Social and political movements of the 1960s

American History

The Greatest Change since 1945 -- Civil Rights

During the 1950s, the NAACP had to fight for the right of African-American children to go to the same public schools as white children in the South (252). It was considered a radical statement for Martin Luther King Jr. To proclaim the equality of all American citizens, and to envision a future where Black and White children would be able to join hands and sing of brother and sisterhood (256). King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech before the Lincoln Memorial, a telling image of how the Civil War's promise to African-Americans of equality and justice had yet to be realized. Even the radical Black Muslim leader Malcolm X idealized the image of Whiteness when he was a young man to such a degree that he burned his own scalp with lye, to look more like a White man, with smooth hair (251). Whiteness was desirable because it was associated with privilege, success, and esteem, even in the eyes of many Blacks. And yet, not so far in the future, a Black man in contemporary America has declared his desire to become president, is taken seriously in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president. Could even King or Malcolm X dream that this would take place in 2007?

While the struggle for women's rights, the countercultural movement, and other social movements of the 1960s would fundamentally restructure American society and change the way that America looked at itself, nothing altered the landscape of the American political and social landscape as much as the American Civil Rights movement. Before the Women's Rights movement women still worked, although their labor was not always recognized, and great women scholars, authors, and professionals had made their mark upon the American landscape. (Furthermore, one could argue that the movement would have meant very little to Black women, had it succeeded in its objectives, but the Civil Rights movement had not). As for the countercultural movement, old and young people have often been in conflict, and the methods of expression of the countercultural, anti-Vietnam movement such as sit-ins and boycotts were often imitations of the techniques of the Civil Rights movement.

To understand the full impact of the Civil Rights movement one must remember what America looked like before the movement made itself manifest in the 1950s. Black inequality was enshrined in the original U.S. Constitution, in the form of the infamous 3/5ths compromise, which stated that Black human beings were worth only part of a White man. Slavery was allowed until the Confederacy went to war against the Union to protect its institution of slavery and wage the only civil war America has ever endured within its borders. Although some historians might say that the war was fought over state's rights, the primary right that the Confederates desired was the right to own Black men and women as property. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court held that separate but equal was a legitimate stance under American law, essentially codifying human beings into different racial categories like a caste system, until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In short, America was a nation founded upon a paradox. It idealized freedom and personal choice, yet it also was based upon a system that did not allow a substantial percentage of the population to exercise that freedom and enjoy in their liberties.

The Civil Rights movement was so radical, because it demanded that the promise of American freedom finally be truly realized and granted to Black Americans, which America was unwilling to do, until African-Americans demanded their rights through this eloquent and articulate protest movement. Sadly, the damage of hundreds of years of slavery had taken their psychological and economic toll upon some Black Americans. One of the saddest aspects of reading Brown v. Board of Education is to read how Black children had internalized societal messages of racism to such a degree that they often preferred images of White rather than Black children. The reason for Malcolm X's vehemence against American society was not simply the prejudice and discrimination he had been forced to endure from an economic standpoint, but the way that he learned to value the images of Whiteness to the point that he would mutilate his own body.