My name is Lawrence Christopher Skufca. I am a civil rights activist and community organizer in the Camden, New Jersey area.
I hold a Juris Doctor from Rutgers School of Law; a B.A. in Political Science from Furman University; and an A.A. in the Social Sciences from Tri-County Technical College.
This episode of Crash Course in Politics provides a general overview of your First Amendment right to free speech. Theoretically, this right allows you to critique the government without fear of retaliation. But it’s essential to remember that not ALL speech is protected equally under the First Amendment, and it only applies to the government. Therefore, just because you have a right to free speech doesn’t mean your private employer, for instance, can’t fire you for something you say (unless your work for the government and then things get a bit more complicated). Discussed are significant Supreme Court cases that have brought us to our current definition of free speech, and some of the more controversial aspects of free speech – like hate speech.
This episode of Crash Course in Politics provides a general overview of the First Amendment and the freedom of religion. It examines some significant Supreme Court decisions and discusses how they’ve affected our interpretations of the law with respect to issues like animal sacrifice and prayer in schools. As you’ll see, there aren’t always clearly defined, or bright-line, rules in approaching these legal questions. Sometimes tests have to be developed to account for the ever-changing nature of the law and it’s applications.
This episode of Crash Course in Government provides a general overview of civil rights and civil liberties. These terms are often used interchangeably, but they are actually very different. Our civil liberties, contained in the Bill of Rights, once only protected us from the federal government, but slowly these liberties have been incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment to protect us from the states. We’ll take a look at how this has happened and the supreme court cases that got us here.
The 1976 BBC documentary, The Great Sit Down, focuses on the United Auto Workers’ struggle for recognition and the sit-down strikes against General Motors which took place in February 1937.
At 8 p.m. on December 30, 1936, in one of the first sit-down strikes in the United States, autoworkers occupy the General Motors Fisher Body Plant Number One in Flint, Michigan. The autoworkers were striking to win recognition of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as the only bargaining agent for GM’s workers; they also wanted to make the company stop sending work to non-union plants and to establish a fair minimum wage scale, a grievance system and a set of procedures that would help protect assembly-line workers from injury. In all, the strike lasted 44 days.
The Flint sit-down strike was not spontaneous; UAW leaders, inspired by similar strikes across Europe, had been planning it for months. The strike actually began at smaller plants: Fisher Body in Atlanta on November 16, GM in Kansas City on December 16 and a Fisher stamping plant in Cleveland on December 28. The Flint plant was the biggest coup, however: it contained one of just two sets of body dies that GM used to stamp out almost every one of its 1937 cars. By seizing control of the Flint plant, autoworkers could shut down the company almost entirely.
So, on the evening of December 30, the Flint Plant’s night shift simply stopped working. They locked themselves in and sat down. “She’s ours!” one worker shouted.
GM argued that the strikers were trespassing and got a court order demanding their evacuation; still, the union men stayed put. GM turned off the heat in the buildings, but the strikers wrapped themselves in coats and blankets and hunkered down. On January 11, police tried to cut off the strikers’ food supply; in the resulting riot, known as the “Battle of the Running Bulls,” 16 workers and 11 policemen were injured and the UAW took over the adjacent Fisher Two plant. On February 1, the UAW won control of the enormous Chevrolet No. 4 engine factory. GM’s output went from a robust 50,000 cars in December to just 125 in February.
Despite GM’s enormous political clout, Michigan Governor Frank Murphy refused to use force to break the strike. Though the sit-ins were illegal, he believed, he also believed that authorizing the National Guard to break the strike would be an enormous mistake. “If I send those soldiers right in on the men,” he said, “there’d be no telling how many would be killed.” As a result, he declared, “The state authorities will not take sides. They are here only to protect the public peace.”
Meanwhile, President Roosevelt urged GM to recognize the union so that the plants could reopen. In mid-February, the automaker signed an agreement with the UAW. Among other things, the workers were given a 5 percent raise and permission to speak in the lunchroom.
