Seeking Inalienable Rights

by Reid, Debra A.

• ISBN13: 9781603441230
• ISBN10: 1603441239
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-09-28
• Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr

Summary

Seeking Inalienable Rights explores how specific groups of Texans fought to be included as part of that constitutional "we" by pursuing their basic rights, from the post-Civil War period to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Reflecting the multiracial character of Texas history, this collection of original essays addresses the complex nature of rights activism in the state. Contributors show how conservatives often protected their rights by failing to expand rights for others, and how liberals responded to such restrictions by pursuing their own dreams of equality. Taken together, these articles indicate the differences of opinion about access to inalienable rights, as well as specific rights of citizenship

Author Biography

Debra A. Reid is associate professor of history at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Her most recent publication is Reaping a Greater Harvest (Texas AM University Press, 2007). She received a PhD in history from Texas AM University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. xiii
Early Organizing in the Search for Equality: African American Conventions in Late Nineteenth-Century Texas	p. 1
Crucial Decade for Texas Labor: Railway Union Struggles, 1886-96	p. 17
Racism and Sexism in Rural Texas: The Contested Nature of Progressive Rural Reform, 1870s-1910s	p. 37
Fighting on the Home Front: The Rhetoric of Woman Suffrage in World War I	p. 59
Contrasts in Neglect: Progressive Municipal Reform in Dallas and San Antonio	p. 77
Religious Moderates and Race: The Texas Christian Life Commission and the Call for Racial Reconciliation, 1954-68	p. 97
Elusive Unity: African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Civil Rights in Houston	p. 123
Chicanismo and the Flexible Fourteenth Amendment: 1960s Agitation and Litigation by Mexican American Youth in Texas	p. 147
Contributors	p. 169
Index	p. 173
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