Daniel Aaron Lazar » USH: Civil Rights Movement

The story behind LBJ’s pursuit of the civil rights bill

Dan Lazar — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:58:20 +0000

President Lyndon Johnson, domineering and manipulative, lives on in American memory as the classic power broker. He bullied opponents, sweet-talked skeptics, and chewed out subordinates. He oozed confidence as he passed one piece of landmark social legislation after another, even as his cockiness helped to mire the country in Vietnam. Yet this is not the Johnson who emerges from volumes seven and eight of The Presidential Recordings, a transcription of his phone conversations from June 1 to July 4 of 1964.

The End of White America?

Dan Lazar — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:22:30 +0000

Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities-blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians-will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.

A superb editorial from Harper’s

The End of White America?

Dan Lazar — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:44:54 +0000

The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like-and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided-or more so?

Read this brilliant piece from The Atlantic

Congressman, Civil Rights Icon John Lewis

Dan Lazar — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:24:23 +0000

Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) became part of the civil-rights movement while he was a teenager. From 1963 to 1966, he chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And he became a close associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Lewis has been a congressman since 1987.

Enjoy 30 inspiring minutes with Congressman Lewis

Opposing Perspectives on Civil Disobedience

Dan Lazar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:11:25 +0000

Howard Zinn’s essay, The Problem is Civil Obedience

Erwin Canham’s essay, How Civil Disobedience Erodes the Structure of Society

My Lecture on Civil Duty