Introduction
Civil Rights in America have been achieved after a prolonged struggle. The Thirteenth Amendment was prematurely heralded as a potential end to inequality in the United States (Eubank and Fresh, 792). However, scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois recognized the uphill task that lay ahead before African Americans could be considered equal to their White counterparts. In the mid-twentieth century, the Civil Rights Movement emerged as an agitator for social reforms that would end overt racism, as practiced through segregation and other discriminatory practices. This essay will detail some of the important elements of the march toward civil rights in the US.
MLK and the Power of Non-violent Resistance
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a Civil Rights Movement leader and American Baptist Minister who possessed exceptional oratory and mobilization skills until his assassination in 1968. One of his greatest influences was his father, who was an early civil rights activist and a Baptist minister (Joseph, 5). He was one of the most recognizable individuals in the fight to end racism and achieve equal opportunity for colored people in the US.
Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for a non-violent but effective struggle against racism in America (Lewis). To date, his speeches, writings, and approach to the fight for racial equality continue to inspire similar movements in America and the world at large. Martin Luther King Jr. was infamously arrested by law enforcement agencies in Birmingham, Alabama, on 12th April 1963.
Krishnamurthy notes that his alleged crime was breaching a sanction against “mass street parades or mass processions or like demonstrations without a permit” (306). It is in these circumstances that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his influential “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The letter was, by all means, Martin Luther King Jr.’s response to eight White clerics. The White moderate clerics argued that racial segregation, while wrong, would come to a natural end through the intervention of the courts and gradual social reform (Krishnamurthy, 306). Thus, they called upon Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues in the Civil Rights movement to avoid heightening racial tensions through their agitative, urgent tendencies.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s response was a measured and precise call for the White moderates in America to join the struggle. King Jr. discussed and condemned the “lukewarm” attitude displayed by the White moderates who agreed with the Civil Rights Movement’s goals but refused to support its efforts toward achieving them. Additionally, the Letter from Birmingham was a persuasive call to all White people in America who believed that the time was ripe for social and racial equality.
Krishnamurthy defines the letter as a masterpiece in “democratic propaganda” (307). It used moral truths, biblical allegories, intellectual arguments, and emotional appeals to steer White moderates toward backing the civil rights movement. Notably, Martin Luther King Jr. felt that the reluctance of White moderates to join the civil rights movement was perhaps an even greater barrier to social reform than the Ku Klux Klan.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913, a turbulent time. Six years later, a rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan would comb through the South for African Americans who had returned from the First World War with untenable demands (Reyburn and Hayden, 3). Such early impressions were important for Rosa Parks’s evolution into a member of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-twentieth century.
Rosa Parks is best remembered for courageously refusing to move to the back of a racially segregated Montgomery bus on 1st December 1955 (Entin, 262). Following her impertinence, Parks was arrested, spurring collective efforts to protest segregation in public transport. Other members of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Grey, and Jo Ann Robinson, rallied around Parks and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott in defiance of the segregation regime.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott called upon thousands of Black residents of Montgomery to boycott public bus transport. The main aim of their radical action was to upset the social order that required African Americans to sit at the back of the bus and to cede their seats to Whites (Levin, 15). Additionally, their boycott sought to end the harassment of Blacks by White drivers in Montgomery buses.
The newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), headed by Martin Luther King Jr., sustained the boycott by organizing Black carpools and van transport into a feasible transport network for Black workers throughout the strike (Levin, 19). MLK observed the potential of the boycott to act as the spark that would guide the fight for equality on a national scale. Notably, the strike, which lasted roughly one year, was successful, as evidenced by the landmark Supreme Court ruling on 13th November 1956 that banned racial segregation in public transport.
Similarly, the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins sought to end segregation in retail stores. Four university students walked into the F.W. Woolworth Greensboro store and sat at the White lunch counter, where they were denied service (Williamson-Lott). The students spurred the boycott of stores with segregated seating nationwide, which caused a dip in sales for such stores and thus forced them to adopt equal seating well before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Notably, the students were using the same method of non-violent social protest adopted by Rosa Parks and advocated for by Martin Luther King Jr. Their success was further testament to the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by most of the Civil Rights Movement members at the time.
Civil Rights Legislation
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a multipronged document that tackles discrimination. It has eleven Roman-numbered titles, each providing a specific form of civil protection. Title I is titled “Prohibiting discriminatory voter registration ‘tactics,’” whereas Title II is defined as “Addressing discrimination and segregation in business establishments.” Another notable title is numbered VI and is given as “Race Discrimination in Federally Funded Programs.” On the other hand, Title VII is “Discrimination in Employment” (Back 60).
The most significant is Title I, which protects persons of color from being covertly excluded from exercising their constitutional right to vote. Bach notes that before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, state and local governments utilized a raft of tedious registration procedures to alienate and disenfranchise African American voters. Crucially, Title 1 outlawed the use of dissimilar, race-based standards to ascertain voter eligibility (Back, 4). Moreover, Title I prohibited the use of discriminatory literacy tests and voter disqualification based on insubstantial errors in procedure or documentation. Crucially, Title I paved the way for African Americans to have a voice in their country’s leadership and, by extension, to direct national policy.
In addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon B Johnson also passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. Eubank and Fresh note that the VRA, in many ways, augmented Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (791). The VRA abolished literacy requirements for all voters. Notably, Title I allowed for the use of literacy exams if they were administered to all individuals and were wholly written. Moreover, the VRA directed that all state and local jurisdictions run their voting requirements by the US Department of Justice for prior approval. This ensured that local and state governments, even in strongholds of White supremacists such as the South, could not use discriminatory laws to muscle their voters out of the voting booth.
The enduring impact of the VRA is that it resulted in Black enfranchisement en masse as more and more Blacks participated in the determination of their leaders as voters and aspirants (Eubank & Fresh, 792). Additionally, African Americans were able to achieve increased government attention to their plight as they became important parts of the political and decision-making process. The election of the first African American president of the United States in 2008 is evidence of the importance of the Voting Rights Act regarding black representation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Civil Rights Movement of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks made massive gains for minorities in the United States. Their efforts led to the abolishment of most of the hallmarks of racial America and ushered in the possibility of an America of equal opportunity. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, in particular, was an important document that continues to define social-political relations in America. Its impact on the American political landscape today cannot be overlooked.
Works Cited
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Eubank, Nicholas, and Adriane Fresh. “Enfranchisement and Incarceration after the 1965 Voting Rights Act.” American Political Science Review, vol. 116, no. 3. 2022, pp. 1–16. Web.
Joseph, Peniel E. The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Basic Books, 2020.
Krishnamurthy, Meena. “Martin Luther King Jr. On Democratic Propaganda, Shame, and Moral Transformation.” Political Theory, vol. 50, no. 2, 2021. Web.
Levine, Peter. “A Case: The Montgomery Bus Boycott.” What Should We Do? 2022, pp. 12–32. Web.
Lewis, John. “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” New York Times, 2020. Web.
Reyburn, Susan, and Carla Diane Hayden. Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words. The University of Georgia Press, In Association With The Library Of Congress, 2020.
Williamson-Lott, Joy Ann. “Belles of Liberty: Gender, Bennett College, and the Civil Rights Movement in Greensboro, North Carolina by Linda Beatrice Brown.” The Review of Higher Education, vol. 42, no. 5, 2019, p. E-1-E-2. Web.