There have been remarkable changes and improvement in humanity over the years. How marginalized groups of people were treated in the ancient world and how they are being treated in the present era can be compared and contrasted. The contributions to humanity can be attributed to different contributors which include individuals, groups of people, and movements. For example, during the civil oppression and racial discriminations in the United States of America, individuals such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rose up to fight for human rights. The same way, there are many movements that exist to fight for a group of people from levels. This paper compares and contrasts existence and contributions between two humanitarian movements; the Civil Rights Movement 1950s and 1960s, orchestrated by the arrest of Rosa Parks, and the Black Lives Matter movement began as an online campaign Alicia Garza and her cofounders, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi.
America has experienced many cases of racial inequality in its history. Over time, the racial dynamics are always evolving. During any moment of racial inequality, there have been groups protesting for the victims’ justice. The most recent occurrences led to the rise the Black Lives Matter (BLM). The movement is said to be similar to the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) that served the same function in the traditional era (Hoffman et al., 2016). Parts of the media argue that the two are similar regarding the influence, tactics, and message that they carry. The two had one aim of reducing the oppressions that the populations were exposed to. However, they differ in various concepts such as campaign methods, acceptance by people, and strategies.
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Founding of the Movements
The two movements which existed in two different eras were found by different scholars in different ways. The Civil Rights Movement existed between the mid-1950s and late 1960s. There are some specific racial discrimination cases which were crucial to the formation of the movement. The first one was the case of Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. The United States’ Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to segregate students in public schools by race. In 1955, a 14-year old African American girls known as Emmett Till from Chicago was brutally murdered for violating the norms of Mississippi culture (Bader & Warkentien, 2016). The crucial case to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement happened when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. She was arrested because of this behavior an action that earned her national publicity and began the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 to 1956.
On the other hand, the Black Lives Matter is an internationally recognized movement which exists in the present era. The movement was formed due to increased violence against African Americans. George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, a black teen. This sparked the creation of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. In 2014, police killed two African-Americans, sparking street demonstrations. This is what made the BLM to be recognized nationally. To date, BLM is an active group whose aim is to ensure that there is justice to all African-American lives (Hoffman et al., 2016).
Regarding their formation, the groups share a common factor of being social groups at the beginning. The Civil Rights Movement began as an influence that was promoted by courageous individuals such as Rosa Parks who dared to go against oppressive cultures. Park was supported by the public who saw her action as bravery and a step towards the achievement of equality. The BLM began as a social media campaign supported by a hashtag. It is from this angle that it gained momentum and later became a recognized international movement. In both cases, social and public supports were important to the founding of the two movements. The only difference is that during the traditional era, there were no social media. This made the growth of the Civil Rights Movement to be slow and easy to suppress (Hoffman et al., 2016). Currently, it only takes seconds to send a message to any part of the world using social media.
Strategies of Action
The two movements share one purpose of uniting people against oppressive cultures and practices. They have used different non-violent strategies to send their message to the relevant authorities. One of the strategies used by both the Civil Rights Movement and the BLM is a boycott. American history remembers the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott which is one of the many boycotts used by the promoters of the movement. Civil rights leader Park was arrested for refusing to obey a segregation law which required her to surrender her seat to a white passenger in a bus. Her arrest made the Montgomery Improvement to organize a citywide boycott. This is a boycott that lasted 381 days and involved more than 42,000 people (Bader & Warkentien, 2016). It had an economic impact of crippling the municipal bus service, thereby, leading to the successful integration of city buses.
The BML also uses boycotts to make their points. Since its formation, the movement leaders have organized several boycotts. An example was the Walmart boycott in 2014. BML joined a boycott organized by Walmart workers by avoiding shopping at their outlets on black Friday. The boycott had an impact of 11% loss of sales. In 2017, BML organized another boycott to demanding companies to release an annual corporate racial justice report, to hire residents, and to divest from the private prison industry (Hoffman et al., 2016).
Although boycott is a common strategy that was used by both movements, the boycott methods are different. This can partly be attributed to technology difference between the two eras. For example, the boycott after the arrest of Parks was organized by civil rights activists and prominent persons meeting face-to-face to make handouts that were spread to the target population to avoid the city bus (Bader & Warkentien, 2016). All the necessary information were written in the handouts and spread to various locations by people. Boycotts by BLM are organized online through hashtags. It is easy to reach a huge audience online within a short time.
Resistance by the Governments
Both movements were met with resistance by the government and some of their leaders arrested. BML resistance is remembered by the Ferguson Unrest. After the shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year old African-American, the police through the riot squads opened violence and established curfews on protesters. The violence captured the media attention making the Department of Justice determine the action as misconduct by the police (Hoffman et al., 2016). The Civil Rights Movement’s protests were also met by violent resistance by police. An example is the protests in Birmingham in 1963 when the youths marching were arrested and sent to jails until were overcrowded. The protests on the following day were met by firefighters. The actions of the protests made President Kennedy pass a civil rights bill that included blacks in all public facilities (Bader & Warkentien, 2016).
Conclusion
Different individuals and movements contributed to the good of humanity. Racial discrimination began long ago in the world’s history. However, it has been met by equal resistance from all quarters. In their fight against discrimination of African-Americans, founders and leaders of BLM and the Civil Rights Movement such as Rosa Parks and Alicia Garza used different non-violent strategies such as boycotts. Both movements were resisted violently by the governments through police. Despite the resistance, they succeeded in eliminating many discriminative rules and practices.
References
Bader, M. D., & Warkentien, S. (2016). The fragmented evolution of racial integration since the civil rights movement. Sociological Science , 3 , 135-166.
Hoffman, L., Granger Jr, N., Vallejos, L., & Moats, M. (2016). An existential–humanistic perspective on Black Lives Matter and contemporary protest movements. Journal of humanistic psychology , 56 (6), 595-611.
