In civil rights and the making of the modern american state, naacp one examines how the Civil Rights Movement and particularly the naacp affected the american political lens the century. This event is an hour. I will introduce Megan Ming Francis. I will talk a little bit more about the professional and personal. Megan ming francis is an assistant professor in the department of Political Science at the university of washington at seattle. She won her b. A. In Political Science and economics at Rice University in 2003 and soon after in 2008 she earned her doctorate in politics at Princeton University where she worked with melissa harris. And cornell west. Field two positions at the university of chicago and the Indiana University school before joining Pepperdine University where she was an assistant professor for four years and got quite distant following teaching courses on politics and law in society. Megan ming franciss workers at the intersection of american politics, race, constitutional law and history and she is particularly interested in riots and citizenship and the politics of cannibalism. She is the author of civil rights and the making of the modern american state which was published this year on Cambridge University press. This book argues the naacp argued a pivotal role in the growth of federal court our income on procedure and subsequently in civil rights by helping the Supreme Court nestle jurisdiction from state courts in the First Quarter of the 20th century. In this way, i conceive of her work as an archival project in line with linda gilmores recent work Megan Ming Francis the radical refreshing of the Civil Rights Movement to start earlier. It is a counterbalance that the Civil Rights Movement is situated in the 1960s and 1970s. That is something Megan Ming Francis will talk about and she is currently on work on the second book project, a role criminaljustice system and the rebuilding of suffering, political and economic power after the civil war. On a personal level and have known meghan for 15 years which is shocking to say. We graduated from rice together and graduate opposite sides, we worked alongside each other and various facets of student activism including campus recruitment and retention, campus programming, the quality and advancing diversity. He served in advancing diversity and the need for cultural exchange. We both go to the usual routes of success and to our parents initial design a chose to pursue because thes rather than go to law school or mids glad our respective Ivy League Institutions often meeting in equidistance meeting points between newhaven and princeton. Over the years to regroup, throat academic shed and minister each other through the up process. After five years and five winters on the east coast we both ended up in sunny los angeles and as usual got each other through the first initial years of the ten year track. Now in my figures ucla i can said of a large measure of my success to my good friend should these past 13 plus years and specifically her constant support. It is with great pleasure that i introduced her for the stock today. [applause] that was wonderful. And me set why watch so i dont go over like that do with my classes. Thank you so much for coming and hearing the speak between the al gore of noon and 1 00 p. M. About my book project. On want to thank the center for the invitation to talk today about my book. I really appreciate it. It is especially great to be at ucla where i think a lot of exciting work around africanamerican studies is being done and this is a really exciting place. One of the most exciting places in the country. This is also a really great place for me to give a talk for two other reasons. One, i used to live in l. A. And i still consider it home. Havent seen the sun in a long time. I am very happy to be here. Second, i have a number of friends in the el faherty a. In particular item want to thank at it all for the introduction. Insisting years ago with wideeyed frustration, play all nighters in the library there and somehow we both went to seoul crushing ideally institutions, eland princeton end in the in new york to discuss the reprocess of the graduate school process and yet somehow in 2010 we both moved to los angeles together. And so he has seen me through the processes more than anybody else and so we both dont have husbands he has come closest to being one in terms of support so thank you. That this is about a graduate course stories. Is the talk about my book which sounds so very we did to me but is not a book. It is called civil rights and the making of the modern american state, and the rush. Let me try it this. Is called civil rights and the making of the modern american state. Does it work . Were going to do this impromptu, everybody. It is called civil rights and the making of the modern american state. I want to start by saying as an academic, and Different Things inspire us to write and research. For me is the retelling of stories we think we already know but we dont really, telling them and retelling them. With that said what i want to do is i want to begin with a story about a transformed of civil rights struggle waged by the naacp and a landmark Supreme Court decision that resulted from it. The struggle which began before the case was heard in the Supreme Court centered on helping africanamericans to secure the same Citizenship Rights the whites in july. Focus on the most blatant forms of general in justice, the naacp amount of Public Opinion campaign that translated into legal arguments the delivered before the Supreme