Date of Award
Fall 2011
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
School
Humanities
Committee Chair
Curtis Austin
Committee Chair Department
History
Committee Member 2
Susannah Ural
Committee Member 2 Department
History
Committee Member 3
Chester Morgan
Committee Member 3 Department
History
Abstract
Utilizing monthly reports and correspondence of civil rights organizations, in addition to newspaper coverage, oral histories; and memoirs, this study shows that a grassroots, community-driven movement mobilized in Mississippi's capital to challenge institutionalized discrimination. Yet, racial identity did not dictate exclusively how White and Black Mississippians responded to the unfolding Civil Rights Movement. Conflicting and shifting motivations shaped the nature, extent, and pace by which Blacks and Whites challenged or protected status quo discrimination. The Jackson Movement began as early as 1955 and sustained protest activity into the 1960s. By the summer of 1965, Jackson's Black community secured most of its original demands for nondiscriminatory service and employment, but competing socioeconomic interests increasingly limited the pace of further social change in Jackson and in the broader Mississippi Movement.
Copyright
2011, Matthew David Monroe
Recommended Citation
Monroe, Matthew David, "Jackson, Mississippi, Contested: The Allied Struggle for Civil Rights and Human Dignity" (2011). Master's Theses. 459.
https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/459