Introduction
In a climate of obstruction among segregationists and the indifference of most white citizens, federal and civil rights laws in the South, the stronghold of American racism, were not enforced. The status of a discriminated and disenfranchised racial minority has been a daily reality for many generations of blacks. The entire South of the United States was literally permeated with the spirit of racial hatred. There was a clear crisis in the Negro movement caused by disbelief in their own strength and progress in the field of civil rights. During this time, quite a few tragic events caused a national resonance and questioned established historical stereotypes, events that formed the main provisions of human rights laws in America. Unfortunately, these actions and progress have sometimes come at an extremely high price in human lives, communities, and people of color who have experienced unreasonable discrimination against themselves for many years.
Black Power is a more radical movement than the civil rights movement. Such radicalism was caused by tragic events, clashes, police brutality, and many other activities that go beyond the law. Partly because of this, it can be recognized that the formation of Black Power was forced, and such a force was needed to achieve justice and truth. However, history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood, and to assess the situation, it is necessary to turn to the facts. This paper offers historical background and discussion of the civil rights movements that developed into Black Power, the reasons for this transformation, and the consequences and lessons that can be learned from these events.
History and Facts
The struggle for civil rights was accompanied by a mass of point events, gradually developing into a more serious movement, covering the whole country and approaching the capital. Long years of silence were interrupted like a chain reaction, and the feeling of freedom was expressed in protests. Not all of them ended peacefully, but the aggressive reaction of the established racist regime only strengthened the movement and confirmed their rightness in the dispute about injustice. It can be said that decisive action began in the second half of the fifties.
In 1955 winter, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Initially, there was a tradition of segregation of passengers by skin color on bus trips. Parks was the first to challenge the stagnant white-dominated regime, and it was her actions that gave the rights movement its first boost. As a result, associations began to form, one of which was headed by Martin Luther King Jr., and Parks, despite his arrest, made the case public, which resulted in a resonance in society.
In 1954, the civil rights movement received a new impetus when the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools illegal in Brown v. Board of Education. Little Rock school in 1957 requested that volunteers be sent from high schools across the country to attend the previously segregated school. Later this year, the Little Rock Nine arrived at the school for education, but the Arkansas National Guard intercepted the students and detained them. A few weeks later, the Little Rock Nine tried to get in again but were forced to withdraw when violence broke out.
Similar events have received a chain character and began to arise in many states and cities. The first achievement was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, containing a stricter sentence for any obstruction of voting, but stereotypes and prejudices were not eradicated by such legislative actions. Student protests followed at Woolworth College in 1960. Like a chain reaction, various non-violent peaceful strikes began in many cities, provoking the further development of the civil rights movement. Against the backdrop of these events, especially ideological students, among whom was Stokely Carmichael, became key figures in the movement, and by 1966 the expression “Black Power” appeared.”
In 1961, a joint action was held with participants of white and colored people – the Freedom Riders. They reviewed the implementation of the 1960 Supreme Court ruling in Boynton v. Virginia, which declared vehicle sharing between the states unconstitutional. The clash with the arbitrariness of the police once again drew attention to the problem, this time from the international community. In Alabama, a bus was attacked with a bomb and protesters were beaten. After several unsuccessful attempts to continue the journey, the case reached the Supreme Court. At the end of 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules against interstate segregation.
All of the above led to one of the most critical events in the struggle of people of color for rights. On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington took place with the participation of 250 thousand people. When a disciplined non-violent army of blacks and whites entered the city, this hot summer day was indeed a day of peace for the American capital. The police arrested only three people during the whole day: some hooligans who tried to interfere with the demonstration. For many millions of Americans, the March on Washington was a revelation. Many of them, sitting in front of their televisions, saw so many Negroes marching with dignity for the first time. Even more surprising for them was that they saw a lot of white participants in these slender ranks. Marsh culminated in King’s speech in which he constantly said, “I Have a Dream…”. August 28, 1963, became a true celebration of unity and showed that the civil rights movement had acquired a nationwide character. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which guarantees equal employment opportunities for all, limits the use of voter literacy tests, and forces the federal government to integrate public facilities.
In 1965, the Alabama Civil Rights Movement and the procession ended with a large number of peaceful protesters clashing against the killing of Jimi Lee Jackson by a policeman. Tear gas was used against the crowd, many participants were beaten, which resulted in hospitalization. Such events gradually shifted the focus from the struggle for civil rights to the formation of the ideology of Black Power, which grew up exclusively on violent, discriminatory, and conflict grounds.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally banned questionable literacy and voter adequacy tests, which were used as a covert mechanism to keep people of color out of the ballot box. In 1965, Malcolm X, former leader of the Nation of Islam and founder of the Organization of African American Unity, was killed. In 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. was killed too. These shocking events again led to riots and protests, which forced the government to take issues of black rights more seriously. Events like these shaped the more violent demands of the Black Power movement.
In 1968, the Anti-Discrimination in Housing Act was passed, which prevented discrimination based on personal qualities, characteristics and religion of a person, including such particularly acute aspects as gender and race. It was also the last law passed in the civil rights era. The civil rights movement was a good but uncertain time for the American people of color. Some success has been achieved, albeit at too high a price in some cases. It resulted in anti-segregation sentiments, suppression of discrimination in the sectors of labor, elections, real estate, registration and housing.
Conclusion
Assessing the experience of the non-violent American civil rights movement of the 1960s, it should be noted that its leaders considered the central aspect of the struggle not racial but social. In twelve years of organized and purposeful activity, the movement achieved legislative, formal equality for black Americans. The social and political problems of segregation were solved.
Thanks to Martin Luther King and his associates, the non-violent black movement relied on the organized, disciplined action of the masses. Direct action in marches, boycotts, and demonstrations set the black South in motion, awakened its political consciousness, and armed it with courage and an effective method of struggle – non-violence. They awakened in black Americans a sense of self-respect, pride, and self-confidence. They forced American society to look differently at their black fellow citizens. The leaders of the movement taught its participants how to achieve institutionalization of their protest and find political allies in trade unions, the public, and other organizations. During the demonstrations, black Americans first sought the adoption of laws that ensured their interests and then demanded local authorities’ implementation of these laws.
A distinctive feature of this non-violent civil rights struggles period was that all protest campaigns began at the local level. The situation was dramatized by the creation of creative tensions and crises, which attracted the attention of the public and the media at the national and sometimes international levels. Actions of solidarity with the protesters unfolded throughout the country and put pressure on the government, which could no longer ignore the problems of the black population and was forced to take concrete measures aimed at solving them. Echoes of these problems are still encountered, but to a lesser extent, as society is slowly but surely embarking on the path of humanism. Unfortunately, this path led to many discriminatory actions, killings, and protests, before the countries at the highest level began to fight against centuries of injustice. Black Power would not have arisen if equality in civil rights had been achieved, and many conflicts would simply not have happened.
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