Court. Violation of the fourteenth amendment, the naacp argued africanamericans were denied their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court agreed to hand the naacp their greatest legal victory up to that point in their history. It changed the operation of jim crow in the south and in doing so simultaneously enraged what southerners even though it difficult to africanamericans long frustrated with the undermining of their citizenship. Megan ming francis the courses decision, one of the naacp leaders wrote, and i am quoting here, the Supreme Court decision in a notable case that becomes one of the milestones, an achievement important at any event since the signing of the emancipation proclamation. Moving forward the naacp Supreme Court victory in this case fuelled the struggle for equal citizenship that defined africanamerican politics in the 20th century. More importantly it proved the naacp could reach a the constitutional land skid and respect of the highest court in the nation. With this description could be used to describe the and the n. A. A. C. P. Landmark victory in brown vs. Board, a legal victory in a case called dempsey, it was decided 30 years before the infamous brown versus board decision decided by the Supreme Court in 54. The decision by the Supreme Court constituted a turning point in the did the she area expansion of its powers and its role in criminal procedure. Involved 12 africanamerican sharecroppers from Phillips County in arkansas who are sentenced to die by the electric chair. Each receive the trial that was less than 15 minutes in a court room occupied by a menacing modern that threatened the jury that they did not sentence the men to debt that would not bring the mob would bring the jury to them. Five years after losing the case, 12 could the convicted that day were set free as the Supreme Court declared mob dominated trials violated due process for the fourteenth amendment. When the Supreme Court handed down its decision many found it shocking mob dominated trial, with africanamericans, widely accepted practices ever since the legal end of slavery. When we talk about Supreme Court protections in the area, it seemed like you cant torture somebody into a confession, cant put them in an electric chair or have mobs in a court room. Early in the 20th centuries new protections, new ways the federal government were coming into state and telling them what defined what a fair trial is. This marked a turning point and legal discourse. And unjust state criminal court proceedings. After this case the Supreme Court continued to expand its power and press forward in creating new constitutional law and innovative standards. Morgan dempsey represents a critical moment when the powers of the federal court expanded in less than a century we have gone to a judiciary and strong individual state court power. Federal courts now understood as a venue the pressures of civil rights and Civil Liberties to be resolved. And the questions i could not yet answer would be available literature on the naacp, civil rights and Constitutional Development. Ayn rand an undergrad, i came upon this case earlier in the graduate study. There are three questions at the center of my book project i had been wrestling with the past ten years. The first one is what explains enlarging of the federal court system in the United States. And away from state courts and the area of criminal law in the keys of dempsey and the most important question, can civil rights organizations impact the the Better Development of the american states . As it stands most civil rights scholarships pink the naacp has focused on legal victories. This is a wellborn narrative of the naacp in the american imagination right now. Today is to bring good decision in brown vs. Board of education is the most wellknown Supreme Court case Public Opinion poll after Public Opinion poll reveals this. Many of us who follow civil rights know the naacp was very active in housing discrimination lawsuits and voted disenfranchisement cases. One of the contemporary legal political leaders who Megan Ming Francis this sentiment, barack obama while a state senator remarked on a radio show, quote, one of the tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement was because the Civil Rights Movement was a Supreme Court focused. There was a tendency to lose track of the political and Community Organizing activities on the ground that put together the actual coalition, power. Jerry rosenberg called courts hollow hopes to gain civil Rights Groups because it is his belief they are constrained and unable to bring about significant social change. The arguments reflect a common perspective of Political Science and history, the Civil Rights Movement would have greater success in organizations focused more energy on victories protests or through the political process instead of the court. It seemed civil rights organizations privileged legal tactics from the outset and largely ignored political and social arena in the race for racial equality. I am running against the established narrative as i find it lacking and representative of the actual events that unfold on the ground. The work is based on what uri mcmillan said, a mix of the number of archives, from congress to naacp archives, warren g. Harding archives along with a number of archives that are housed at harvard university. At this point i want to go into a breakdown of what i argue in my book. The project intercede in existing literature by placing the naacp at the crux of understanding building the 20th at century