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The Civil Rights Movement: a Struggle for Justice We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. These words, proclaimed in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson in Declaration of Independence, defined Americas promise equality and freedom for every one. However, these notions meant nothing in reality for so many African Americans, who were slaves before the Civil War and later were denied basic social, educational and political equality by biased laws and social perceptions. (Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement) Not only African Americans, but women also, as well as men without property, have experienced unjust treatment and denial in citizenship rights. Thats why civil rights movement or struggle for justice have appeared and remained for a long time as an integral part of American nations history. (Carson) As Lawrence Hanks specified in his article A Diverse Quest for Civil Rights, despite the promises of the Constitution and the philosophical ideals of the Declaration of Independence, American citizens have faced and continue to face discrimination based on race, age, gender, sexual orientation, and abilities. All of this discrimination has been challenged by formalized movements with various degrees of success. (Hanks).
However, Civil Rights Movement per se is usually associated with African Americans struggle first for freedom and then for equality. The fight of African Americans for their civil rights is of major importance in the history of America as it signifies the time when black people made their voice heard and in a way shaped the development of American social and political life. The focus of their persistent and long struggle for equality in civil rights was concentrated on political issues such as integration, voting rights, equal educational opportunities, increased employment opportunities, better housing possibilities, and fair police protection. (Moore, 2002) So, Civil Rights Movement in America can be defined as struggle of African Americans to gain full political, social and legal citizenship rights and to achieve racial equality. This movement first of all challenged segregation, i. e. the set of customs and laws separating blacks from whites and questioned the rights of white people who even after abolishment of slavery in 1860 s still used to exercise their control over blacks.
The ways civil rights organization and very often only individuals showed their disagreement with existing political order were various and always non-violent boycotts, protest marches, refusal to obey segregation laws. Although African Americans started their fight for equality earlier in American history and there is a debate whether it has ended yet, it is believed that the movement started in 1955 with the Montgomery bus boycott and ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. (Norrell, 2005) In this paper I will follow the evolution of Civil Rights Movement and will try to define how the Constitutional changes have influenced its development. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 made the slaves who were held in the states still fighting in the Civil War free. After the War, during the Reconstruction period, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was adopted in 1865, outlawed slavery everywhere in America. The year 1868 saw the Fourteenth Amendment, which ensured that the former slaves, and all persons born in America became citizens of the country and as such they were afforded equal protection of the law.
The Fifteenth Amendment (1879) provided the right to vote to any citizen, regardless of his or her race and no matter if he or she was a slave before. However, even with so many changes in the Constitution and new laws, the situation for the former slaves, their descendants, as well as other ethnic and racial minorities didnt show much improvement and they still were denied equal treatment in the society. Not only that, in the case Please v. Ferguson (1896) against segregated railroad travel, the Supreme Court of the US made separate but equal accommodations constitutional. The Supreme Court of the United States actually gave State governments the right to separate people according to their race if the separate facilities could be considered equal.
This doctrine of separate but equal was in use till 1954, the year when the Supreme Court re-considered and overruled its previously made decision. (Civil Rights. Law and History, 2002) Such supported by law system of segregation included also the refusal to give African Americans the right to vote, so called disfranchisement. In 1890 - 1910 all Southern states of America adopted laws, which imposed such strict requirements for voting that it made impossible for black voters to participate in the process; the 15 th Amendment to the Constitution, designed to protect and ensure voting rights of black people were fulfilled, didnt make much difference. Due to the fact that African Americans could not vote, they were absolutely powerless to stop white people from segregating every aspect of life in Southern America.
They had to face discrimination in educational and economic opportunities as well as in public accommodations and housing. Segregation was the word for that time. Blacks couldnt be possibly satisfied with this state of affairs and fought against discrimination and segregation whenever it was only possible. In late 1800 s African Americans filed lawsuits to put an end to separate seats in buses, railroad carriages, to disfranchisement of black voters and refusal of access to restaurants and schools.
They also formed new national organization, such as the National Afro-American League (1890), the Niagara Movement (1905) and the most famous and powerful the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which was created in 1909. The NAACP mainly relied on legal struggle against discrimination and segregation to acquire equal rights for African Americans. During the First World War (1914 - 1918) blacks fought for America, however, they experienced segregation even in the army. The most important event at that time was the migration of thousands of African Americans from the South to Northern cities to take opportunity of job vacancies created by the war, which continued up to 1950 s.
This resulted in strong black communities in the North, which had rather powerful political influence and were able to help Southern blacks to fight for equality in the society and politics as well. They also voted for political leaders that supported civil rights, making their presence felt in American political life. The Second World War saw African Americans being more aware; they made it clear that the support of blacks for the war depended on fair and equal treatment and opportunities not only in military forces but also in war industries back home. As a result, the federal Fair Employment Practices Committee was formed which was a sign and proof to blacks that struggle for justice could lead to real federal commitments to equal civil rights. (Norrell, 2005) The decision of the Supreme Court of the US on May 17, 1954, in Brown v.
