

30. The Atlantic Charter, Avalon Project of Yale Law School, available online at www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwiijatlantic.htm. Emphasis added.

3 1 . The Atlantic Charter, available online at www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/ atlantic.htm.

96 A HISTORY ()I' HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

32. Johnpeter Horst Grill and Robert L. Jenkins, "The Nazis and the American South in the 1 930s: A Mirror Image?," Journal of Southern History 58( 4) (November 1992) : 668.

33. "Political Action for the Negro: Delivered by Earl B. Dickerson, at the Phila­ delphia 3 1 st Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People," June 1 9, 1940, Papers of the National Association for the Advance­ ment of Colored People (Washington, DC: University Publications of America, 1982) (hereafter NAACP), Reel 1 0; Speech of Walter White at the Mass Meeting of the March-on-Washington Movement, June 16, 1942, Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1933-

1 945 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1986) (hereafter Roosevelt), Reel 19 .

34 . Quoted in Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003 ), p. 10 . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

35 . Quoted in Berg, Ticket to Freedom, p. 95 . 36. Workshop on Race and Non-Violence: Sheet no. 5, The American Racial Scene

Today, October 9, 1943, Rustin Papers, Reel 5 . 37. "An Emergency Conference on the Status of the Negro in the War for the

Four Freedoms," June 3-6, 1943, File "391 B," Papers of Herbert Lehman, Herbert Lehman Suite, Columbia University, New York, NY (hereafter Lehman Papers) .

38. Resolutions of the 33rd Annual Conference of the NAACP, July 14-19, 1942, NAACP, Reel 1 1 ; Address of Walter White at the NAACP Annual Convention, July 19, 1942, ibid.; Walter White to Franklin D. Roosevelt, May 4, 1 942, Roosevelt, Reel 19 ; Announcing the Eastern Seaboard Conference on the Problems of the War and the Negro People, April 10, 1943, Box 29, File "National Negro Congress, 1936-5 1 ," Papers of Asa Philip Randolph, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, (hereafter Randolph Papers) .

39. An Emergency Conference on the Status of the Negro in the War for the Four Freedoms, June 3, 1 943, File "39 1 B : Walter White," Lehman Papers.

40. Announcing the Eastern Seaboard Conference, Randolph Papers. 4 1 . "We have come far in twenty months of war," fragment, n.d., ca. August 1943,

Box A299, File "William H. Hastie-General, July 1943-August 1944," Papers of the NAACP.

42. Julia Baxter to J .E. Magnuson, January 25, 1944, Box A439, File "NAACP Programs: Postwar, 1943-44," Papers of the NAACP; Memorandum Presenting Suggestive Notes on "The Negro Worker and His Struggle for Economic Justice," Prepared for Miss Thompson, September 1 1 , 1940, attachment to Ralph Bunche to Malvina C. Thompson, Papers of Ralph Bunche, Reel 2 (hereafter Bunche Papers); Radio Talk for Station KGFJ, by Roy Wilkins, July 16, 1942, NAACP, Reel 1 1 .

43 . A. Phillip Randolph: Movement for International Peace Conference Seat spon­ sored by Negro League for Real Democracy, February 12 , 1942, Box A507, File "A. Philip Randolph, 1942-55 ," Papers of the NAA CP; Speech ofWalter White, June 16, 1942, Roosevelt, Reel 19; Walter to the Board of Directors, memorandum, February 8, 1943, Box A466, File "Peace Conference Committee to Present Views of Negroes at Upcoming Peace Conference, 1943-44," Papers of the NAACP.

44. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Negro and Imperialism," transcript of radio broadcast, November 1 5 , 1944, Box 527, File "Speakers: W.E.B. Du Bois, 1 944-48," Papers of the NAA CP.

45. Herbert Agar, "What We Are Fighting For: United Nations Must Show They Seek Freedom for All," PM July 24, 1942, found in file "Federal Council of Churches,

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 97

1941 [34]," Papers of Channing Tobias: YMCA Collection, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

46. Harley Notter to Dean Rusk and Mr. Thompson, memo, March 14, 1 947, Box 2 187, Decimal File 501 .BD/3- 1847 ( 1945-49), General Records of the Depart­ ment of State Record Group 59, National Archives II, College Park, MD (hereafter RG 59).

