The enduring backlash against racial justice in the United States: mobilizing strategies for institutional change

Abstract

This essay offers a framework for contextualizing racial injustice in contemporary Black and Brown communities. We argue that present-day racial injustice in the United States is a continuation of historical patterns of discrimination that have been institutionalized and reaffirmed for centuries (Gordon-Reed, 2021). At the same time, we underscore how racism and racial injustice have assumed distinctive forms during the post-civil rights era. While the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s represented a watershed moment in our history, it also triggered sustained backlash from opponents to racial justice in the United States (Glickman, 2020). This legislation and opposition during the post-civil rights era is significant because of the scope and magnitude of the policies adopted, as well as resistance to them. Legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act have been flashpoints for resistance (Boussac, 2021; Rieder, 1989). From its inception, opponents worked feverishly to dismantle these legislative acts which were encapsulated under the umbrella of the War on Poverty. Largely, their efforts have resulted in the curtailment and reversal of civil rights policies. It is notable that this opposition was built on a foundation of sustained discourse drawing from right-wing ideologies supporting racism and oppression, racial microaggressions, stereotypes and tropes mobilized to block the implementation of civil rights policies, and reconstructed color lines in the United States (Boussac, 2021; Rieder, 1989). We offer this framework as a reference point for contextualizing the articles in this special issue on racial justice in Black and Brown communities. As the title of the special issue suggests, this framework is introduced in order to move beyond paying lip service to the topics covered in these articles. Understanding how racial discourse has been used (and misused) by opponents of civil rights is critical. We argue that opposition to civil rights legislation emerged as an organizing principle of the political right in the United States during the early 1960s. Although overlooked, this shift in political strategy is arguably one of the more successful policy agendas implemented during the contemporary period. Political conservatives, who constitute the