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Featuring contributions from leading scholar-activists, People Power demonstrates how the lessons of history can inform the building of new social justice movements today. This volume is inspired by the pathbreaking life and work of writer, activist, and historian Lawrence “Larry” Goodwyn. As a radical Texas journalist and a political organizer, Goodwyn participated in historic changes ushered in by grassroots activism in the 1950s and ’60s. Professor and cofounder of the Oral History Program at Duke University, Goodwyn wrote about movements built by Latino farm workers, Polish trade unionists, civil rights activists, and others who challenged the status quo. The essays in this volume examine Goodwyn’s influence in political and social movements, his approaches to teaching and writing, and his insights into the long history behind contemporary activism. People Power will generate deep discussions about the potential of democracy amid the multiple crises of our time. What motivates ordinary people to move from kitchen table conversations to civic engagement? What do the chronicles of past social movements tell us about how to confront the real blocks of racism and the idea that Americans are somehow “exceptional”? Contributors provide key experiential knowledge that will help today’s scholars and community organizers address these pressing questions.

In one of the surprising US presidential elections in recent history, the Florida played a central role in the election of reality/star businessman Donald Trump.This book examines the importance of Florida as a bellwether for recent presidential elections and how Donald Trump won the state.A group of high-profile political scientists who are experts in Florida politics examined the 2016 presidential election in the state.How Donald Trump dispatched two favorite sons in the state—former governor Jeb Bush and US Senator Marco Rubio—is explained.The areas of the state where Trump won the close race (especially the I-4 corridor) are studied.The importance of the surprising Hispanic vote is documented. Finally the use of early voting and how election administrators confronted allegations of “rigged results” in the state is also examined.

A revealing work of public history that shows how communities remember their pasts in different ways to fit specific narratives, Race, Place, and Memory charts the ebb and flow of racial violence in Wilmington, North Carolina, from the 1730s to the present day. Margaret Mulrooney argues that white elites have employed public spaces, memorials, and celebrations to maintain the status quo. The port city has long celebrated its white colonial revolutionary origins, memorialized Decoration Day, and hosted Klan parades. Other events, such as the Azalea Festival, have attempted to present a false picture of racial harmony to attract tourists. And yet, the revolutionary acts of Wilmington’s African American citizens—who also demanded freedom, first from slavery and later from Jim Crow discrimination—have gone unrecognized. As a result, beneath the surface of daily life, collective memories of violence and alienation linger among the city’s black population. Mulrooney describes her own experiences as a public historian involved in the centennial commemoration of the so-called Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, which perpetuated racial conflicts in the city throughout the twentieth century. She shows how, despite organizers’ best efforts, a white-authored narrative of the riot’s contested origins remains. Mulrooney makes a case for public history projects that recognize the history-making authority of all community members and prompts us to reconsider the memories we inherit.

In 1763 the British government rejoiced that it had driven the French and Spanish from eastern North America, but knew that part of the cost was more conflict with Indians. Native grievances focused on two subjects: trade and land. The latter was more important and, in the British view, involved issues of sovereignty. In the Southeast Indian resentment was most extreme among the fearsome Creeks, whose top leaders were Emistisiguo and the Mortar. The British government responded with its greatest effort ever to redess Indian grievances. Its reform program included the Augusta Congress, the Proclamation of 1763, and the draft “Plan of 1764.” The officials most concerned with Creek relations were Indian Superintendent John Stuart and Georgia governor James Wright. They served uncomfortably together until the outbreak of the American Revolution. Stuart thought the reforms did not go far enough; Wright thought they went much too far. As the government became more worried about the colonists than the Indians, the program flagged. In 1768 it was mostly abandoned. British-Creek relations sank to new lows, with land conflicts becoming especially dangerous. Illicit land schemes proliferated, the worst being the “New Purchase” engineered by Wright in 1773. It injured everyone it touched, British or Indian, high or low. Crucially, it ruined merchants and traders induced to cancel Creek and Cherokee debts. Enraged at Wright and the British government, most drifted toward the “patriot” cause.

The essays in this volume challenge traditional approaches to migration history and actual migration policies. The editors and authors bring into conversation three approaches: transnationalism, comparative history, and borderland studies. Thus, more than an interdisciplinary agenda emerges; what emerges is a project that entangles migration history. This involves a conversation between U.S.-based and Canada-based scholars who look at the borders from their two sides and provide a transborder spatial grammar. They discuss the extension of routes from the south across the two continental dividing lines, Mexico-United States-Canada. By transcending the focus on states and their national immigration-exclusion legislation, the authors discuss the policing lines based on sexualities and races and how those lines were constructed. They trace how religious communities, also usually viewed as bordered or even exclusive, can create entangled communities across North America. And they place not merely the United States and Canada but all of the people living in North America in their webs of relations across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which have been connecting spaces for centuries.

