For The Next Time I Need A Reminder.

For the next time I need a reminder.

Records from the Senate's Committee on the District of Columbia from 1816-1972. Of special note are records from the Radical Republican-controlled Senate of the Reconstruction era (the Senate fought for Kate Brown, one of their employees, to be able to ride on whites-only trains) and records on the nonstop flow of home rule bills considered after the LEgislative Reorganization Act of 1946.

Committee papers and bill files from the House of Representatives' Committee on the District of Columbia. Of special interest are those in the third set (1947-1968), which include documents pertaining to District home rule.

How I feel about school today.

does this make sense?

Between 1945 and 1973, the District of Columbia underwent changes at a level that it had not experienced since the Civil War transformed the political and social landscape of the city. After dismantling the Jim Crow segregation of schools and public accommodations the Deep South would continue to battle decades later, the city’s governing structure also changed dramatically, with citizens of all races gaining long-denied voting and representational rights. Although Washington had long been home to active movements for civil rights and legislative autonomy from Congress, these movements remained largely separate until the District became a majority-minority city in the 1950s. How did the confluence of these pre-existing rights movements, post-war demographic shifts and the prominence of a national civil rights movement contribute to the District of Columbia’s unprecedented gains in civil and representational rights by 1973?

After going back and looking at it, I think the second sentence is wonky and misplaced, and should be moved, deleted or re-written, but I don't feel like doing it right now. Thoughts?

the latest intro

So the last intro draft has been moved to my "Contribution to the Field" section. Here's the new intro:

While the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ensured that African-Americans would have the right to vote granted by the Fifteenth Amendment, this legislation did little for the voting prospects of the residents of the District of Columbia. Denied the right to elect their own local government or representatives to the U.S. Congress, Washingtonians of all races had only been allowed to vote for president the previous year, in the first presidential election since Congress passed the Twenty-Third Amendment. Although Washington had long been home to active movements for legislative autonomy from Congress and African-American civil rights, these movements remained largely separate until the District became a majority-minority city in the 1950s. Despite early civil rights successes in the 1940s and 1950s and agitation for District voting rights by national organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the desire for home rule remained largely unrealized until the late 1960s and early 1970s - after the alleged end of the civil rights movement. How did the city’s changing demographics and relationship with the national civil rights struggle impact the century-old battle for home rule and the city’s relationship with the U.S. Congress? How does the District of Columbia fit into the larger narrative of the black protest movement?