Following the years that spanned the 1954 decision of the Board of Education v. Brown through the eventual pronouncement of passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a crisis time transpired, which resulted in the accomplishment of not just the elimination of racial barriers but also overwhelming changes in the American cultural, political and social life. These alterations pervaded into notions concerning African-American’s rights of citizenship, a good instance being the proper refinement of the government’s part in the protection of these rights in an effort of continuing to reinforce American’s human rights, in spite of their skin color. Almost on all occasions, the phrase “civil rights” results in a conjuring of images related to the legendary of Martin Luther King Jr. and the delivery of his soul-stirring speech with the apt title alluding to the dreams of the African-American nation before the capital of America. While this awe-inspiring moment sears deeply into the minds and hearts of most African-Americans, on a darker note, numerous recollections point to the direction of peaceful protests being beset by snarling police dogs and fire hoses, the unyielding disposition of numerous African-American students in college over lunch counters as they propagated their campaigns in all necessary manners.
Among the various gruesome indicators of the struggle for civil rights movement, and perhaps being a representation of the nadir moment in the movement is the depiction of four schoolgirls in a photograph, who were bombed while attending church in a Sunday school session. These and more ghastly photos continue to represent the powerful beginnings and outbursts of African-American politicking, leading to a resultant white backlash, which characterized and was eventually the epitome of the civil rights struggle in the mid-twentieth century. While the civil rights movement certainly began in the 1950s onwards, its tentacles originated from the bequest of servitude while initial slaves were taken to American shores in 1619 (Karson, 2005). Following the civil war, the Thirteenth Amendment, eliminated slavery subsequently making blacks attain their emancipation. Although this was the case, the freshly unrestrained blacks were on a large part bereft of property or money and exuded immense illiteracy permitting the phenomenon of inequality and racism on a rampant scale, predominantly in the south, where the trade of slavery run for quite a long time. To facilitate their assimilation into the society of whites, blacks were granted numerous democratic reforms by the state and federal governments implemented between the years of 1865 and 1875, showing an era of immense reconstruction. For example, the fourteenth constitutional amendment granted African-Americans protected equal rights that were from the federal government, while the Fifteenth amendment ensured that blacks had equal voting rights as whites.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Although there was an implementation of these measures and their forthright enactment supported within constitutional boundaries, these gains issued during the Reconstruction era were short-lived. Within the south, white hegemony plagued every part of their developmental progress resulting in the employment of divergent means designated at keeping African-Americans from enjoying the benefits of freedom and citizenship. Through harassment and constant intimidation, blacks were kept disenfranchised. Moreover, a permeation of growing extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan served harrowing methods in the form of constant violence and lynching resulting in the brutalization and terrorization of people of the Negro race in quest of exercising their privileges and improving their course. While there was constant erosion of the reformation legislations, particularly the Fifteenth, Fourteenth, and Thirteenth amendments, the highest court, which is the Supreme Court, struck the last nail of the coffin in the struggle for equality among African-Americans. In 1896, a court decision ruled in favor of the separation of blacks and whites among public facilities such as restaurants (Karson, 2005). This Supreme Court decision of “separate but equal” resulted in a doctrine that legally backed the infamous segregation of the south, which gave the white society a powerful and potent tool of keeping African-Americans from enjoying the most basic and rudimentary civil right of citizenship. This court decision resulted in Jim Crow’s southern customs and laws, which kept basic amenities such as drinking fountains, parks, restaurants, public toilets, among others highly and rigidly segregated.
In light of these and more events, throughout the 50s, two pertinent occurrences resulted in the persistent problem of the movement of civil rights, consequentially resulting in a public outcry that saw a spark and a revamp in the struggle for proper freedom and emancipation. The first event began on May 1954, when the NAACP – which had worked its way in slowly eroding the legal fundamentals of the apartheid – attained an exceptional success in its legal presets. The culmination of this victory happened in the unanimous ruling of the case of the Board of Education and Brown, which meant that the separation of schools that were public remained illegitimate, thereby, effecting a retract of these segregated tenets. As such, in the nullification of the doctrine of “separate but equal” enacted by the case of Ferguson and Plessy, the Supreme Court resulted an undisputable negative repercussion to pertinent segregation. While this was the actual case, southern racist tendencies were entrenched deeply into the customs of southern daily life that they were continually opposed to the change. While this immense resistance transpired, the implementation of Brown remained conscientiously slow resulting in a non-existence of pertinent ordinances in their implementation (Karson, 2005). In this, numerous schools refused the implementation of the court’s ruling preventing African-American students from joining schools that were all white. This situation resulted in the overcrowding of black schools, their dilapidation, and in common, a substandard state to their colleagues who were white.
