DERRY'S "SECOND-CLASS citizens" did not need to take to the streets in 1968 to get jobs and houses, the 20th Desmond Greaves Summer School was told last night.
Dr Simon Prince, author and research fellow at Oxford University, said the civil rights crisis had been wrongly depicted as simply a case of communal tensions boiling over.
Speaking on "Northern Ireland '68: Evaluating the 1960s Northern Civil Rights Movement" at the opening of the annual summer school in the Pearse Centre, Dublin, Dr Prince said historians have been understandably reluctant to criticise the movement. But he said a fresh perspective could be brought with the opening of 40-year-old archives.
Dr Prince, who has examined primary sources of information from the archives, press and other sources, outlined the divisions within unionism, the role played by anti-imperialist groups in the Republic and Britain, the impact of events in America and Europe and other factors.
He said former SDLP leader John Hume claimed that the Derry Housing Association was refused planning permission in early 1968 to build in a Protestant area of the city because it would upset the gerrymander that kept the unionist council in power.
"This setback supposedly showed that change would only come from the streets, not through the political system," he said. "The primary sources, though, show something different."
He said that when Mr Hume argued his case at a council meeting, the nationalist councillor James Doherty countered that "this matter was not a political issue".
Mr Prince said Mr Doherty objected to the proposals as they would have undermined the Londonderry Area Plan, which was "a project to build 10,000 homes and attract new industries to the northwest".
He said Stormont had calculated that jobs and houses would pacify the city and keep unionism in control. "The second city's second-class citizens did not need to take to the streets to get jobs and houses," Mr Prince claimed.
The Desmond Greaves Summer School brings together a range of speakers in memory of historian C Desmond Greaves.
This year, discussions focus on civil rights, interaction between civil rights and women's rights and relevance of the civil rights movement to contemporary Ireland.
Among today's speakers are Edwina Stewart, former member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) executive, and Patrick Murphy, professor of economic and social policy and 1960s civil rights activist. Tomorrow's speakers include Dr Margaret Ward, historian and author, and Kevin McCorry, solicitor and former NICRA organiser.