american state. A la three pardon. Chris cotter argued the naacp is campaigning on lynching and mob violence at the beginning of the long Civil Rights Movement, not brown vs. Board of education is too many scholars and uncritically assume or even the Labor Movement in the 40s. Second i argue bottom of change through state formation, bottom up change shakes state formation counting Political Development to decentered the role of Political Institution in this Political Science literature. And the naacp is publicized at the federal level at a time when previous scholarships suggest black organizations were inactive. It tournament the naacp played a pivotal role in the growth of Central Court power and subsequently in civil rights by helping the Supreme Court wrestle away jurisdictions and Supreme Court in the First Quarter of the 20th century. The book focuses on the extent of efforts to shift Public Opinion in pushing a legislative and executive branches of the federal government in a direction of agnew they were not yet willing to go. Finally i argue when these attempts failed to produce federal protection the naacp redirected its efforts to the Supreme Court when it took up the landmark case. On another important point this book is about wellestablished yet incomplete narratives, black voices and a black political agencies reproduced and too often in public scholarship. A bit of a critique academics in the audience in terms of intervention of my work and what i would like to argue my work intervenes. The story i told in the beginning, and not likely to be found in the american Political Development literature documenting the construction of the political and legal system in the 20th century but i think it should. Through the historical focus on political and legal institutions in the tradition of american Political Developments have drawn attention to a range of structural transformation that have defined the american system of governance, the most famous works produced studies linking institutional governance to industrialization, Party Development and social policy formation. My students, what is that . If we understand the powers of the presidency, how they exist in 2014, those are not the same powers that existed at the founding. People interested in american Political Development try to explain how the powers of the presidency expand, how do federal court power get built up over time, we use history to address what we believe our very important political questions. My traditional approach in Political Science tended to rely on a static picture of american politics. The tv is a big question about the institution, how institutions form. Despite broadening our understanding of the way Political Authority works, it is narrated the formation of the American Civil Rights tradition has overlooked the world that individuals and Grassroots Organization have played in shooting the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. It has not ignored civil rights organizations, and investigated the role of Community Levels and civil rights mobilization and its impact on the development of the american state in the post world war ii your. And be easily identified transformation United States foreign policy, and his perspective has power and fraction, cold war civil rights theory. Civil rights organizations are considered too week for Constitutional Development. During the mid 20 onest century. From this Perspective National security concerns and not civil rights mobilization ultimately give the federal government incentive to protect the lives of africanamericans during the Civil Rights Movement. For the most part cold war civil rights have set the debate for the last decade, as for literature and public law, constitutional law that addresses the Supreme Court involvement in early criminal procedure cases it also says the Supreme Court these bonds to agree dismissed characterization of justice in a way that legal scholars narrated at the beginning of the ground work of modern criminal procedure, and it was so egregious that 12 africanamerican men were going to be sentenced to die, of course the Supreme Court had to do something. This was a miscarriage of justice. Reassuring argument that is a heartfelt notion of american democracy and liberalization is incomplete. What about the impact of civil rights organizations and the american political and Constitutional Development, the literature and american politics is the most inspiring. The support of scholarships in africanamerican studies provide the narrative of africanamerican political activism and National Politics that exist within the bounds of reconstruction in of period post 1950s. The period in the middle, the time span my book is concerned with is considered a time of africanamerican inaction on the National Political scene. It is often considered to be a time, in a year of race relations. The judicial freedom struggle froebels struggles along these lines after the abolition of slavery, the period of reconstruction when africanamericans were active participants in the political and social position. However democrats over took 7 government as true troops and stripped africanamericans of their political, economic and social rights. The jim crow law, courts were introduced, finally the dominant narrative continued, unable to bear the oppression any longer with running conditions and propelled by the brown versus board of education decision africanamericans in the south took to the streets in protest and finally forced the National Government to detention. During the almost 