Extremism in America examines numerous extremist subcultures in the United States today. Beneath the surface of American politics lies a growing extremist subculture. Although most of the groups that compose this subculture are small and seem to have little influence, collectively their presence suggests interesting trends in American politics and society. To some observers, their presence portends the fragmentation of the country, while to others they are just another example of American pluralism at work, albeit with a radical bent. Several important social, demographic, political, and economic trends could have far-reaching effects. According to U.S. Census Bureau projections, by the year 2050, whites will no longer comprise a majority of the American population due in large part to huge increases in both the Hispanic and Asian segments of the population. Such a development is viewed in nearly apocalyptic terms in the racialist segment of the American extreme right. By contrast, in the Mexican irredentist movement, this proposition is often greeted with a sense of triumph as it prepares the way for the eventual reconquista of the American Southwest. Chronic instability in the Middle East, as evidenced by the political turmoil in 2011, could exasperate tensions among Muslim and Jewish populations in America as well. And the festering economic crisis could conceivably create a greater pool of the dispossessed that will support radical movements in the future. Extremism long relegated to the far out fringe could well become more mainstream. Numerous experts contributed chapters to this volume.

This book deals with the history of the port of Portland, Maine, an important North Atlantic maritime community with significant ties to Canada and Europe. A central focus of the book is the primacy of the Irish labor force that served to load and unload ships in this harbor. The book focuses especially on the years after the late nineteenth century, following a series of famines in Ireland and the resultant chain migration of large numbers of manual laborers, largely from County Galway, who settled in Portland. Following a review of the early maritime development of the port, it looks at the replacement of a small but significant force of black dockworkers by the ever-increasing Irish longshoremen willing to work in these casual, dangerous, and poorly paid jobs. After the incorporation of the Portland Longshoremen's Benevolent Society in 1880, working conditions and wages improved. By the early twentieth century these independent workers opted for membership in the International Longshoremen's Association, which offered them more protection and bargaining leverage with the international steamship companies. After World War I, Canadian grain exports declined, and along with that the demand for labor on the waterfront. The book concludes with an assessment of the present condition of the port and its future hopes.

In this first-hand history of the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), the book argues against the prevalent belief that the movement grew out of frustrations over the male chauvinism experienced by WLM founders active in the Black Freedom Movement and the New Left. Instead, it contends, it was the ideas, resources, and skills that women gained in these movements that were the new and necessary catalysts for forging the WLM in the 1960s. The book uses a focused study of the WLM in Florida to tap into the common theory and history shared by a relatively small band of Women's Liberation founders across the country. Drawing on a wealth of interviews, autobiographical essays, organizational records, and published writings, the book brings to light information that has been previously ignored in other secondary accounts about the leadership of African American women in the movement. It also explores activists' roots in other movements on the left. It is a vivid portrait of the people and events that shaped radical feminism.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, a number of states had bureaus whose responsibility was to help immigrants assimilate into American society. Often described negatively as efforts to force foreigners into appropriate molds, this book demonstrates that these programs—including adult education, environmental improvement, labor market regulations, and conflict resolutions—were typically implemented by groups sympathetic to immigrants and their cultures. The book offers a comparative history of social welfare policies developed in four distinct regions with diverse immigrant populations: New York, California, Massachusetts, and Illinois. By focusing on state actions versus national agencies and organizations, and by examining rural and western approaches in addition to urban and eastern ones, the author broadens the historical literature associated with Americanization. She also reveals how these programs, and the theories of citizenship and national identity used to justify their underlying policies, were really attempts by middle-class progressives to get new citizens to adopt Anglo-American, middle-class values and lifestyles.

In 1860, the American Medical Association launched a campaign to convince state legislatures to prohibit abortions. Until 1973's Roe v. Wade, abortion was often seen as a crime. This book analyzes the forces at play in shaping reproductive policy in the United States. Over the past two centuries, restrictive reproductive policies have often served as barriers to women's equality. The impact of these policies has been felt most poignantly at the local level by women endeavoring to control their daily lives. The book reveals that despite attempts by population controllers to shape the populace according to their own agendas, women throughout the years have sought means to choose for themselves the best reproduction option to suit their personal situation. The book examines the political, moral, and economic forces that shaped reproductive policies and the impact they have had on women's ability to choose how to control their bodies.