Board of Education case can be considered the most significant federal decision since the Emancipation Proclamation as it ruled that racial segregation in education was unconstitutional. Brown eradicated the core legitimacy of state-imposed segregation and was a mighty building block for the legal rationale in support of the civil rights protests and legislation of the 1960 s. Without Brown as a moral and legal precedent, the key civil rights statutes of the 1960 s would not have been passed, writes Leon Higginbotham in his work 50 years of civil rights - African American movement. (Higginbotham, 2004) The beginning of what many consider the real Civil Rights Movement is referred to the date December 1, 1955. It was the day when Rosa Parks from Montgomery, Alabama, refused to leave her seat in a bus when demanded to do so by a white man, thereby breaking a Southern America custom that blacks are required to give seats in the front of a bus to white people. After she was put into prison, the black community started boycott of citys buses.
The peaceful boycott lasted for 381 days, after which Montgomery buses were desegregated. This incident demonstrated the determination and unity of African Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr. came on stage of the civil right movement as a very effective leader with deep understanding of the significance of nonviolent tactics. I had come to see early that the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom, he explained (as cited in Civil Rights Movement by Carson).
In 1957 King became the president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sale). Even though he remained the main spokesman for African Americans hopes and aspirations, as in Montgomery case, it was unknown individuals who initiated most prominent black movements. In February 1960 four African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College started the peaceful protest of so called sit-ins which aimed at desegregating of southern lunch counters (lunch counters were for white people only, while blacks had to eat standing). Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a series of protests in 1960 s and achieved its first success in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. The confrontation between peaceful protesters and police with fire hoses, clubs and police dogs, was highly publicized and managed to gain sympathy from northern Americans. President John F.
Kennedy saw the necessity for new civil rights legislation. The civil rights efforts of African Americans finally resulted in March on Washington in August 28, 1963, with around 200, 000 people participating in it. All these events ultimately led to the appearance of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. This Act prohibits segregation in places of public accommodation and outlaws racial discrimination in education and employment. (Carson) In 1965 the SCLC supported a voting rights protest initiated by students in Selma, Alabama. As the protests at the local court were not heard, protesters started to march to the state capital, Montgomery. As the people were leaving the city, police beat them and used tear-gas to stop the march.
Violence, which was televised, was shocking to many Americans who started to call that day Bloody Sunday. African Americans, in their turn, were determined to continue their march and led by King, they completed 5 -day, 80 -km march from Selma to Montgomery. It gained broad support of Americans for a law that would protect the voting rights of Southern blacks. And same year, President Johnson pushed the Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It suspended literary and other strict requirements and qualification tests, which were banned altogether by later amendments.
In the three years following its enactment, almost a million more blacks in the South registered to vote. By 1968 black voters were having a significant effect on Southern politics. During the 1970 s blacks were seeking and winning public offices in majority-black electoral districts, writes Robert Norrell in Civil Rights Movement in the United States. (Norrell, 2005) Many activists think that the civil right movement ended with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, others consider it to be over after the Selma march, as after that there wasnt any significant change achieved by the movement, still others, especially African Americans, refuse to accept that the movement is over as there are so many goals to be yet achieved. However, even though complete equality has not been reached yet, Civil Rights Movement did achieve fundamental reforms on federal level. Public institutions were opened to all.
Blacks achieved the right to vote and the influence that went with that right in a democracy. Those were indeed long steps toward racial equality. (Norrell, 2005) The history of African Americans struggle for justice in America can be a good illustration of how civil rights have been denied historically and how determination and perseverance have helped them ultimately win. As Samuel Kernell and Gary C. Jacobson write in their book The Logic of American Politics, a major obstacle facing African Americans in their struggle for civil rights was the structure of government established by the Constitution. Under the Constitution, national majorities opposing slavery and racial discrimination were generally unable to prevail politically over the entrenched southern states.
The opponents of civil rights were overcome only through the use of overwhelmingly strong governing coalitions or armed conflict. (Kernell, Jacobson, 2005) So, even though all the politically and socially correct Amendments to the Constitution had been made long ago, it was basically only the paper-work and in reality the treatment of African Americans remained practically the same as it was when they were slaves. It was only when civil rights movement advocates appealed to economic and political interests of the majority that it made its most significant advances. The massive migration of blacks from South to northern cities, their subsequent political awareness and support of Democratic Party, protests that led to Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965, they all are the steps that led to the victories of African Americans in being accepted as equal citizens of the United States, equal members of the society. And basically, it was not the constitutional framework that affected the lives of African Americans, since white people refused to abide by Constitutional Amendments, but it was the blacks who affected the Constitution and made the society see and accept the changes. Even though the majority of these changes were initiated by little-known individuals, the results which were produced, influenced and improved the life of the whole race. Reference list: C.
Carson. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. (web) Civil Rights. Law and History. 2002 (web) L. Hanks. The Diverse Quest for Civil Rights. (web) L. Higginbotham. 50 years of civil rights - African American movement. 2004 Gale Group (web) S.
Kernell, G. C. Jacobson. The Logic of American Politics. 2005 (web) L. N. Moore.
Civil Rights Movement. 2002 Gale Group (web) R. J. Norrell. Civil Rights Movement in the United States. 2005 (web) We Shall Overcome. Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement. (web)
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Research essay sample on The Civil Rights Movement A Struggle For Justice
