It’s Been a Long Time Comin’

• Date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Domonic A. Bearfield
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X13510380
• Published date: 01 March 2014
• Subject Matter: Articles

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2014, Vol. 34(1) 59 –74

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X13510380

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Article

It’s Been a Long Time Comin’:

An Examination of Public

Personnel Research in PAR

and ROPPA in Celebration of

the Fiftieth Anniversary of the

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Domonic A. Bearfield1

Abstract

This article provides a decade by decade examination of major themes in the public

personnel literature as published in two leading journals: Public Administration Review

and Review of Public Personnel Administration. The article also highlights research

addressing issues related to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Keywords

Civil Rights Act, representation, social equity, public administration history, public

personnel

Few people now remember when want ads were segregated by race and gender; when Black

police officers were forbidden to arrest Whites; when an interracial meeting could not be

held in an Atlanta hotel. These facts of life in the 1960s were changed by the Civil Rights

Act.

Andrew Young, An Easy Burden (1996)

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. The Civil

Rights Act of 1964, as passed and amended, declared that a person could not be

1Texas A&M University, College Station, USA

Corresponding Author:

Domonic A. Bearfield, Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, 4220

TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4220, USA.

Email: dbearfield@bushschool.tamu.edu

510380ROP34110.1177/0734371X13510380Review of Public Personnel AdministrationBeareld

research-article2013

60 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(1)

discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, or disability. To illustrate

its importance, Bayard Rustin, one of the architects of modern civil rights movement,

described the decade that concluded with the passage of the Civil Rights Act as “the

period in which the legal foundation of racism in America were destroyed” (1965

p.25). Still, in the wake of the re-election of the first African American President, it is

easy to lose sight of the importance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In an era when

three women were selected to serve as the literal face of nation to the rest of the world

as Secretary of State, it is easy to forget that just a month before the Civil Rights Act

was signed into law the following passage appeared in the pages of Public

Administration Review:

A concerted movement is underway to free American women from prejudices and outmoded

customs which act as barriers to their full participation in American life. These discriminations

are particularly operative in the working community and act to limit or restrict the employment

and advancements opportunities of well-qualified women. (Harrison, 1964, p. 78)

It must be understood that the United States of America was transformed by the

Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Not surprisingly, the field of public administration was also transformed. While

slow at first, the Civil Rights Act has, directly or indirectly, inspired a generation’s

worth of public personnel research. Public personnel scholars have used a variety of

approaches, including social equity, representative bureaucracy, constitutional and

legal studies, to assess the impact of this legislation. It is a feat that is both remarkable,

yet wholly unremarkable, because in many ways, applying the best research minds in

the field to help practitioners, politicians, and the public understand the implication of

changes that impact our administrative system is what the field has always done. As

events emerge in the form of new laws, societal changes, or managerial dilemmas,

public administration scholars have sought to create a body of knowledge that can

provide information, answers, and guidance.

In that spirit, this article will present a decade by decade examination of themes in

the public personnel literature as published in two leading journals: Public

Administration Review and Review of Public Personnel Administration (ROPPA). So

as not to duplicate or distract from other well-written, well-researched articles that

have also covered this literature (Cooper, 1990; Gaus, 1950; Stillman, 2011; West,

2010), special attention will be paid to how researchers have examined the Civil Rights

Act, as well as other legislation, executive orders, and important societal events over

the past 75 years. The hope here is to show the importance of the Civil Rights Act

while simultaneously helping to put it in perspective.

1940s: In the Beginning

Civil Rights, the all-encompassing catch phrase that is now used to describe issues

such as discrimination, equality, and the rights of minority groups in our society, did

not figure prominently in the early public personnel research literature. This, despite