Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.'s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws

by Denton L. Watson

Overview

Clarence Mitchell, Jr. is unique in the pantheon of civil rights history. Born in Baltimore on March 18, 1911, he led the struggle in Washington for passage of the civil rights laws and promulgation of constructive national policies to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans and all other citizens suffering discrimination because of race, national origin, religion, sex, age, or sexual orientation. Lion in the Lobby chronicles Mitchell's life story and mission of getting the Congress to join the courts and the Executive Branch in upholding the Constitution in order to fulfill the NAACP's egalitarian philosophy. He worked with seven presidents, from Harry Truman to Jimmy Carter, to build a legacy of advocacy that won him the popular moniker of 101st senator and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1978. This revised edition is strengthened by a detailed account of the bitter battle within the NAACP over Mitchell's retirement. It also offers a fuller picture of Mitchell's differences with the philosophy of nonviolence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761864516
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	10/16/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	918
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Denton L. Watson is Associate Professor of American Studies, SUNY College at Old Westbury. He served as the Director of Public Relations, NAACP, from 1982-1985.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword by Clarence Mitchell, Jr.
Chapter 2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 Introduction
Chapter 4 Journey Toward the Promised Land:
Chapter 5 Trauma of a Lynching
Chapter 6 Covering the Scottsboro Trials
Chapter 7 A Star is a Small Reward
Chapter 8 Neither North nor South
Chapter 9 A Man is Molded
Chapter 10 Launching a Career
Chapter 11 The FEPC Grail
Chapter 12 NAACP Labor Secretary
Chapter 13 Taking Command
Chapter 14 All-Out Attack on Segregation
Chapter 15 Confronting the Agony
Chapter 16 Shifting Strategy
Chapter 17 At the Crossroads
Chapter 18 Breakthrough
Chapter 19 The Undaunted Optimist
Chapter 20 Fulfilling a Dream:
Chapter 21 Challenge of the New Frontier
Chapter 22 Honing Political Support
Chapter 23 Guiding the Forces Through the Turbulence
Chapter 24 The 1964 Act: A Dream Realized
Chapter 25 101st Senator
Chapter 26 "Our Quarterback"
Chapter 27 Confronting the Politics of Reaction
Chapter 28 Epilogue
Chapter 29 Appendix I: Civil Rights Bills: Parliamentary Procedures
Chapter 30 Appendix II: Differences Between Voting Proposals and the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Chapter 31 Appendix III: What's in the Civil Rights Act?
Chapter 32 Notes
Chapter 33 Bibliography
Chapter 34 Principal Cases Cited
Chapter 35 Index

Editorial Reviews

Civil rights lobbyist Mitchell is an unsung hero of the movement for racial equality. Director of the NAACP's Washington bureau for 28 years, the ``101st Senator,'' as he was dubbed, influenced presidents from FDR to Carter and played a pivotal role in pushing through major civil rights legislation. Born in a Baltimore ghetto, Mitchell, as a cub reporter, covered a 1933 lynching and the Scottsboro, Ala., trial of nine black youths charged with raping two whites. He ran unsuccessfully on the Socialist party ticket for the Maryland legislature but later became a political conservative. A courtly man whose blunt oratory often embroiled him in controversy, Mitchell made history in the halls of Congress and behind the scenes. He died poor in 1984. Watson, publicity director for the NAACP, encapsulates the drama and turmoil of the civil rights movement in this absorbing, massive biography. Photos. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Clarence Mitchell Jr. was for almost three crucial decades (1950-78) the director of the Washington, D.C. office of the NAACP. This tome, penned by NAACP's director of public relations, is both more and less than a biography of this important figure in the civil rights movement: more because the author has produced a social history of the eras during which Mitchell was socialized and in which he operated, and less because sometimes Mitchell is lost in this broad-brush approach. The author's apparent effort to include every piece of information he unearthed in his massive research results in a valuable volume, but one that is likely to be read in its entirety only by a tenacious reader. Stronger editing could have yielded an equally valuable book that would have appealed to a wider audience.-- Joseph Stewart Jr., Univ. of Texas at Dallas, Richardson

Library Journal

The well-researched story of a great civil rights lobbyist who worked closely with every president from FDR to Carter and was director of the NAACP from 1950 to 1978. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

In Lion in the Lobby, Denton L. Watson has provided a well-researched, highly detailed account of Mitchell's fight to advance and protect civil rights for African Americans…it [is] a fundamental starting point for any student pursuing the study of his work, and it makes an important contribution to the overall history of the civil rights movement.

Journal of Southern History - Creston Long