75 year period before africanamericans are assumed to have turned inward to promote their interests to africanamerican institutions or other benevolent organizations. Numerous social historians have beautifully documented how africanamericans resisted jim crow at the local and state level but not at the national level. Political scientists for the most are affected this narrative of africanamerican political activism and the strands are mutually reinforcing, important changes in the development of the american states are attributed to overarching institutional structure, not citizen agencies. Africanamericans by default and not considered important enough to wrestle with conflicting areas of Political Science in the 20th century. Simply put africanamericans were sidelined in National Politics, and no shipping state development for this period. When we look at africanamerican politics and american political and Constitutional Development as irreconcilable parts of research it creates a blind spot, in the construction of the american state. It is precisely at the site of filings the we should probe deeper. I propose a new understanding of this interaction between africanamerican politics and political and Constitutional Development. With one side of the spectrum and Political Science, and in the middle of the debate. And put them together in a new way. The naacp in the First Quarter of the 20th century working to Public Opinion and also through lobbying president Woodrow Wilson and warren g. Harding, and the theoretical contribution, and how to think about american Political Development. My Previous Research to demonstrate the Important Role civil rights organizations play in a National State building project. By stepping back and examining change in the political and social environment, and the naacp plays. That is the literature review, thanks. At this point it is necessary to establish why the naacp could so much organizational muscle behind racial violence. If we focus on the naacp campaign against racial violence in two institutions in the federal government is important to understand why they did so. From the very beginning of the naacp in 1909, lynching and mob violence in the naacp agenda. Since racist violence was considered the greatest africanamerican north and south states gaining quality in america. In response to criticism from another board member, the Naacp Program advancement, and other areas we associate with civil rights to labour education and housing. One of the naacp simulators explained and i am quoting all the American Negro wanted was a chance to live without a rope around his neck. The naacp believed before the organization could appropriately addressed the problematic areas of civil rights it was necessary to focus on lynchings africanamericans could enjoy the benefits of their struggle. What is interesting on this slide is from 1911 which is the first year the naacp kept minutes every month. The year that more versus dempsey was decided. The purpose was to compare the frequency of other areas we now especially in the post Civil Rights Era very much associate with civil rights, education, labor and voting with the issues of criminal justice. A number of different words that relate to criminal justice and mob violence and education and labor and voting. What i found was really interesting to me in trying to assess what the naacp actually cared about in the first 10 or 20 years of the organization. The surprise was criminal justice concerns, when i say criminaljustice i mean concerns about log mob violence and lynching occupied organizations agenda from the outset. The naacp originally was performed in response to lynching and mob violence not to pursue the fight for education equality that would ultimately come to define so much of its agenda. In the luminous literature about civil rights and constitutional law there exists not one account that has detail that blank theoretical and political stake of the naacp campaign against racist violence. This neglect means the causal explanation focused on constitutional and civil rights developments are often incomplete. Very quickly, go for the case studies i had an different chapters and circled back to the Supreme Court chapter and end the implications of the research. The naacps work on Public Opinion and the presidency. At an early stage in the naacp strategy, the executive branch, and in the federal government. The Civil Rights Program or agenda was entrenched. What was interesting about the naacp without the benefit of retrospect we now have was in 1909 through 1916 the naacp was focused on Public Opinion campaigns, really believed if they just made it clear, the reality that africanamericans in the south were facing and realized the error of their ways and everything would miraculously changed. Racism was bad, when confronted with racism people would stop. That didnt happen. What they did was segway their efforts and focus on Woodrow Wilson which for those to understand the racial history of Woodrow Wilsons peculiar figure to focus on in terms of wanting to get his support in a fight for civil rights. What is interesting when i dealt deeper into Woodrow Wilsons archives is he met with the naacp three times, putting Lyndon Johnson in his office, one of the times, a silent protest parade in new york city, African Americans protesting mob violence in this area. The naacp is doing here and what they do get from wilson and also from harding are statements against lynching. It took a lot of letterwriting and a number of meetings but Woodrow Wilson makes