American Civil Rights Movement - Research Paper Example

American Civil Rights Movement Introduction The American Civil Rights Movement was a mass protest, which was againstdiscrimination and racial segregation in southern United States. The American Civil Rights Movement came into national prominence during the period of mid-1950s. The roots of this movement can be traced to the era of African slaves where their descendants started resisting racial oppression and they also advocated for the abolishment of slavery. This effectively led to the American slaves being emancipated due to the Civil War and they were also granted vital civil rights. These civil rights were granted during the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth amendments were done to the US Constitution. There were also continued struggles during the following century to effectively secure federal protection in regard to the granted rights (Green and Harold 3). These struggles used various ways to express what they actually wanted by use of nonviolent protests. It was during the periods of between the 1950s and the 1960s when the civil rights movements attained the abolishment of race discrimination in public facilities in the south that they were more motivated to continue with their struggles. This was a breakthrough since they had achieved the equal-rights legislation basically for the African Americans. This was a humongous achievement since the 1865-1877 periods that was referred to as the Reconstruction period. The passage of the fundamental civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965 did not deter the civil movements even though the passages were victorious to them. The militant black activists perceived their struggle as being a liberation or freedom movement that was meant not just to seek civil rights reforms but also they were to confront the enduring cultural, economic, and political consequences of the past racial oppression (Banting 4). The American Civil Rights Movement Historical Framework of Development Abolitionism to Jim Crow: It is evident that the American history is marked by determined and persistent efforts that have led to the expansion of the inclusiveness and the scope of civil rights. Recent research has show that despite equal rights being elaborately outlined in the United States founding documents, a lot of new inhabitant’s in the country were denied the essential rights. Indentured servants and African slaves were not accorded the inalienable right to pursuit of happiness, liberty and life that the British colonists utilized to validate their Declaration of the American Independence. They were also not included among the people of the US who had established the US Constitution for the purposes of promoting general welfare and securing the noble Blessings of the people of America and their posterity. The US Constitution instead only protected slavery through the allowance of slaves’ importation until 1808 and it also provided for the return of slaves that had escaped to the other states (Adamson 11). Research also elaborately shows that as the US effectively expanded its boundaries, the Native American people resisted absorption and conquest. The individual states determined the majority of the American citizens’ rights by limiting generally the voting rights that only allowed the white property-owning males. The other rights that individual states determined were the right to serve on juries and the right to own land. The Native American people were denied all these rights on the basis of gender or racial distinctions. Only a small portion of the African Americans lived outside the system of slavery but those who were referred to as free blacks endured enforced segregation as well as racial discrimination. Although there were slaves who rebelled violently against enslavement, other subordinated groups and the African Americans usually used nonviolent means. These nonviolent means included pleas, protests, legal challenges and various petitions that were addressed to the government officials and they also used massive and sustained civil rights movements in order to attain gradual improvements mainly in their status (Lawson and Charles 17). It was during the first half of the nineteenth century, there were movements to effectively extend voting rights to the non-property-owning laborers who were white males and this resulted to the elimination of the majority property qualifications that had initially been used for voting. However, this expansion of suffrage led to brutal suppression of the American Indians and increased restrictions on free blacks. The slave owners mainly from the South reacted angrily to the Nat Turner slave revolt of 1831 that took place in Virginia through the passing of laws that discouraged antislavery activism as well as prevented the teaching of slaves to write and read. Regardless of this repression, a large number of African Americans ensured that they freed away from slavery by negotiating or escaping agreements in order to buy their freedom by way of wage labor. The 1830s saw the free black communities mainly in the Northern states become organized and sufficiently large to hold national conventions that were regular. Black leaders gathered at these conventions where they discussed various strategies that were focused on racial advancement. There were major developments in 1833 when a minority of whites joined together with the black antislavery activists and formed the American Anti-slavery Society which was under the leadership of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison (Lewis and Charles 42). Mr. Frederick Douglass became undoubtedly the most famous ex-slave when he joined in the abolition movement. He had an impressive autobiography and his starring orations effectively heightened public awareness on the horrors of slavery. However, the Supreme Court in 1857 rejected the claims of the African American citizenship by the black leaders. It was not until the election of President Abraham Lincoln who was an advocate of abolishing slavery. He was determined to punish states that were rebellious and he also issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. President Abraham Lincoln played a paramount role in ensuring that the slaves and the African Americans were empowered as well as influencing legislation that abolished slavery (Johnson and Robert 59). The white supremacy in the south was accompanied by the expansion of the American and European imperial control over the nonwhite people in Asia and Africa as well as in the island countries of the Caribbean and Pacific regions. Most nonwhite people and African Americans throughout the world were economically or colonized exploited and were also denied essential rights that included the right to vote. Suffrage rights were also denied to the majority of the women across the world (Hardy and Hardy 14). The early decades of the twentieth century so many of the civil rights movements resist gender and racial discrimination and it was evident that they were gaining a lot of strength in many countries. The Pan-African movement emerged to counter the European imperialism whereas the African Americans came up with numerous strategies that were geared towards challenging racial discrimination in the US. Booker T. Washington effectively emphasized on the need of economic development but he did not challenge the Jim Crow system. The rapid expansions of the various rights and civil liberties in the US mainly occurred during the final half of the twentieth century and this marked the birth of a new great nation that was born as a result of numerous protests that were held at that time and which also led to various legislations being passed (Altman 26). The Fifties There were numerous rulings by the Supreme Court in the 50s in regard to the civil rights movement. They were led by prominent leaders such as Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. who led the entire nation over the following 20 years of tremendous gains and civil unrest. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia and he led a lot of major civil rights protests of the 1950s and the 1960s until his saddening death in 1968. He was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and he broke the world record of being the youngest person in the world to ever win that honor. Martin Luther King Jr. will always be remembered for the humongous demonstrations that he organized and led in Washington, D.C. There was a demonstration that he led which had a crowd of over 200,000 people who stood and stayed- put on the Capitol Mall that faced the Lincoln Memorial. This demonstration was famously known as the ‘March on Washington for Jobs and freedom’ and it happened on August 28, 1963 (Johnson and Robert, 92). Rosa Parks was popular known worldwide as the ‘Mother of the civil rights movement’ since she ultimately and evidently changed the direction of the African-American history when she adamantly refused to give her seat on December 1, 1955 to a white male. Dr. King organized effectively a bus boycott in Alabama at a place called Montgomery which lasted for 382 days with the blacks’ concentration being 90%. Finally, the courts ruled that it was apparent that the segregation of the city bus services was evidently unconstitutional. The boycott success resulted to nonviolent civil rights demonstrations that took many years with the first demonstrations being held in the South and later throughout the country (Lewis and Charles, 97). The landmark case of ‘Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka’ that was in regard to segregation of schools was another huge steps towards the major achievements of the Civil Rights Movements in the US. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in the public schools evidently violated the rights that had been established mainly in the 14th Amendment. This case involved Linda Brown who was an eight-year-old girl who had to school by crossing Topeka in Kansas despite her friends who were white attending a public school nearby. The two schools were apparently equal but the parents to Brown argued that the schools had deleterious effects mainly on the children due to segregation and the schools were also unequal. The court eventually overturned the previous ruling of separate but equal (Adamson, 115). Sixties Through the Sixties, the civil rights activism raged at astonishing rates and it was during this time that the most advanced laws in civil rights were passed as well as the opposition in regard to the Vietnam War saw the United States being kept in a tumultuous state. There were numerous civil rights movement actions that took place which included the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the sit-ins that were known as the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders sit-ins were combined with other protests so that discrimination could be eliminated. These sit-ins occurred mainly in public facilities such as courthouses and jails. There was also the civil rights issue at the University of Mississippi that took place in January 1961 where a student by the name Meredith was denied admission just because of race. Another example of the civil rights movement was what was known as La Causa where there was a strike by the migrant farm workers which were meant to bring various improvements in the working conditions and the pay for the Hispanic farm workers. Other civil rights movements of the Sixties were the marked with riots all over the country (Altman, 58). Seventies This period marked the ushering in of a mixture of various results due to apathy that had crept in the consciousness of a lot of former protesters. This was the period that various actions took place which included the Affirmative Action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the Roe vs. Wade case of 1972 (Johnson and Robert, 104). Eighties The eighties saw the eventual expansion of the rights for the women and African Americans advanced slowly during this period. There were also some notable broadens in the rights of the other minorities who included the Native Americans, the disabled and the homosexuals. Other notable achievements were the Affirmative Action Backlash, the amendments in the Fair Housing Act and also the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act which led to noble changes in regard to the various rights to the disabled persons (Adamson, 136). Nineties There was the continuation of the civil unrest in the 1990s though on a quieter note since the African Americans were by now more educated since they were being matriculated mainly into the middle class. However, there were instances of riots due to racial profiling by the police when they were determining the likelihood of various crimes that were being committed by the whites and the blacks. Among the notable actions of the civil rights movements in the 1990s included the African-American matriculation, The passage of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), the Los Angeles riots that took place in 1992, the burning of various black churches in 1996 and the Navajo Mountain Reservation which guaranteed the American Indians with civil rights that were enshrined in the US constitution (Banting, 82). In conclusion, the pursuit of liberties and civil rights has been of notable significance throughout the entire American history. This passage is notable from the period of colonialism, to the new millennium where prominent figures have fought and some have lost their precious lives in the fight of the inalienable rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution. A lot of changes to today’s legislation and the way of living have been as a result of these fights by the civil rights movements. This is the main reason that the people of the United States highly and gladly appreciate the great work that was done by the civil rights movements and this is also the reason why majority of the American citizens celebrate all the heroes who have fought for today’s freedom. Works Citied Adamson, Heather. The Civil Rights Movement: An Interactive History Adventure. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 2009. Print. Altman, Linda J. The American Civil Rights Movement: The African-American Struggle for Equality. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2004. Print. Banting, Erinn. Civil Rights Movement. New York: Weigl Publishers, 2009. Print. Green, Robert P, and Harold E. Cheatham. The American Civil Rights Movement: A Documentary History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print. Hardy, Sheila J and P S. Hardy. Extraordinary People of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Children's Press, 2007. Print. Johnson, John W, and Robert P. Green. Affirmative Action. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press/ABC-CLIO, 2009. Print. Lawson, Steven F, and Charles M. Payne. Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, 2006. Print. Lewis, David L and Charles W. Eagles. The Civil Rights Movement in America: Essays. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986. Internet resource. Read More