Copyright Disclaimer:
Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
“The Fight in the Fields” traces the history of the United Farmworkers Union and the life of its founder, César Chávez, from his birth in Arizona, his education into organizing and non-violence, his formation of the union, to his death in 1993. It includes newsreel footage of the Delano grape boycott, Senate hearings conducted by Robert F. Kennedy, Chávez’s fasts, encounters with growers and rival Teamsters. Recent interviews with Chávez family members, Ethyl Kennedy, Roger Cardinal Mahony, Governor Jerry Brown, and current and past UFW leaders round out the history and assessment of Chávez and the Union.
The 1960s was a turbulent decade in American history, fraught with political conflicts ranging from racial equality to the war in Vietnam. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, one of the least studied social movements of the 1960s, encompassed a broad cross section of issues—from restoration of land grants, to farm workers rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political rights. The video documentary Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, a four-part documentary series, corrects this oversight. Ground-breaking for the material it covers, the series is one of the few to address the history of Mexican Americans in general and that of the Chicano Movement in particular; it is an indispensable resource for scholars and students.
Part 4, “Fighting for Political Power,” discusses the creation of La Raza Unida Party as a third party force for Mexican-American political power which demanded social justice in the Latin American community. It culminates with the Raza Unida convention, the 1972 election and the fragmentation of the party at the height of its membership and recognition.
After America was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 consigning 127,000 people of Japanese ancestry to internment camps. Fred Korematsu challenged the internment all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In “Korematsu v. United States” (1944), the Court sided with the government.
In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”. The U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans.
Chinese peasants from the Canton Province began arriving on California’s shores in 1850, pushed by poverty and overpopulation from their homeland — and pulled forward by rumors of the Gum Sham, the Mountain of Gold, that awaited them across the ocean. Initially, they took five-year stints in the mines, after which they prospected or accepted jobs as laborers, domestic workers, and fishermen. As their presence increased, the Chinese immigrants faced growing prejudice and an increasingly restrictive laws limiting opportunity. When Leland Stanford was elected governor of California in 1862, he promised in his inaugural address to protect the state from “the dregs of Asia.” Stanford, at least, would change his tune.
Labor Shortage
In early 1865 the Central Pacific had work enough for 4,000 men. Yet contractor Charles Crocker barely managed to hold onto 800 laborers at any given time. Most of the early workers were Irish immigrants. Railroad work was hard, and management was chaotic, leading to a high attrition rate. The Central Pacific management puzzled over how it could attract and retain a work force up to the enormous task. In keeping with prejudices of the day, some Central Pacific officials believed that Irishmen were inclined to spend their wages on liquor, and that the Chinese were also unreliable. Yet, due to the critical shortage, Crocker suggested that reconsideration be given to hiring Chinese. He encountered strong prejudice from foreman James Harvey Strobridge.
Impressive Workers
Strobridge’s attitude changed when a group of Irish laborers agitated over wages. Crocker told Strobridge to recruit some Chinese in their place. Instantly, the Irishmen abandoned their dispute. Sensing at least that fear of competition might motivate his men, Strobridge grudgingly agreed to hire 50 Chinese men as wagon-fillers. Their work ethic impressed him, and he hired more Chinese workers for more difficult tasks. Soon, labor recruiters were scouring California, and Crocker hired companies to advertise the work in China. The number of Chinese workers on CP payrolls began increasing by the shipload. Several thousand Chinese men had signed on by the end of that year; the number rose to a high of 12,000 in 1868, comprising at least 80% of the Central Pacific workforce. “Wherever we put them, we found them good,” Crocker recalled, “and they worked themselves into our favor to such an extent that if we found we were in a hurry for a job of work, it was better to put Chinese on at once.”
