About the lecture

In this module, we think about the struggle for civil rights from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, focusing in particular on the relationship between local and national movements, the success of litigation, and the importance of the broader context of the Cold War.

About the lecturer

Dr Tom Davies is a Lecturer in American History at the University of Sussex.

Tom studied at the University of Leeds as an undergraduate for my BA and MA. He then worked outside of academia for 3 years before returning to Leeds to undertake his doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Kate Dossett & Dr. Simon Hall.

Focusing upon the period from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s, his doctoral thesis offered a grass-roots analysis and reassessment of Black Power, alongside a top-down federal and local government perspective, within a national historical narrative of the political culture. Central to his work was an examination of the relationship between the War on Poverty, the African American community groups which engaged in it, and the Black Power movement itself. It then explored the roles these played in the ostensible growth of black political power and political engagement that unfolded during the late-1960s onwards.