Copyright (c) 2008 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak Recent documents in Mary L. Dudziak en-us Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:27:48 PST 3600 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/33 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/33 Fri, 30 May 2008 20:30:16 PDT At the height of the McCarthy era, when Congressional committees were exposing "communist infiltration" in many areas of American life, the Supreme Court was upholding loyalty oath requirements, and the executive branch was ferreting out alleged communists in government, the U.S. Attorney General filed a pro-civil rights brief in what would become one of the most celebrated civil rights cases in American history: Brown v. Board of Education. Although seemingly at odds with the restrictive approach to individual rights in other contexts, the U.S. government's participation in the desegregation cases during the McCarthy era was no anomaly. Rather, by the early 1950s, American leaders had come to believe that civil rights reform was crucial to the more central U.S. mission of fighting world communism. Based in part on diplomatic research in State Department archives, this article demonstrates that Cold War motives influenced the U.S. government's involvement in Brown and other cases.Originally published in 1988 in the Stanford Law Review, this article was the first publication to use State Department records to examine the relationship between Cold War foreign relations and civil rights in the United States. Diplomatic records illustrate the growing concern among American diplomats and political leaders after World War II about the impact of race discrimination on the U.S. image around the world, and the global critique that the United States could not be an effective "leader of the free world" as long as the nation blatantly denied rights to its own peoples. This research confirmed the suspicions of Derrick Bell and others who argued before these records were opened that foreign affairs affected U.S. government civil rights policies, and it helped illuminate the world-wide impact of the civil rights movement. This research was expanded upon in Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2000), and in books and articles by other scholars. The larger body of work on race and foreign relations is an important aspect of efforts by historians to internationalize the study of American history. Mary L. Dudziak Articles and Essays http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/32 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/32 Fri, 16 May 2008 08:37:04 PDT In Thurgood Marshall's office after his death, draped over an armchair in the morning sun, was a cloak made of monkey skin. The cloak was from Kenya, and was among the Justice's most treasured possessions. For years, Marshall told his friends and his law clerks stories about Kenya. The cloak was a gift, he told them, from the time he was made an honorary tribal chief. But even those closest to Marshall knew little about the Kenya adventures he so keenly remembered. This short essay illuminates Marshall's work on a Bill of Rights for Kenya in the early 1960s as an exercise in constitutional borrowing. When Marshall went to Kenya he "looked over just about every constitution in the world just to see what was good," and he told an interviewer that the United States Constitution was "the best I've ever seen." But at a conference in London on the Kenya constitution, he offered a draft bill of rights for Kenya that had no American constitutional language in it. The rights Marshall embraced as ideal, at least for an emerging African country, drew most extensively from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and parts were based on the constitutions of two newly independent countries, Nigeria and Malaya. Marshall's American sensibility appeared in his document most clearly in his assumption that independent courts would enforce the bill of rights, and his emphasis on equality, something he still hoped to realize in his own country.The essay is published in Green Bag. The full story of Marshall's work in Kenya is told in Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press, 2008)(see http://www.exportingamericandreams.blogspot.com/). Mary L. Dudziak Articles and Essays http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/31 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/31 Thu, 08 May 2008 08:47:14 PDT Book description from Oxford University Press:Thurgood Marshall became a living icon of civil rights when he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954. Six years later, he was at a crossroads. A rising generation of activists were making sit-ins and demonstrations rather than lawsuits the hallmark of the civil rights movement. What role, he wondered, could he now play? When in 1960 Kenyan independence leaders asked him to help write their constitution, Marshall threw himself into their cause. Here was a new arena in which law might serve as the tool with which to forge a just society.In Exporting American Dreams, Mary Dudziak recounts with poignancy and power the untold story of Marshall's journey to Africa. African Americans were enslaved when the U.S. constitution was written. In Kenya, Marshall could become something that had not existed in his own country: a black man helping to found a nation. He became friends with Kenyan leaders Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta, serving as advisor to the Kenyans, who needed to demonstrate to Great Britain and to the world that they would treat minority races (whites and Asians) fairly once Africans took power. He crafted a bill of rights, aiding constitutional negotiations that helped enable peaceful regime change, rather than violent resistance.Marshall's involvement with Kenya's foundation affirmed his faith in law, while also forcing him to understand how the struggle for justice could be compromised by the imperatives of sovereignty. Marshall's beliefs were most sorely tested later in the decade when he became a Supreme Court Justice, even as American cities erupted in flames and civil rights progress stalled. Kenya's first attempt at democracy faltered, but Marshall's African journey remained a cherished memory of a time and a place when all things seemed possible.Endorsements:"Dudziak brings out with impressive clarity how Thurgood Marshall's greatness stemmed from his Whitman-esque ability to contain multitudes: committed to the rule of law, he could chide Kenya's new leadership for departing even slightly from it, work for justice in segregated America, and sustain a relationship with young civil rights activists taking direct and 'illegal' action in the early 1960s."--Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School and author of Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1956-1961 "In this gem of a book, Mary Dudziak brings vividly to life the important but little known history of Thurgood Marshall's intense involvement with Kenya during its journey toward independence in the 1960s. This great champion of the American civil rights struggle never relinquished his hope that democracy and equality would one day flourish in Kenya, even as he became painfully aware of the obstacles that stood in the path of this dream. A powerful and poignant story, beautifully told."--Gary Gerstle, Vanderbilt University and author of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century "By dint of creative and exhaustive research, Mary Dudziak has written an excellent book about a facet of Thurgood Marshall's career that has never before received substantial attention. Who knew that 'Mr. Civil Rights' contributed significantly to African as well as American legal systems. All students of this great man's life owe a major debt to Professor Dudziak's labors."--Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School and author of Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal Mary L. Dudziak Books http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/30 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/30 Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:45:48 PST Mary L. Dudziak Short Essays and Op-Eds http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/29 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/29 Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:07:36 PST Mary L. Dudziak Short Essays and Op-Eds http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/28 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/28 Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:55:02 PST This is a story about a case long forgotten. It was a case that needed to be forgotten, to safeguard the meaning of American justice. The case of "Death for a Dollar Ninety-Five" began one July night in Marion, Alabama, in 1957, and soon captured the attention of the world. It involved an African American man, a white woman, and the robbery of a small amount of change late in the evening. The conviction was swift and the penalty was death. International criticism soon rained down on the Alabama Governor and the American Secretary of State, leading to clemency and a life sentence. For $1.95. And the case was forgotten. This story helps us to see the way narratives of American justice and injustice are managed. The United States identifies itself with the rule of law, and so miscarriages of justice are often perceived as breaches in that identity, violations of the nation's own core principles. Resolutions of miscarriages of injustice, this paper will argue, are often about repairing a breach in American identity, making America whole again. What happens to the person at the center of the story is, at best, secondary. For the story to turn out right, the nation is restored, and the person is forgotten. NOTE: This essay is no longer available on-line. On-line access will be restored on year after the collection of essays is in print. To receive a copy of the essay, please contact Susan Davis at sdavis@law.usc.edu. Mary L. Dudziak Articles and Essays http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/27 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/27 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:29:38 PST Mary L. Dudziak Short Essays and Op-Eds http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/26 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/26 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:48:00 PST Mary L. Dudziak Articles and Essays http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/25 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/25 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:44:49 PST Mary L. Dudziak Short Essays and Op-Eds http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/24 http://works.bepress.com/mary_dudziak/24 Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:18:12 PST Mary L. Dudziak Short Essays and Op-Eds