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¶ … Changing Nature of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement
The Origin of the Civil Rights Movement
American society changed tremendously following World War II, and in many ways; among them, was the shift in population among African-Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North. In the 1950s and 1960s, 2.5 million migrated north and east from south and west (Goldfield, Abbot, Argersinger & Argersinger, 2005, 359). In particular, African-American population became more and more concentrated in the twelve largest American cities and comprised fully one-third of the nations black population by 1970 (Goldfield, Abbot, Argersinger & Argersinger, 2005, 359). Because of a combination of poverty, lack of equal opportunity in employment, education, and housing because of racism and discrimination, many migrated blacks ended up in what became known as "second ghettos" in their new cities (Goldfield, Abbot, Argersinger & Argersinger, 2005, 359).
Initially, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was the most influential leader within the African-American community in the United States, and his primary message was that the way to overcome inequality and injustice was through peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience. At that time, Latino-Americans...
was tragically assassinated in 1968, but even by 1966, it had begun to seem to many in the African-American communities in the U.S. that peaceful demonstrations were simply not going to be enough to overcome the resistance of mainstream American society to granting full and equal rights to minorities. Perhaps most symbolically in that regard, it was Stokely Carmichael, then leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who said, in 1966, "We've been saying freedom for six years -- and we ain't got nothing. What we're going to start saying now is 'Black Power'!" (Goldfield, Abbot, Argersinger & Argersinger, 2005, 361).
In principle, Dr. King's approach had failed, at least in the minds of many in the black communities, precisely by virtue of the problems that King had articulated in his infamous Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963. Specifically, the notion that perfectly legal restrictions…
Goldfield, D., Abbot, C., Argersinger, J. And Argersinger, P. Twentieth-Century
America: A Social and Political History. 2005. New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice
Hall.
Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's is a prime example of a movement containing both utopian and practical elements. To the outside observer, the passive resistance of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s rousing "I Have a Dream Speech," seems hopeful and utopian. In contrast, the gritty determination of Malcolm X and the Black Muslims, who sought equal rights, but not integration, seems the more practical
Civil Rights Movement Civil rights since 1954 with special reference to California's role A growing Cause, 1776-1865 The Declaration of Independence asserted that "all men have been created equal," as well as in 1788, the U.S. Constitution presupposed to "secure the blessings of liberty" towards the United States citizens. These rights as well as liberties, nevertheless, had been meant just for white individuals of property. The actual Founding Fathers by no means thought
The milestone that the Civil Rights Movement made as concerns the property ownership is encapsulated in the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which is also more commonly referred to as the Fair Housing Act, or as CRA '68. This was as a follow-up or reaffirmation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discussed above. It is apparent that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 outlawed discrimination in property and housing there
During the mid 1960s, "highly public demonstrations" (525) became more popular and gained momentum among the community because popular and significant individuals close to the cause supported them. The power and attention these protest garnered illustrated just how serious African-Americans were in achieving their goals. The protests proved to the people that they could do more than they thought they could. They could accomplish things even though they were
In 1934 he published his first collection of short stories, entitled, the Ways of White Folks, which provided a series of short insights into the humorous and tragic interactions between the two races. During this time Hughes also established several theater groups in such cities as Los Angeles and Chicago. In 1935 he also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to help begin to write scripts for movies
The Black Power phase was best embodied by one of its leaders, Malcolm X, a Muslim convert who used the Islam religion as his philosophy in promoting the Black Power movement's objectives, which promotes the use of violence as replacement to moral idealism in the black Americans' fight against discrimination and prejudice. More than anything else, the Black Power movement promoted the use of violence directly against white Americans --