47. Quoted in Berg, Ticket to Freedom, p. 96. 48. Quoted in White, A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White

(New York: The Viking Press, 1 948), pp. 108, 1 68; quoted in Harry S. Ashmore, Civil Rights and Wrongs: A Memoir of Race and Politics, 1 944-1994 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994 ), p. 8; Address by Walter White, at closing meeting of Wartime Conference, July 1 6, 1 944, Reel 19 , Roosevelt.

49. Durward Sandifer Oral History, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Inde­ pendence, MO.

50. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 19 How. 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 , ( 1856), 14 . 5 1 . Hamilton Fish Armstrong to Tom Connally, July 30, 1945, Box 1 6, File

"Connally, Tom, 1 943, 1 945, 1 949 ," Papers of Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Seely Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (hereafter Armstrong Papers); Walter White's handwritten notes of meeting with Corps Com., 9:30 a.m. 68 Post St., ca. May 1 , 1 945, Box 639, File "United Nations: United Nations Confer­ ence on International Organization-General, 1 945-July, 1 946," Papers of the NAACP; Meeting of the American Delegation, April 27, 1945, Box 84, Folder 1 7, Armstrong Papers; Meeting of the United States Delegation: Summary Record, April 27, 1945, Box 84, Folder 18 , ibid. ; Hamilton Fish Armstrong's handwritten minutes of U.S. Delegates Meeting 5:30, May 2, 1945, Box 84, Folder 23, ibid.

52. Hamilton Fish Armstrong's handwritten minutes of U.S. Delegates Meeting 5:30, May 2 , 1 945, Box 84, Folder 23, Armstrong Papers.

53. "Report of the Secretary," May 1945, Part 1 , Reel 7, NAACP; Walter White, et al. to Stettinius, telegram, May 7, 1945, Reel 58, Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois (Sanford, NC: Microfilming Corporation of America, 1980), microfilm (hereafter Du Bois); Informal Consultation on Domestic Jurisdiction of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, June 1 , 1 945, Box 2 1 6, File "UNCIO-Domestic Jurisdic­ tion (General)," Files of Harley A. Notter: RG 59 (hereafter Notter) . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cam­ bridge University Press.

54. "Proposed Article to be inserted as a new chapter in the Charter," May 3, 1945, Box 2 16, File "UNCIO-Domestic Jurisdiction (General)," Notter; Meeting of the Big Four, 1 2 noon, May 4, 1945, Box 84, Folder 25, Armstrong Papers; Meeting of the United States Delegation, 6:20 p.m., May 3, 1 945, Box 84, Folder 24, ibid. ; United Nations, "Amendments Proposed by the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China," May 5, 1 945, United Nations Conference on International Ot;ganization San Francisco, 1 945: Documents Volume 3, Dumbarton Oaks Proposals Comments and Proposed Amendments (London: United Nations Information Organizations, 1945 ) , pp. 622-623 . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson . Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

55. "Summary of Debate on Domestic Jurisdiction: Joint Four-Power Amendment," June 1 , 1945, ibid.

56. "Summary ofDebate on Domestic Jurisdiction: Joint Four-Power Amendment," June 1 , 1 945, ibid. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

98 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

57. Donald C. Blaisdell, Oral History, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Inde­ pendence, MO.

58. Harley Notter to Dean Rusk and Mr. Thompson, memo, March 14, 1947, Box 2 1 87, Decimal File 501 .BD/3- 1847 ( 1945-49), RG 59. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge Uni­ versity Press.

59. Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 28 . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permis­ sion of Cambridge University Press.