“Celestials”
The Chinese workers were punctual, willing, and well-behaved — sometimes referred to as “Celestials” in reflection of their spiritual beliefs. They were quite unlike their Caucasian counterparts, who quickly resented the growing competition and harassed the foreigners. Crocker and Strobridge made clear to the Irishmen that they could work alongside the Chinese crews or be replaced by them. The ultimatum may not have cured the anger of the white crews, but it sufficed to quell rebellion.
Less Pay
The Chinese teams were organized into groups of 20 under one white foreman; as the difficulty of construction increased, so often did the size of the gangs. Initially, Chinese employees received wages of $27 and then $30 a month, minus the cost of food and board. In contrast, Irishmen were paid $35 per month, with board provided.
Healthier Habits
Workers lived in canvas camps alongside the grade. In the mountains, wooden bunkhouses protected them from the drifting snow, although these were often compromised by the elements. Each gang had a cook who purchased dried food from the Chinese districts of Sacramento and San Francisco to prepare on site. While Irish crews stuck to an unvarying menu of boiled food — beef & potatoes — the Chinese ate vegetables and seafood, and kept live pigs and chickens for weekend meals. To the dull palates of the Irishmen, the Chinese menu was a full-blown sensory assault. The newcomers seemed alien in other ways: they bathed themselves, washed their clothes, stayed away from whiskey. Instead of water they drank lukewarm tea, boiled in the mornings and dispensed to them throughout the day. In such a manner they avoided the dysentery that ravaged white crews.
A Famous Retort
As work crews approached the summit, Strobridge continued to doubt the suitability of Chinese to certain tasks. When a group of Irish masons struck for higher wages, Crocker suggested using Chinese men in their place. The foreman objected. Famously, Crocker replied, “Did they not build the Chinese Wall, the biggest piece of masonry in the world?” Strobridge acquiesced, and Chinese crews were soon laying stone.
The Ten-Mile Day
Toward the end of the line, Crocker was so convinced of the skill of his Irish and Chinese workers that he decided to try for a record by laying 10 miles of track in one day. April 28, 1868 was the appointed day, and Crocker had prepared well. “One by one, platform cars dumped their iron, two miles of material in each trainload, and teams of Irishmen fairly ran the five-hundred-pound rails and hardware forward,” writes author David Bain. “Straighteners led the Chinese gangs shoving the rails in place and keeping them to gauge while spikers walked down the ties, each man driving one particular spike and not stopping for another, moving on to the next rail; levelers and fillers followed, raising ties where needed, shoveling dirt beneath, tamping and moving on….” Watching the scene was a team of soldiers. Its commander praised Crocker and his workers for their effort to lay so much rail in so little time. “Mr. Crocker, I never saw such organization as that; it was like an army marching over the ground and leaving a track built behind them.”
From the award-winning PBS series American Experience comes We Shall Remain, a provocative look at the historical relationship between Native Americans and the United States government. In 1973, American Indian Movement activists and members of the Lakota Indian tribe residing on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota occupied the town of Wounded Knee, demanding the removal of a corrupt tribal council leader and a redress of past grievances. The 71 day stand-off between approximately 200 American Indians and the U.S. Government brought national attention to the institutional assault against the cultural identity of American Indians and the poverty and corruption on Indian reservations. The courageous stand by the activists led to a groundswell of public support allowing thousands of assimilated Indians across the country to reaffirm their cultural pride.
Black In America is a multi-part series of documentaries hosted by reporter Soledad O’Brien on CNN. The series focuses on black culture in America and includes panel discussions on issues facing the black community. The fifth installment in the series, Who is Black in America? focuses on how skin tone and mixed ancestry affect racial identity. This episode questions whether being black is determined by the color of your skin, society’s perception, the dominant culture of your family, or self-identification? Soledad O’Brien follows the story of 2 young Philadelphia poets as they explore their racial identity through workshops conducted by their mentor, Perry “Vision” Divirgilio of Philly Youth Poetry Movement. Scholar Yaba Blay analyzes the influences skin color can have on racial identity and social opportunity.
Camden Civil Rights Project 