Thesis advisor: John Joseph Burns / In the first two decades after World War II, America confronted issues of race in a way that it had not previously done so in its history. During the time period of 1945-1969, the city of Boston and two of its professional sports franchises—namely the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Celtics—also found that matters of race had a newfound significance. From Jackie Robinson’s token tryout with the Red Sox in 1945 to Bill Russell’s retirement from the Celtics in 1969, race and sports intersected in the city of Boston, whether the city was ready for it or not. As the Civil Rights Movement gripped the nation in the 1950s and 1960s, Boston’s own racial injustices came to light as well. With this context, the Boston Celtics provided an example as to what a racially integrated group of people could accomplish, winning eleven titles in thirteen seasons, while their counterparts, the Red Sox, often dragged their feet on realizing racial justice, with the teams of the late ‘60s as an exception. During this time period, Boston’s high-profile sports teams provided a microcosm through which to view the racial situation in Boston and the nation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: History.

This dissertation examines the use of photography in civil rights educational efforts from 1957 to 1972. Photography played an important role in the long civil rights movement, resulting in major legal advances and greater public awareness of discriminatory practices against people of color. For most civil rights organizations and many African Americans, education was seen as the single most important factor in breaking down social and political barriers, and efforts toward equal education opportunities dramatically increased following the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. My dissertation therefore investigates photography’s distinct role in documenting the activities of three educational initiatives—the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, the Mississippi Freedom Schools formed the summer of 1964, and the Black Panther liberation schools established in Oakland, California, in 1969—to reveal the deep and savvy understanding of civil rights and Black Power organizations of the relationship between educational opportunities and political power.

Can a right, as an abstract yet powerful symbol of a legitimate claim, influence individual political behavior independent of the underlying entitlement the right represents? Or are rights merely rhetorical proxies for distributional struggles? This dissertation examines whether the formal recognition of a right–in particular, a formal property right to land–can empower political engagement. I construct a theoretical framework for how legal property rights influence political behavior around two central claims. First, I argue that legal rights have an impact that goes beyond expectations of economic value or tenure security. Legal rights are powerful symbols that also legitimize claim-making and empower rights-bearers to engage in politics. In this sense, legal rights not only provide the rights-bearer with a material entitlement (i.e. an increase in economic value or material endowment), but also a political entitlement in the form of a greater legitimacy in demands for protection and benefits from the state. This increased sense of legitimacy, in turn, can spill over to influence political behavior more generally by incentivizing political participation and claim-making. I refer to this mechanism as the "symbolic effect" of rights. My second claim is that this empowering, symbolic effect is strongest where property protections are weakest and underlying rights most vulnerable. Specifically, this occurs when the state is either unable to provide adequate guarantees or unwilling to enforce rights as a matter of course. Under such conditions, rights help define just claim-making and legitimate grievances, thus incentivizing greater political engagement. I construct my theory and provide an initial test of derived hypotheses by relying on experiences with rural titling programs benefiting small-holder peasant farmers in Peru and Colombia. Land titling differs from traditional land reform policies, in that it attempts merely to formalize the existing tenure regime, and hence does not otherwise impact the distribution of landholding. This provides a unique moment to examine the effect of a change in legal rights that is distinct from changes in underlying assets or benefits. In essence, we can focus specifically on what impact the "right" itself has, while keeping the actual distribution of property relatively constant. In addition to recognizing important rights to land for thousands of peasant farmers, these programs also provided a significant moment of interaction with central state authorities. As a result, titling provides not only a new material connection to the state–in the form of a full, legal title---but also a symbolic connection through the rights and privileges promised in those documents. I draw on three sources of data to provide empirical support for my theory. First, I provide a historical summary of access to rural land and legal property rights in Peru and Colombia over the 20th and early 21st Centuries, highlighting the importance of legal property rights for shaping rural conflict and claim-making by peasants. The second source of data is from a series of semi-structured interviews with peasant, smallholding farmers in rural areas of Peru and Colombia. Through these interviews, I attempt to understand the meaning peasants place on legal titles, experiences with land titling, and local practices for regulating private land and participating in rural village politics. Third, I use original, panel data of titling through the now-defunct Colombian Institute of Rural Development (INCODER, Instituto Colombiano de Desarrollo Rural) from 2000-2015, and in Peru through the first two waves of massive land titling in the Rural Land Titling and Registration Project (Proyecto de Titulación y Registro de Tierras Rurales, PTRT) from 1996-2007. I find evidence that changes in legal rights are associated with increases in voter turnout, use of courts, and willingness to engage in politics, but only in areas with weak state institutions. Conversely, in areas with strong state institutions where titling likely increases tenure security, formalized property rights either produce no change or are associated with a reduction in engagement. These findings support my theory that legal rights exert a "symbolic effect" on behavior, which can lead to counter-intuitive results as formal rights promote engagement most where rights are otherwise weak or ineffectively protected. This evidence highlights the non-material effects of legal rights–an impact that is often overlooked by most political economy scholars who typically understand property rights as synonymous with property tenure (i.e. the expectation of extracting value from property). Instead, I focus on the "right" itself as a moral claim to protection and special consideration by the state. This shift in perspective can broaden our understanding of property rights by explaining how legal rights can influence behavior and convey meaning even when they do not otherwise change material benefits.

