The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations during the Civil Rights Era

It might seem that African Americans and Mexican Americans would have common cause in matters of civil rights. This volume, which considers relations between blacks and browns during the civil rights era, carefully examines the complex and multifaceted realities that complicate such assumptions—and that revise our view of both the civil rights struggle and black-brown relations in recent history. Unique in its focus, innovative in its methods, and broad in its approach to various locales and time periods, the book provides key perspectives to understanding the development of America’s ethnic and sociopolitical landscape. These essays focus chiefly on the Southwest, where Mexican Americans and African Americans have had a long history of civil rights activism. Among the cases the authors take up are the unification of black and Chicano civil rights and labor groups in California; divisions between Mexican Americans and African Americans generated by the War on Poverty; and cultural connections established by black and Chicano musicians during the period. Together these cases present the first truly nuanced picture of the conflict and cooperation, goodwill and animosity, unity and disunity that played a critical role in the history of both black-brown relations and the battle for civil rights. Their insights are especially timely, as black-brown relations occupy an increasingly important role in the nation’s public life.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations   000 Introduction      000       Brian D. Behnken 1. Not Similar Enough: Mexican American and African American Civil Rights Struggles in the 1940s 000       Lisa Y. Ramos 2. The Movement in the Mirror: Civil Rights and the Causes of Black-Brown Disunity in Texas      000       Brian D. Behnken 3. Complicating the Beloved Community: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the National Farm Workers Association   000       Lauren Araiza 4. The Neighborhood Adult Participation Project: Black-Brown Strife in the War on Poverty in Los Angeles 000       Robert Bauman 5. "Mexican versus Negro Approaches" to the War on Poverty: Black-Brown Competition and the Office of Economic Opportunity in Texas   000       William Clayson 6. Cesar and Martin, March 68   000       Jorge Mariscal 7. Black, Brown, and Poor: Civil Rights and the Making of the Chicano Movement 000       Gordon Mantler 8. Brown-Eyed Soul: Popular Music and Cultural Politics in Los Angeles  000       Luis Alvarez and Daniel Widener 9. Raising a Neighborhood: Informal Networks between African American and Mexican American Women in South Central Los Angeles  000       Abigail Rosas 10. A New Day in Babylon: African American and Mexican American Relations at the Dawn of the Millennium  000       Matthew C. Whitaker List of Contributors    000Index 000