A succeeding and most significant instance, which brought about the birth of the black movement of civil rights, remains to be the events that transpired in Montgomery, Alabama, whereby, a tailor called Rosa Parks resulted in the creation of a spark that accorded eventful momentum to the entire movement of Civil Rights. On December 1995, this member of NAACP boarded a public bus and customary to law, she took a seat at the back part of the bus, which was reserved as the “negro” section. Later, while the front section filled, it was the law that the blacks should stand for whites. Nonetheless, Rosa Parks declined to surrender her seat to a Caucasian passenger resulting in her immediate custody. Soon after, a one-day boycott was launched by the entire black community in support for a boycott of the public bus system. As support for the black community garnered, the NACCP took this opportunity to increase awareness of their cause, and the reason for their outcry. Despite constant harassment from the white community, the Montgomery bus boycott lasted and persevered for more than a year, resulting in an eventual intervention and desegregation of buses on December 21, 1956 (Karson, 2005). This bus boycott remains significant since it rendered the predominantly overt Jim Crow law obsolete, further demonstrating the fact that if blacks would consolidate their efforts, they would make and effect radical change in their affairs through proper unity and immense determination. While these events transpired, the emergence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the preeminent leader of the movement denoted an observance of nonaggressive strategies used by Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian pro-autonomist.
The pace and exertions of African-Americans to effect the awareness of their cause quickened immensely as from 1955 to 1960, being met with proper success. In 1957, a class action brought about the passage an Act by Congress relating to the Civil Rights, which represented a principal legislature since the reconstruction era, establishing a dissection on pertinent civil rights within the Department of Justice (Hall, 2005). While this transpired, the NAACP increased their challenge of underpinning segregation, effected by a Christian-based organization established in 1957 by King, called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Within this period also, numerous organizations went through the effort of publicizing the abuses in civil rights experienced by southern blacks. These occurrences were frequently made public by organizations such as the SNCC or known in full as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The SNCC grabbed a spotlight in the media, subsequently triggering a rush of remonstrations supported by undergraduates who effected various rally campaigns in an effort to desegregate southern lunch counters. In Birmingham, blacks continued immense campaigns against desegregation resulting in events that irrevocably commanded the attention of Americans. The then Police Chief, better known as by his sobriquet “bull,” or officially as Eugene Connor, turned fire hoses and acrimonious dogs trained on attack on nonviolent protestors resulting in a global outcry finally causing a repeal of Birmingham’s laws on segregation.
After the incident of Birmingham, mass demonstrations ensued that resulted in ferocious confrontations among communities that were white. For example, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, barefacedly blocked the entry of two African-American students to the University of Alabama, on June 12, 1963 ("Birmingham Campaign (1963)", 2017). While Wallace remained unsuccessful in blocking these students, the temper within the black community flared immensely. A response to these events led to the enactment of legislations pertaining to civil rights and the subsequent promotion of commercial opportunities within the communality of African-Americans. The voting movement drastically shifted to Selma and Alabama by 1965, under the constant governance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Moreover, innumerable leaders and activists commenced the journey to Montgomery, which led to Black Nationalism through waves of sentiments within organizations such as the SNCC and CORE. Within the development of Black Nationalism, Malcom X emerged as a charismatic leader in his style of speaking and address, leading to the development of the Black Panther group. These events resulted in the culmination of the African-American crusade on civil rights. Soon after, this crescendo dissipated in the 1970s, having achieved major fetes in its development.
References
Birmingham Campaign (1963) . (2017). Kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu . Retrieved 9 December 2017, from http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_birmingham_campaign/index.html
Hall, J. (2005). The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past. The Journal Of American History , 91 (4), 1-33.
Karson, J. (2005). The Civil Rights Movement . Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
