The African-American history begins with the subjection of the members of the named community to slavery, following the introduction of the stated culture by European settlers that initially used Africans as slaves. Within the United States, the idea of slavery became contentious, causing a national divide that peaked during the civil war years. The racist legacy of slavery continued, leading to the emergence of resistance movements including the Selma to Montgomery March and the Underground Railroad (Mintz & Price, 2013). Moreover, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson emphasized that all Americans were equal, establishing that no individual had the right to own another person as their property as was the case with the relations between wealthy landowners and the slaves that worked in their fields. Regardless, at the time, his ideology was politically supported by a minority, a factor that resulted in the continued struggle for freedom and equality among members of the African American community (Wilson, 2011). Thus, the variation of ideologies among Americans, especially whites, shaped the slave history of African-Americans and the associated struggle for both equality and freedom.
African-American Strategies to Overcome Segregation Policies
In the early 20 th Century, racial segregation characterized American society, evidenced by the separation of services, opportunities, and facilities that were accessible to individuals based on their races. Segregation legally separated the whites and African Americans in the United States resulting in the former accessing higher privileges compared to the blacks with regard to housing, education, and healthcare, among such other facilities (Omi & Winant, 2014). The variations in living conditions between the two races led to the oppression of the African American community, which fought back by creating activist groups that sought to fight for the rights of the blacks. One such association was the Niagara Movement that was established in 1905 led by W. E. B. Du Bois. The group sought to revolutionize the Niagara Falls region by opposing the segregation laws and the disenfranchisement of the African American community. The Niagara Movement aimed at abolishing all forms of inferior treatment of the African American people, including the conciliation and accommodation policies promoted by African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington (Jones, 2016). Four years after its foundation, the Niagara Movement reinforced its revolutionary agenda by joining forces with white reformers creating the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The activities of NAACP saw the expansion of the Agenda of the Niagara Movement from a local level to a national one, seeking the advancement of justice for African Americans (Winter, 2014). Thus, the creation of movements to fight for the rights of the African American people sought to establish a united front among the named community members, in pursuit of equality and freedom from oppression.
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The efforts of the Niagara Movement were effective in addressing the segregation issue because it attracted the attention of people with the same agenda. Therefore, it United African-Americans that were willing to pursue equality and freedom, primarily through the publication of Voice of the Negro newspaper, and created a foundation for the more revolutionary NAACP (Jones, 2016). The second association was more successful in addressing the concerns of the African American community on a legislative level and changing the popular opinion regarding racial segregation. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund that challenged segregation in public schools was one of the association’s greatest achievements, following the Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case establishing that the separation of facilities was no longer allowed. Moreover, the association increased the awareness of the African American community about the injustices that plagued its members and provided economic, legal, and moral support to African-Americans facing criminal injustice (Winter, 2014). Thus, the efforts made by the members of the Niagara Movement and those of NAACP were effective in overcoming segregation and contributing to the realization of equality and freedom for the African-American people.
Apart from creating associations that spearheaded the fight against segregation, African American community members also participated in demonstrations and boycotts that sought to push the same agenda. For instance, for about one year, between 1955 and 1956, the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place. During the protest, African Americans refused to use buses in Montgomery to protest the segregated sitting arrangements. The boycott followed the arrest of an African-American woman, Rosa Parks, who refused to give a white man her bus seat. The success of the protest was evidenced by the Supreme Court’s order that required Montgomery to integrate the bus system in the region (Shultziner, 2013). Additionally, the African American community united forces in the Selma to Montgomery Match, which took place to oppose deeply rooted racist policies. During the walk, the African-American protesters were attacked by white vigilante groups and local authorities, but thanks to the protection of the National Guard, they realized their goal of finishing the three-day match. Their efforts succeeded in raising awareness about segregation, especially in terms of the difficulties that black voters faced and the necessity of the development of a Voting Rights Act to secure blacks’ equal participation in the electoral process (Combs, 2013). Hence, the boycotts and protests served a vital role in expressing African-American displeasure with living under unequal conditions with their white counterparts, forcing the government to comply with the community’s demand for both freedom and equality.
Catalysts of the Modern Civil Rights Movement
One of the catalysts of the modern Civil Rights Movement was the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. Till was a 14-year old African-American boy that was killed in a racist attack in Mississippi while visiting relatives after being accused of pestering a white woman. Her relatives kidnapped the boy, brutalized and killed him then dumped his body in a river. Till’s mother insisted on holding a public and open-casket funeral for her son to increase awareness on the violence that blacks had to deal with in the South. Despite the acquitting of Till’s murderers, the boy’s death sparked an upsurge of African-American activism and resistance. It was the source of anger and outrage among African-Americans across the United States, as they sought justice for the boy and the African American community at large, seeing that those that were responsible for his murder were not held accountable for their actions. Regardless of the involvement of the national leadership of the NAACP in Till’s case, the boy’s assailants were acquitted, and in the immediate period, African-American repression in Mississippi increased (Pool, 2015). However, blacks had become more united and inclined to fighting for their freedom and equality, creating a foundation for the establishment of the Civil Rights Movement.
