Down to Now: Memory,Narrative, and Women's Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta,Georgia

This paper is a case study of African-American women’s leadership. It documents women’s involvement in a voter registration drive in 1946 and traces the develop-ment of an ‘official history’ of that event that emerged in the ensuing decades. This narrative shifted emphasis from the organising leadership that both women and men exhibited to a form of leadership – success in electoral politics – that pertained almost exclusively to men. Concluding remarks address the relevance of memory and narrative for writing the history of women’s leadership.     

Jacobite Politics in the Age of Anne

Every political movement has watershed moments when decisions are taken with very long-term consequences. This article explores one such moment with respect to the jacobite movement during the reign of Queen Anne. Implicitly building on Geoffrey Holmes's model of the workings of the whig and tory parties in the age of Anne, the article analyses the turn to the Scots that took place within jacobite politics between 1702 and 1710. Throughout the 1690s the English jacobites had dominated the politics of the jacobite movement. Cementing their hold on the jacobite court's outlook and policies there was, too, an intrinsic anglocentrism at royal and ministerial level. Yet by 1715 the Scots jacobites were clearly equal partners with the English within the movement, and this parity was to shape the entire subsequent history of the jacobite cause. This shift within the politics of the movement was, moreover, not simply a corollary of the union. This article argues that the shift to the Scots was far more fundamental in terms of the outlook and policies of the movement, and ultimately did not depend on the immediate military utility of the Scots jacobites, but on a new perception of them as a uniquely important resource.     

Identity Politics and the Religious Right: Hiding Hate in the Landscape

Identity theory has had important theoretical implications for analysis of political action, but has tended mostly to examine identity formation and political action on the left. Any theory concerned with eradicating oppression must also analyze identity formation and political action of groups on the right whose politics are often based on exclusion and hate. Thus the empirical part of this paper focuses on the religious right, specifically Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia. The potency of the religious right lies in an identity politics which simultaneously asserts that fundamentalists are essentially different from those "of the world" but should nonetheless equate themselves politically with economic conservatives. This allows Liberty to borrow freely from the symbols and trappings of economic conservatism while blurring the hate and antagonistic othering inherent in essentialist notions of fundamentalist identity.     

Elite Leadership,People of Mexican Origin,and Civil Rights: Dennis Chavez and the Politics of Fair Employment

People of Mexican origin lacked broad-based mobilization for civil rights during the mid-twentieth century and failed to gain attention with national leaders unaware of the unique conditions in the Southwest. In the absence of these factors, elite leadership and issue networks filled the gap. In this article I explore the case of New Mexico. I argue that the elite leadership of New Mexico Senator Dennis Chavez helped to shape national debates regarding fair employment and other civil rights legislation. Chavez helped work for the passage of a strong state fair employment law in New Mexico in 1949 and increased awareness of the place of people of Mexican origin in civil rights policy and politics nationally and in New Mexico. Gaining support from African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and labor unions, Chavez helped to include people of Mexican origin in debates regarding civil rights policy. However, a lack of national legislation, policy implementation, and the rise of backlash politics prevented the creation of a strong policy and strong agency.     

Mass Politics and the Techniques of Leadership: The Promise and Perils of Propaganda in Weimar Germany

This paper traces the development of ideas about ‘professional’and ‘scientific’ publicity during the Weimar era,and their gradual absorption by mainstream politicians and officialsfrom the late 1920s onwards. The unprecedented wartime effortsto influence domestic morale and the scandalous revelationsof misinformation afterwards greatly increased popular awarenessof the ability of élites to manipulate public opinion,and generated intense interest in the problems of communicatingwith mass publics. Nowhere was this fascination greater thanin Germany, where many attributed their defeat primarily tosuperior enemy propaganda. The result was a wide-ranging postwardiscourse about the power of this modern ‘weapon’and its unavoidability as a part of modern political and commerciallife. Far from learning the so-called ‘lessons of thewar’, government self-representation efforts were steadilycriticized by journalists and advertisers as both quantitativelyand qualitatively inadequate. Whereas most republicans regarded‘propaganda’ as mendacious and unstatesmanlike,many of the radical parties’ publicity efforts clearlyreflected the basic tenets of the concurrent propaganda discourse,in particular the emphasis on emotional appeal and ritualisticsymbols. During the crisis of the early 1930s, amidst the visiblesuccess of the Nazis’ advertising-inspired campaigning,the spread of this discourse across the political spectrum helpedto hollow out democratic conceptualizations of leadership andpublic opinion from the very centre of Weimar political life.     

The Clash of Interests: Commerce and the Politics of Trade in the Age of Anne

This article celebrates the contribution which Professor Holmes made to the field of British politics and society by the study of an important collection of political tracts. The compiler of the collection is identified as Sir Charles Cooke, one of the most significant commercial politicians of his day. The organisation of the collection illuminates the ways in which City politicians used various channels of information, both printed and personal, to support their political platforms. It also demonstrates how Cooke contributed to the defeat of the tories over the French Commerce Bill of 1713, by supplying key sources to combat the ministry's position. On a wider plane, although it suggests that partisan politics tainted all information advanced in the public sphere, this did not relieve political rivals of the need to establish the superior authority of their sources, and political success only saw Cooke redouble his efforts to gain as wide a base of information as possible. Statistical precision remained elusive, but his archive stands testament to a growing need for authority of source in a political world of party and vested interests.