The Idea of Citizenship in the Early Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

Luther P. Jackson was a key supporter of the Association for the study of Negro Life and History and a leading historian of the African American experience. As a leader in the voting rights movement in Virginia as well a prominent activist within region-wide civil rights organizations, Jackson crafted a message of black citizenship that balanced rights and civic duties. His emphasis on political engagement and civic consciousness transcended the specific issues that occupied civil rights activists of the 1940s. This philosophy of political commitment tied the black freedom struggle to the fulfillment of the democratic promise enshrined in the founding documents of the American republic. It also connected the movement for racial justice to the working-class movement for union organization and economic democracy. His effort to place citizenship front-and-center in the civil rights movement echoed the universal ideals of the American crusade to free the world of fascism. It also resonated with the egalitarian aspirations of the Reconstruction era. By linking black equality to political engagement, Jackson set out the only terms under which full equality could be achieved. As much as his message of justice through citizenship challenged the racial orthodoxies of his day, it challenges our contemporary society, transfixed as it is by the illusions of consumerism and marketplace privatization. As Carter G. Woodson and Luther Jackson both understood, racial justice required more than historical consciousness; it required political awareness grounded in a sense of civic responsibility.