front cover of Before Brown
Before Brown
Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice
By Gary M. Lavergne
University of Texas Press, 2010

Winner, Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize for Best Book on Texas History, Texas State Historical Association, 2010
Carr P. Collins Award, Texas Institute of Letters, 2011

On February 26, 1946, an African American from Houston applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law. Although he met all of the school's academic qualifications, Heman Marion Sweatt was denied admission because he was black. He challenged the university's decision in court, and the resulting case, Sweatt v. Painter, went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Sweatt's favor. The Sweatt case paved the way for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka rulings that finally opened the doors to higher education for all African Americans and desegregated public education in the United States.

In this engrossing, well-researched book, Gary M. Lavergne tells the fascinating story of Heman Sweatt's struggle for justice and how it became a milestone for the civil rights movement. He reveals that Sweatt was a central player in a master plan conceived by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for ending racial segregation in the United States. Lavergne masterfully describes how the NAACP used the Sweatt case to practically invalidate the "separate but equal" doctrine that had undergirded segregated education for decades. He also shows how the Sweatt case advanced the career of Thurgood Marshall, whose advocacy of Sweatt taught him valuable lessons that he used to win the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 and ultimately led to his becoming the first black Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

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front cover of The Borders of Justice
The Borders of Justice
Etienne Balibar
Temple University Press, 2013

International in scope and featuring a diverse group of contributors, The Borders of Justice investigates the complexities of transitional justice that emerge from its “social embeddedness.” This original and provocative collection of essays, which stem from a collective research program on social justice undertaken by the Calcutta Research Group, confronts the concept and practices of justice. The editors and contributors question the relationship between geography, methodology, and justice—how and why justice is meted out differently in different places.

Expanding on Michael Walzer's idea of the “spheres of justice,” the contributors argue that justice is burdened with our notions of social realities and expectations, in addition to the influence of money, law, and government. Chapters provide close readings of Pascal, Plato and Marx, theories on global justice, the relationship between liberalism and multiculturalism, struggles of social injustice, and how and where we draw the borders of justice.

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front cover of Born to Belonging
Born to Belonging
Writings on Spirit and Justice
Mab Segrest
Rutgers University Press, 2002
Veteran activist Mab Segrest takes readers along on her travels to view a world experiencing extraordinary change. As she moves from place to place, she speculates on the effects of globalization and urban development on individuals, examines the struggles for racial, economic, and sexual equality, and narrates her own history as a lesbian in the American South. From the principle that we all belong to the human community, Segrest uses her personal experience as a filter for larger political and cultural issues. Her writings bring together such groups as the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, fledging gay rights activists in Zimbabwe, and resistance fighters in El Salvador. Segrest expertly plumbs her own personal experiences for organizing principles and maxims to combat racism, homophobia, sexism, and economic exploitation.


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front cover of Bread, Justice, and Liberty
Bread, Justice, and Liberty
Grassroots Activism and Human Rights in Pinochet's Chile
Alison J. Bruey
University of Wisconsin Press, 2020
<i>Winner of the SECOLAS Alfred B. Thomas Book Award</i>
<i>Named Best Social Science Book, LASA Southern Cone Studies Section</i>

In Santiago, Chile, poverty and state violence have often led to grassroots resistance movements among the poor and working class. Alison J. Bruey offers a compelling history of the struggle for social justice and democracy during the Pinochet dictatorship. Deeply grounded by both extensive oral history interviews and archival research, Bread, Justice, and Liberty provides innovative contributions to scholarship on Chilean history, social movements, popular protest and democratization, neoliberal economics, and the Cold War in Latin America.
 
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