60. "Discussion on Principles and Problems Relating to Minorities with a View to Prepare Instructions to the United States Delegate," SD/E/HR/MINDIS/D-3, August 27, 1946, Box 47, File "SD/E/HR/MINDIS/1 -4," Lot File 82D2 1 1 , RG 59; James Green to Durward Sandifer, May 2 1 , 1953, Box 8 , File "Ninth Session of the Commission," Lot File 55D429, RG 59. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

6 1 . [ James Hendrick,] Covenant on Human Rights, draft letter, January 14, 1948 , Box 2, File "Human Rights Memorandum," Papers of James Hendrick, Harry S. Tru­ man Presidential Library, Independence, MO (hereafter Hendrick Papers) .

62 . Logan to White, memo, March 8, 1948, Box 18 1 -8 , Folder 3 , Papers of Ray­ ford Logan, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC (hereafter Logan-MSRC); James Simsarian to Eleanor Roosevelt, December 2 1 , 1949, Box 4588, File "Human Rights Commission, 1949," Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY (hereafter Roosevelt Papers). White to Rayford Logan, September 25, 195 1 , Box 18 1 -8, Folder 3, Logan-MSRC; White to Rayford Logan, October 24, 195 1 , ibid.; "Statement to the Press by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt on the 'Federal State' Clause of the Covenant on Human Rights," press release, June 6, 1952, Box 4588, File "Human Rights Commission, undated," Roosevelt Papers; Lowell Limpus, "UN Pact Won't Clash with States' Rights, Says Mrs. Roosevelt," June 9, 1952, found in Box 626, File "UN Secur. Council 'Commission on Human Rt of the Econ & Soc Coun," Republican National Committee Newspaper Clippings, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Li­ brary, Abilene, KS (hereafter RNC); White to Jacob Javits, March 6, 1952, Box 1 1 7, File "Bills: McCarran Bill-General-1 950-52," Papers of the NAACP. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

63. Durward V. Sandifer to Mr. Green, Mr. Hiss, et al., memo, May 2 1 , 1946, Box 8, File "Human Rights: March 1945-December 3 1 , 1947," Lot File 55D429, RG 59.

64. Quoted in Howard Tolley Jr. , The UN. Commission on Human Rttrhts (Boulder: Westview, 1987), pp. 16, 18 ; Charles S. Murphy to D.V. Sandifer, memo April 14, 1948, Box 533, File "85-Q Human Rights Commission Folder," Papers of Harry S. Truman: Official File, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, MO (hereafter Truman: OF); Durward V. Sandifer to Eleanor Roosevelt, April 1 6, 1948, Box 4595, (No File), Roosevelt Papers; Draft Memo of Conversation with Roosevelt, Sandifer, Hendrick on March 4, 1948, April 20, 1948, Box 2, File "Human Rights Memorandum," Hendrick Papers; "Human Rights and International Organization," n.d., Box 4588, File "Human Rights Commission, undated," Roosevelt Papers; State­ ment of the Position of the United States on Petitions by Individuals in Relation to a Covenant on Human Rights, April 30, 1948, Box 4593, File "Mrs. Roosevelt," ibid.

65. "Problems of Discrimination and Minority Status in the United States," January 22, 1947, Box 43, File "SD/E/CN.4/1 -43," Lot File 82D2 1 l, RG 59.

66. Ibid.

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 99

67. Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) ; Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena ( Cam­ bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001 ) .

68. "Commission on Human Rights, First Session of Full Commission, January 1947: Consideration of Communications Received," SD/CS.4/5, January 16, 1947, Box 4594, File "U.N. Human Rights Commission, 1946-June 1947," Roosevelt Papers; Robert McClintock to Robert A. Lovett, November 25 , 1947, memo, Box 4595, File "Book I: Position Book for Second Session of Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland, December 1-19, 1947," ibid.; Marginalia on Harley Notter to Dean Rusk and Mr. Thompson, memo, March 14, 1947, Box 2 187, Deci­ mal File 501 .BD/3-1847 ( 1945-49) , RG 59.

69. NAACP, An Appeal to the World! A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress (New York: NAACP, 1947), pp. 62-63.

70. Ibid. , pp. 64-65 . 71 . Ibid. , p. 66 . $25 million in 1943 is the equivalent in 2005 of$ l ,567 ,950,654.58

using the relative share of GDP. Comparison calculations available online at eh.net/ hmit/ compare.