Another catalyst was the Rosa Parks incident associated with her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white male in Montgomery. Her rebellion was countered by her arrest on the 1 st of December, to which the African American community responded with a bus boycott that went on for more than 365 days, with about 17000 African-American citizens participating. The effects of the Montgomery Bus Boycott included declining revenues that forced the Supreme Court ruling desegregating buses in the religion. The stated outcome made Rosa Parks an icon in the African-American community, especially in association with the struggle for freedom and equality, but her resistance was a natural response associated with a lifelong commitment to activism. She had previously violated the bus segregation policies repeatedly but considering that the incident related to her arrest occurred after Till’s murder, its impact on activism among members of the African-American community was more pronounced. Rosa Parks was named the mother of the civil rights movement, following the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in abolishing segregation in the transport system (Shultziner, 2013). Thus, the build-up of the injustice that African-Americans were facing resulted in the magnification of Rosa Park’s rebellious act by both the white supremacists, who arrested her, and the African-American community that responded with a boycott, further establishing a base for the black uprising labeled as the civil rights movement.
Goals of the Civil Rights Movement
One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to ensure that all African-Americans could enjoy full citizenship rights. The attainment of the stated objective saw the development of two main concerns, including claiming for full citizenship for minorities and women as well as getting the accompanying legal rights and protections for both stated categories of people. Despite overlooking to address gender inequality intentionally, the dynamics of social change and conflict impacted the civil rights movement by gender as much as race affected them. Often, the members of the uprising challenged the legal system concerning racial exclusion based on the Jim Crow rule. The civil rights movement critics on the stated racial prejudice in terms of the effects of the policies thereof on the blacks and whites overlooked the impact that sexuality, gender, and womanhood would have in shaping social folkways. Therefore, the involvement of both black and white women in social reforms was established through voluntary associations during the Progressive Era when women could form clubs that allowed them to redefine their gender and societal roles. However, the results of the activities of the civil rights movement in pursuit of equal citizenship status for African-Americans side-lined the importance of addressing the gender conformity ideology that required women to embrace the domesticity cult. Women could only assume leadership roles in their clubs because the latter would not disrupt the masculine hierarchy that was prevalent at the time. Moreover, whenever members of the female gender participated in leadership activities associated with the civil rights movement, their efforts were minimally recognized as those of ‘leaders’ (Ling & Monteith, 2014). Resultantly, the attempts of the civil rights movement failed to meet the gender and sexuality needs of the African American women in the 1960s, an effect that has trickled down generations to date seeing that women, especially those of African American origin, are still fighting for recognition as equals in the United States.
The civil rights movement also sought the freedom and equality of the African-American people. Even though the race was the primary focus of the uprising, concerns on social class were crucial to the movement because they formed the basis of its emergence and shaped the nature of its activities. Slavery in America was class-based, designed to realize surplus benefits from dehumanizing members of the African-American community with the superiors being the whites and the inferiors the blacks. Although the civil rights movement’s efforts towards the realization of the goal stated above had their roots in the struggles of the working-class African-Americans, between the mid-50s and 60s, its efforts were based on the needs of the black middle-class. Within the stated period, most of the members of the uprising were students, teachers, and ministers, a factor that contributed to the movement’s focus change. Moreover, to overthrow the aristocracy of white supremacist planters, the uprising required to use class-based tactics focused on the coalition of the middle class and the southern business as well as the northern middle class, the federal government, and the Democratic Party. The latter facilitated the realization of various achievements by the movement resulting in partial changes within the American society regarding African American freedom and equality. However, in the years following the 1960s, the civil rights movement is associated class dynamics such as the re-segregation of public schools, extreme unemployment among black and Latino community members and the weakening of the labor movement, among such other implications that the African-American community is forced to deal with (Bloom, 2019). Thus, the movement’s decision to use class tactics to overcome the social issues that barred the freedom and equality of the African American people in the US was an inappropriate strategy that continues to haunt blacks and other minorities in the country.
Conclusion
The struggle for freedom and equality defines the history of the African-American community in the United States. Among the tactics that were employed to overcome the inequality created by segregation policies were boycotts and protests as well as the establishment of movements that pursued the same agenda. The named responses were initiated by catalysts characterize by incidents that highlighted the unfair treatment of blacks, including individuals such as Rosa Parks and Emmett Till. Regardless, in the pursuit of its goals for the betterment of the well-being of African-Americans in the United States, the civil rights movement failed to implement strategies that would address issues of class, sexuality, and gender in the community once and for all.
References
Bloom, J. M. (2019). Class, race, and the civil rights movement . Indiana University Press.
Combs, B. H. (2013). From Selma to Montgomery: The long march to freedom . Routledge.
Jones, A. (2016). Lessons from the Niagara movement: Prosopography and discursive protest. Sociological Focus , 49 (1), 63-83.
Ling, P. J., & Monteith, S. (2014). Gender in the Civil Rights Movement . Routledge.
Mintz, S. W., & Price, R. (2013). The birth of African-American culture. In African-American Religion (pp. 46-62). Routledge.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial Formation in the United States . Routledge.
Pool, H. (2015). Mourning Emmett Till. Law, Culture and the Humanities , 11 (3), 414-444.
Shultziner, D. (2013). The social-psychological origins of the Montgomery bus boycott: social interaction and humiliation in the emergence of social movements. Mobilization: an international quarterly , 18 (2), 117-142.
Wilson, I. G. (2011). Specters of Democracy: Blackness and the Aesthetics of Politics in the Antebellum US . Oxford University Press.
Winter, M. (2014). Civil Rights Movement . ABDO.