The purpose of this study was to explore the life and work of LaFayette, nonviolence and conflict reconciliation from an adult education perspective. This study explores LaFayette’s life from an early age through his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, his contributions to adult education, and his current views on social change. The nonviolence conflict reconciliation LaFayette teaches is based on the philosophy and strategies of Martin Luther King, Jr. During the last 50 years, LaFayette has been kidnapped, threatened, and survived ventures into hostile environments in his effort to teach nonviolence philosophy, strategies, and methods. This historical/biographical study used semi-structured interviews to obtain information from LaFayette directly and from a plethora of media, books, and articles about him. Semi-structured interviews were also used to interview his family members and colleagues. Despite the numerous awards and recognitions LaFayette has received, he had not been recognized in the field of adult education. Without realizing it, he incorporated some of the theories of adult education such as adult education agencies and categories during his workshop and encouraging institute participants to understand the first principle of the nonviolence training, which is nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. This study began with a review of LaFayette’s family ties followed by his spiritual upbringing. It briefly outlined LaFayette’s contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. LaFayette co-authored material and curriculum for the nonviolence training by codifying and creating a quality standard which has been used in important organizations he co-founded such as the Alternative to Violence Project and The Summer Institute at the University of Rhode Island Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. In addition to these two major institutions, the study included his contributions to adult education in six other institutions. This study provides the most comprehensive, current, and overall picture of LaFayette’s life and contributions. Education institutions, prisons, and community agencies could benefit from the information provided in this study including information about the nonviolence conflict reconciliation training.

No description available.

The Right to leave and return (RLR) has been affirmed as a fundamental human right in several international instruments. While being a fundamental human right, each State has the sovereign right to regulate RLR in accordance with its own laws. The regulation of RLR, however, is not only an attribute of sovereignty but an issue with important political, economic and security implications for the State. Given its significance, it is understandable and desirable that States regulate RLR. The regulation must however take account of both the interests of the State and the human rights dimension of the right. This is an issue of balance. In the case of China, the country's communist political system has significantly affected the development of RLR and the country's approach to it. As a rule China's approach is restrictive. As part of its reform and 'opening up' policies, China has embarked on a range of reforms to liberalise RLR, but the reforms lack cohesion and focus, and remain restrictive. Given its peculiar past and complex social and economic conditions, China may have some justifications for its approach, but on balance, has more to gain from adopting a more liberal approach. The issue of RLR in China is crucial both for the future of China, and for development of RLR in the world. China's current policy's on RLR still reflects a closed culture. A more open policy is not only consistent with international human rights norms, but also a useful infrastructure for the country's place in the global economy. Great achievements over the last 25 years and encouraging developmental trends demand acceleration of reforms to protect RLR in China. A careful and well-coordinated migration strategy with a well-defined RLR focus could enhance China's economic progress as well as its international human rights image. When designing the reform strategy, the balance of the Western experience and Chinese realities needs to be finely kept. This thesis will explore the Chinese regulatory regime governing RLR to determine its consistency with international standards. The thesis is divided into 15 chapters. It investigates RLR in international migration law and practice; analyses RLR in the context of China, and identifies its driving factors; investigates the conditions and practical concerns relevant to the protection of RLR; and concludes with recommendations on how the Chinese regulatory regime governing RLR can be improved.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-165). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 190-200). Also issued online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Focusing on the city of Atlanta from 1972 to 2012, Halting White Flight explores the neighborhood-based movement to halt white flight from the city’s public schools. While the current historiography traces the origins of modern conservatism to white families’ abandonment of the public schools and the city following court-ordered desegregation, this dissertation presents a different narrative of white flight. As thousands of white families fled the city for the suburbs and private schools, a small, core group of white mothers, who were southerners returning from college or more often migrants to the South, founded three organizations in the late seventies: the Northside Atlanta Parents for Public Schools, the Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools, and Atlanta Parents and Public Linked for Education. By linking their commitment to integration and vision of public education to the future economic growth and revitalization of the city’s neighborhoods, these mothers organized campaigns that transformed three generations’ understanding of race and community and developed an entirely new type of community activism.