72 . Jonathan Daniels to James Hendrick, October 29, 1947, Folder 597, Papers of Jonathan Daniels, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (hereafter Daniels Papers) .

73. Eleanor Roosevelt to White, December 8, 1947, Box 635, File "United Nations General Assembly, 1946-August 1948," Papers of the NAACP; Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day: The Delegate from Lebanon Was Missing," December 5, 1947, found in Folder 603, Daniels Papers; Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter White, January 20, 1948, Box 3389, File "White, Walter, 1947-50," Roosevelt Papers. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

74. Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, December 3 1 , 1947, ibid.; Comment Paper: Discrimination Against Negroes in the United States, August 30, 1948, SD/ A/C.3/75, Box 1 75 , File "Background Book: Committee III (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural) , Volume IV," Records of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Record Group 84, National Archives II , College Park, MD (hereafter RG 84); Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, January 10, 1948, Box 3389, File "White, Walter, 1947-50," Roosevelt Papers; Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter White, January 20, 1948, ibid.; Risa Lauren Goluboff, '"Let Economic Equality Take Care of ltself': The NAACP, Labor Litigation, and the Making of Civil Rights in the 1940s," UCLA Law Review 52( 5 ) (June 2005) : 1 393-1486. Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Ander­ son. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

75. Chester S. Williams to Mrs. Roosevelt, et al. , memorandum of conversation, September 9, 1948, Box 78, File "1948-49, Discrimination: Race," RG 84. For the political reasons behind the clash between White and Du Bois see, Anderson, Eyes Off the Prize, pp. 1 1 3-165.

76. Frank Holman, The Life and Career of a Western Lawyer, 1 886-1961 (Balti­ more, MD: Port City Press, 1963), pp. 569-570; Fisher to Rusk, memo, January 19, 1950, box 8 , File "Genocide (folder 1 of 2 )," Lot File 55D429, RG 59; Phleger to Dulles, memo, March 30, 1953, Box 70, File "Re: Genocide Convention, 1953," Papers of John Foster Dulles, Seely Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (hereafter ]FD-Princeton); Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, February 20, 1953, Box 1, File "Cabinet Meeting of February 20, 1953," Cabinet Series, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower: Ann Whitman Files, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS (hereafter Eisenhower: AWF) .

1 00 A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

77. "Bringing the Constitution Up-to-Date: Address by Senator John W. Bricker before the Annual Convention of the Ohio State Bar Association at Cincinnati, Ohio," April 22, 1953, Box 160, File "2," Papers of John W. Bricker, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH (hereafter Bricker Papers) .

78. Eisenhower to J . Earl Schaefer, January 22, 1 954, Box 5, File "DDE Diary January 1954 ( l )," Diary Series, Eisenhower: AWF; quoted in Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, Vol. I I (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 70, 1 55 .

79 . Caroline Pruden, Conditional Partners: Eisenhower, the United Nations, and the Search for a Permanent Peace (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998), p. 202; James Hendrick to James Simsarian, July 27, 1948, Box 2, File "Human Rights Memorandum," Hendrick Papers; Committee Completes General Discussion on Human Rights, press release, May 4, 1948, SOC/504, found in Box 634, File "United Nations: General, 1948-49," Papers of the NAACP.

80. Pruden, Conditional Partners, p. 203. 8 1 . Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, February 20, 1953, Box 1 , File "Cabinet Meeting

of February 20, 1953," Cabinet Series, Eisenhower: AWF; Memorandum from Ralph E. Becker [to Senator Thomas J. Hennings Jr. ] , January 22, 1954, Folder 4772, Pa­ pers of Thomas J. Hennings, Jr., Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO (hereafter Hennings Papers) ; Fisher to Rusk, memo, January 19, 1950, Box 8, File "Genocide (folder 1 of 2 )," Lot File 55D429, RC 59.

82. Broadcast WLIB and Affiliated Stations: Walter White, April 9, 1953, Box 1 1 3, File "Bricker Amendment Press Releases, 1953-54," ibid.

