Doctoral Dissertation Research: Political Contestation of Race and State Response During the Civil Rights Movement

对民权运动的研究在描述和解释民权运动如何出现和招募成员、受到政治环境的影响以及改变其战略和领导层方面做出了很大贡献。然而，各国对民权运动挑战的反应还没有得到很好的研究和理解。例如，当运动让各州就不平等和种族的意义展开斗争时，州政府可以为其使用种族分类进行辩护，做出象征性的让步，而不是真正的让步，或者通过投票权和融合来实现改革。与此同时，州官员在选择应对措施时，必须考虑他们的行为对不同受众--联邦政府、全国公众、地方官员、运动活动家和州选民--的意义。因此，该项目审查了一个州为回应民权挑战和多个受众相互竞争的主张而采取的行动。通过这样做，它有助于我们理解各州如何处理政治冲突和变化，试图保持其合法性，并阻碍或促进不平等的改变。更具体地说，该项目审查了密西西比州主权委员会(1956-1977)的行动，该委员会是由州立法机构在民权运动期间创建的，目的是监督种族关系并抵御“侵犯”。它使用了委员会档案中的原始数据和对委员会熟人的采访，并使用了关于民权运动和其他州委员会的二手文献。来自这些来源的数据表明，该委员会如何制定努力，将种族隔离合法地分配给多个受众，并面临对该州种族分类系统的挑战。

Studies of the Civil Rights Movement have done much to describe and explain how such movements emerge and recruit members, are influenced by the political environment, and change their strategies and leadership. However, the response of states to challenges of the Civil Rights Movement is less well-studied and understood. When movements engage states in battles over inequality and the meaning of race, for example, the state can defend its use of racial classifications, make symbolic rather than real concessions, or bring about reform through voting rights and integration. At the same time, state officials in choosing their response must consider the meanings their actions have to diverse audiences - the federal government, the national public, local officials, movement activists, and state voters. This project thus examines the actions one state took in response to civil rights challenges and to the competing claims of multiple audiences. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of how states deal with political conflict and change, try to maintain their legitimacy, and obstruct or facilitate changes in inequality.More specifically, the project examines the actions of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (1956-1977), an organization created by the state legislature during the Civil Rights Movement to monitor race relations and defend against "encroachment." It uses primary data from the files of the commission and interviews with persons familiar with the commission, and uses secondary literature on the Civil Rights Movement and commissions in other states. The data from these sources show how the commission framed its efforts to legitimate segregation to multiple audiences, and faced challenges to the state's system of racial classification.