Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy

For Dudziak, the salient factor linking racism, the United States, and the Cold War is how the US federal government tried to “control the story” (250). The federal government sought to handle the narrative both by silencing radical critics of the United States and by promoting the idea that US democracy led to gradual improvement in race relations. At the height of the Cold War, the US civil rights movement also benefited from international links with anti-colonialist struggles abroad. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Vietnam War and the conservative reaction to race-motivated riots in US cities ended the international focus on civil rights. Furthermore, with the legislative victories of the civil rights movement, civil rights stopped being a focus “[o]nce America’s image seemed secure” (252).

Dudziak argues that events in the United States should not be seen in isolation. The civil rights struggle in the United States was also influenced by international movements. Meanwhile, even since the end of the Cold War, international criticism of racism in the United States has continued: “What has changed is the perception of whether it has strategic importance” (254, emphasis added). Still, Dudziak reminds readers that racial justice in the United States will continue to “have an impact on the nation’s moral standing in a diverse and divided world” (254).