Civil-rights success came from appealing to the dominant group’s own stated values

Evidence

As concerns an analysis of changing racial belief systems in the United States, blacks mounted a strong political challenge to their subordination in the 1950s and 1960s based on a direct appeal to the general values— what Myrdal (1944) termed the “democratic creed”—of the dominant group. They were facilitated in this effort by a number of changing conditions. A massive migration of blacks from the rural South to the North (Farley, 1968) enhanced their political influence (Lawson, 1976; Myrdal, 1944; Sitkoff, 1971, 1978) and increased their economic and social freedom. Also, by this time, many of the ideas used to justify black subordination were clearly on the defensive in academe and in the rhetoric of many prominent political figures. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court authoritatively repudiated racial segregation. For a period of time, especially during the middle through the late 1960s, an era that some have characterized as a Second Reconstruction, the courts, Congress, and the executive branch appeared to be engaged in a coordinated effort to secure and protect the rights of blacks (Brauer, 1977). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3386

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘democratic creed’ appeal strategy parallels how other subordinated groups (women’s suffrage, labor) framed claims in the masters’ moral vocabulary; echoes Myrdal’s ‘An American Dilemma’ thesis. — connects to: Civil Rights support was compatible with liberal faith in the system — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 692; NAACP litigation strategically pursued civil rights through the courts across many issue areas — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 888