83 . Walter White to Senator, April 16, 1953, Box 1 1 3 , File "Bills Bricker Amend­ ment Correspondence, 1952-55," ibid.

84. Edward A. Conway, " 'Darling Daughter' Amendment," America, January 23, 1954, found in Folder 4772, Hennings Papers; Eisenhower to Senator William F.

Knowland, January 25, 1954, Box 5 , File "DDE Diary January 1954 ( l )," Diary Series, Eisenhower: AWF; Eisenhower to Earl Schaefer, January 22, 1954, ibid. ; Notes on the Bricker Amendment from Donovan's book, Eisenhower, The Inside Story, Box 7, File "Bricker Amendment-Draft Talk ( 1 )," Administration Series, ibid.

85 . Francis 0. Wilcox, Chief of Staff� Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1947- 1955, Oral History, Interview #3, Congress and the Cold War, March 2 1 , 1 984, available online at www.senate.gov/learning/learn_history _oralhist_wilcox3 .html, pp. 1 33 , 148-149. Accessed July 1 5, 200 1 .

86. Phleger to Dulles, memo, March 30, 1953, Box 70, File "Re: Genocide Con­ vention, 1953," ]FD-Princeton.

87. Tananbaum, The Bricker Amendment, pp. 179-1 80; Amendment to Constitu­ tion Relative to Treaties and Executive Agreements, roll call votes, Journal of the Sen­ ate of the United States of America, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, p. 1 59 . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

88 . Excerpts from Eyes Off the Prize, © 2003 by Carol Anderson. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.

89. J . Mills Thornton III , Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Ala­ bama Press, 2002 ) .

90. U.S . Riot Commission, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders: What Happened? Why Did it Happen ? What Can be Done? (New York, 1968) .

9 1 . Bayard Rustin speech at Grand Valley State College in Michigan, March 25, 1985, Rustin Papers, Reel 2, Emphasis in original .

A "HOLLOW MOCKERY" 1 0 1

92 . Jonathan Alter, "The Other America: After Katrina II-Confronting Poverty & Migration," Newsweek, September 19, 2005 . For the ongoing crisis in education and its effects on African Americans see, Civic Report, November 200 1 , High School Graduation Rates in the United States (revised April 2002), Jay P. Greene, Ph. D . , Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, available online at www .manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm#08, October 20, 2005; Gary Orfield, Susan E. Eaton et al . , Dismantling Desegregation: The Q;tiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education (New York: New Press, 1996); for housing, see George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998 ), pp. 1 3-14; Urban Institute, Report Card on Discrimination, pp. 35-37; Urban Institute, "A Foot in the Door? : New Evidence on Housing Discrimination (February 2003) , available online at www .urban.org/publications/900625 .html; for the health care crisis, see Kevin Watkins, Human Development Report 2005: International Cooperation at a Crossroads, Aid, Trade, and Security in an Unequal World (New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2005 ) , p. 58; Dave Davis and Elizabeth Marchak, "Deadly Differences," Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 12 , 2000; Dr. Adewale Troutman, "Unequal Treat­ ment," PBS Online Newhour with Jim Lehrer, March 9, 2005; Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Dis­ parities in Health Care," March 20, 2002; for employment and wealth, see Rakesh Kochhar, The Wealth of Hispanic Households: 1 996 to 2002 (Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Trust, 2004), p. 2; Mariann Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? : A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," Working Papers Series WP 03-22, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics, 2003, available online at www.nber.org/ papersjW9873; Devah Pager, "The Mark of a Criminal Record," American Journal of Sociology 108 (2003) : 937-975; Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Sepa­ rate, Hostile, Unequal, 2nd ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995) , pp. 1 1 2-138 .

93 . Warren Austin to Henry L. Moon, December 23, 1952, Box 54, File "United Nations: Negro Question, 1947-1952," Austin Papers; "The Shaming of America," Economist, September 1 0, 2005, p. 1 1 .

94. Walter White to Herbert Lehman et al . , telegram, July 1 1 , 1950, Box A617, File "State Department: Point IV Program, 1949-54," Papers of the NAACP.