Articles written by Ron Goodwin
Showing 50 Articles
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Blacks in the Progressive Era
The Progressive Era was a time of intense reform, but for most blacks it was a transition; not from slavery to freedom, but from slavery to Jim Crow.
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FDR's Urban Paternalism
FDR believed the government should promote paternalistic housing policies to provide for those devastated by the Depression, but there were unintended consequences.
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Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton
While they historically appeared as ideological opposites, both Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton contributed to the early political identity of America.
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The Lord is My Sheppard
Martin Luther King, Jr. answered his religious critics by asserting that social activism was his Christian duty as a believer and follower of Jesus Christ.
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Booker T. Washington and WEB DuBois
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois differed on their social agendas, but they each agreed that blacks deserved full American citizenship.
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Redeemers and Radicals
By 1890, the Redeemers returned the South to political "home rule" which led to the complete disenfranchisement of the new black electorate.
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Prophetic Influences
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ideals of ministry and social activism were influenced by the dynamic ministries of his maternal grandfather and father.
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The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation declared the Union would fight to end slavery, but its promises of full citizenship initially went unfulfilled.
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Forty Acres and a Mule
Sharecropping replaced slavery as the southern labor system after the Civil War and became just as restrictive to the freedoms of blacks.
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The Reconstructing America
The United States should have flourished during the Reconstruction, but instead failed to provide equal status for its black citizens.
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The LBJ Influence
The Great Society was a philosophical descendant of the New Deal and introduced civil rights legislation that finally brought an end to Jim Crow.
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The Louisiana Purchase
With the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson initiated imperialistic policies in expanding American ideals across this continent and eventually throughout the world.
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Scott v Sandford and Plessy v Ferguson
The Supreme Court's decisions in Scott and Plessy cases established a legal framework for the social and economic subjugation of blacks in the 20th century.
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W.E.B. DuBois and the Niagra Movement
The social movement that began in Niagara culminated with the direct nonviolent confrontation strategy of the Montgomery Improvement Association.
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The Devil's Wagon
The automobile ended the isolation of the rural farms and established the mobility needed for the migration to the cities.
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Displacement of the Urban Poor
Interstate highways and urban renewal programs often destroyed inner city housing units which inadvertently segregated urban neighborhoods throughout the country.
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Suburbs and Race
The urban exodus of the American white-middle class exposed the underlying racism that spatially transformed American cities.
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Black Soldiers and Jim Crow
While black soldiers defended democracy overseas they still suffered under intense Jim Crow racism at home.
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The Atlantic Slave Trade
The establishment of the Atlantic slave trade was economically motivated and ignored the humanity in forced bondage.
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Federal Subsidies and Urban Transportation
Federal transportation subsidies meant to improve urban mobility inadvertently created our Auto-Nation with the car as the centerpiece of urban transportation planning.
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Educating Blacks in the Post-Civil War Era
Even in the atmosphere of intense violence, Freedmen's Bureau agents committed themselves to the education of Texas' former slaves.
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Being Poor in Depression Era Texas
In the 1930s, Texas' poor struggled to adjust to rapidly increasing unemployment and homelessness plus the emotional scares that lasted long after the economy recovered.
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Listening to the Voices of the Oppressed
By the 1930s new interpretations of the South, the Civil War, and slavery were being considered because of the first person perspectives of former slaves.
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Fighting Communism or New Deal Liberalism?
The threat of communism led to the creation of the HUAC which was designed to protect American society capitalism from internal and external threats.
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Blacks in Civil War Texas
Traditionally, Texas' Civil War experiences excluded those of black slaves even though they were also first-hand witnesses.
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Isolation and Hopelessness
After WWI, black urbanization was often met with intense violence, leaving blacks isolated and segregated in the hopelessness of a ghetto existence.
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Jimmy Snyder and the Greek Tragedy
In 1988, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder inadvertently reopened an old societal wound by claiming that blacks were better athletes because they were bred during slavery.
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The KKK v. the Freedmen's Bureau
Even though the Civil War ended in 1865, the new war for white supremacy in the South raged on throughout the Reconstruction era.
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Suburbanization and the American Dream
The process of suburbanization resulted in the abandonment of many inner cities across the country which led to racial segregation and heighten class divisiveness.
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Texas Politics and New Deal Paternalism
Many of Texas' depression-era politicians were leery of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal paternalism, but the statewide need was too great not to accept federal funds.
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American Styled Racism
American racism and bigotry developed from its own distinct origins that have generally been debunked as baseless and unfounded propaganda.
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Sweat v Painter
The legal fight to end Jim Crow's did not begin with Brown v. Board of Education, but with a series of court battles that included a postal worker from Houston, Texas.
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Urban Renewal and Highway Legislations
Legislations encouraging urban renewal and enhanced mobility significantly improved the living conditions in American cities, but also deconstructed many urban areas.
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Booker T. Washington and Jim Crow
Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech ignited the racial debate over whether integration or segregation was the best path for economic equality.
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Plantation Overseers
In order to maximize plantation profits, slave owners often hired professional overseers whose management techniques typically included the brutal treatment of slaves.
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Black Journalism and Social Justice
Black journalists have proven to be a powerful and influential voice in the Black community. Even in the face of Jim Crow segregation Black journalists spoke out against
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Soul on Ice
Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice defined the experiences of too many young black males in the 1960s and they struggled to move beyond Jim Crow and into the Great Society.
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Stopping Slave Runaways
Evidence from antebellum newspapers suggests that runaways were commonplace and slaveholders used various strategies reclaim their slaves.
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Antebellum Slavery and Religion
This country was founded on the belief that God was sovereign and merciful. However, the antebellum slave owner often used religion in maintaining social control.
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Antebellum Slave Patrols
There is little doubt that owners and overseers exercised strict control over slaves on the plantation. However, slave patrols were needed to provide regional oversight.
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Slave Breeding in the Antebellum South
While there is little historical consensus regarding the breeding of slaves, the oral histories of former slaves verify the vile practice did exist.
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Slave Emancipation
The responses to the defeat of the Confederacy were ones of uncertainty and fear, for blacks and whites. Naturally racial animosity erupted as the Union army forced a con
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From Normalcy to Great Depression
While most Americans eagerly anticipated a return to "Normalcy" after WWI, the economic prosperity of the 1920s was a mirage that camouflaged the coming economic crisis t
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Martin Dies and the HUAC
Alarmed by possible communist subversives, conservatives used the politics of fear to maintain and preserve the principles of democracy and capitalism.
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Slavery and the Lost Cause
Even though slave apologists argued that slaves were ignorant and childlike, former slaves recalled understanding the ramifications of the Civil War.
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Malcolm X and American History
In educating his followers, Malcolm X often spoke of the history of the Black man in America and argued that his true history was purposefully hidden from him.
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Urban Violence in Houston, Texas
The city of Houston, Texas, experienced two defining racial conflicts separated by five decades and linked by the overzealous and racist actions of the Houston Police.
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Texas Slave Narratives and the Civil War
The Texas Slave Narratives illustrates that slaves were not only aware of the Civil War, but how it changed slavery and their first experiences of freedom.
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Antebellum Slave Rebellions
Rebellions and physical confrontations were ways in which slaves fought against the power of the Master to regain some sense of control over their lives.
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The New Deal and Black Politics
With the support of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Black politics changed the political paradigm of the New Deal and influenced American politics for several generations.
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