Civil Rights and Racism

Racism in America: Where do we stand?

From the time of the New World's discovery in the year 1492, racism has remained at the forefront of U.S. history. Even in the present day, it is reported that in America, one Black man dies from police confrontations every 28 hours. A majority of these incidents even fail to show up in local newspapers and news channels. It is only occasionally that these unfortunate victims garner the state media's attention and even rarer for such incidents to show up on national-level media. Over half a century following the famous "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King and many years following Barrack Obama's historic victory in the 2008 Presidential elections to become the nation's first ever African-American President, growing cases of racial violence prove the persistent sensitivity of this social issue. Mass racial aggression, dubbed the nation's "worst nightmare," persists (Lester, 1985). Racism is clearly entrenched in the nation's policemen and each day sees thousands of citizens protesting against police abuse and unfair treatment of members of the African-American community. Typically, bigger penalties and a larger number of speeding tickets are levied on them as compared to whites, and ninety percent of the time, police dogs end up attacking Blacks. Furthermore, White personnel in the law enforcement system (including policemen and judges) systematically consider non-Whites as threats. For instance, 2012-14 statistics for Ferguson, Missouri, reveal that African-Americans account for 93% of total detentions, 90% of overall summonses and 85% of total traffic controls (U.S. Department of Justice, 2015).

The term 'racism' may be defined as a belief that some specific race is inferior or superior to another race. To elaborate, it entails treating people unjustly or differently for the sheer reason that they are members of another ethnic group and that it is important to maintain a division between different races. Racism involves bias as well as injustice founded on social views of biological distinctions between individuals. The American Heritage College's Dictionary defines racism in two ways: 1) Racism represents a belief that a specific race is better than all others and that race explains differences inherent in human nature or capacity; and 2) Racism refers to racial intolerance or bias (Klarman, 2007). One must take care not to mistake racism for the concept of White supremacy, which, although a type of racism, denotes a belief that whites are better than individuals belonging to other racial groups in particular aspects.

One starting block to understand the concept of racism is: spelling out the difference between prejudice and racism. There is an expensive and widely-held misunderstanding regarding these two separate concepts and a grasp of the two will aid in better grasping requisite action steps for eliminating racism. Prejudice denotes any judgment made without duly considering and analyzing facts, and which remains even after acquiring knowledge that opposes this judgment. Since there is no factual ground for prejudice, it is driven chiefly by fear and other emotional reactions. Race-based prejudice exists, but is not the only constituent of racism (D'rozario and Williams, 2005). A combination of power (described as the capacity of commanding, controlling and dominating social reality to attain a particular preferred outcome) and prejudice gives rise to racism.

The general group of social scientists has typically studied racial injustice and intolerance combined. A shared view is: individual racists meting out discriminatory, racial treatment. Modern discrimination patterns are founded on the historical advantage whites had over non-whites in the 400-year-long North American racial oppression. A majority of modern-day manifestations of discrimination based on race pass on the Jim Crow and slave trade legacy. Current discriminatory practices replicate olden days' unfair enrichment and impoverishment. Discrimination sustains and echoes the longstanding racist framework, with the related assortment of anti-African-American emotions, attitudes, and images. The interaction of whites and blacks in modern settings sees the latter being subject to negative interpretations of and beliefs regarding their morals, ideals, orientations and capabilities. Racial obstacles remain since a great majority of white Americans continue to hold certain anti-black preconceptions, interpretations, typecasting and images, while a great minority remain highly negative in such views (Aptheker, 1992). Researchers reveal that a majority of whites who interact with blacks in public, at school, at the workplace, or within media/social settings typically consider the latter, unknowingly or knowingly, using innate racial framing (including stereotypes) which is continuously repeated and, hence, reinforced in contemporary society. This kind of socially activated framing usually results in some form of discrimination.

Additionally, anti-African-American attitudes' manifestation as real discriminatory behavior is also governed by societal standards (including what others may think) as well as apparent behavior controls (like others' reactions to discrimination). Routinized employment, housing, public housing and political discriminations are meted out by white individuals independently or as a group. While societal norms driving racial discrimination may be legalized or official, a majority of current-day norms are informal and tacit (Appleson, 1982). Further, a large amount of anti-Afro-American action isn't infrequent but performed frequently and consistently by several individuals belonging to the dominant racial group, governed by key social network norms. While Whites have independent capacity to discriminate against people of color, a large share of this power of harming supposedly inferior people is because of their positions within traditionally white-headed institutions and white networks.

Historical Outlook of Racism in America

The racial identity concept assumed a scientific institution's verdigris chiefly during the start to the middle 19th-century under the European Enlightenment. The scientists of that period, especially the botanists and biologists, were keen to classify the diverse life forms on this planet, including humanity. Perhaps due to cultural prejudice and ethnocentrism, mankind's classification was done in a hierarchical arrangement, with the Europeans placed at the hierarchical ladder's peak, and the Africans placed at its bottom. Slavery's institutionalization in America would not have been possible if the Whites failed to provide an intellectual rationale for mistreating several million African males, females, and kids (Appleson, 1982; Childers, 1997). This rationalizing was also imitated by Muslims previously, in enslaving East African people. Slavery necessitated racism and, in fact, was its proximate cause.

Racism has been deeply entrenched in American history and current life. Every non-white has been subject to its ill consequences. American history is overflowing with oppression against non-whites, right from Native Americans' massacre, to the African slave trade, to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, to Japanese-Americans' mass incarceration to the discrimination meted out to Hispanic-Americans. Accompanying this is non-whites' extensive history of resisting white oppression. The 60's black opposition is what brought the social problem of racism onto leading churches' agendas (Childers, 1997). Ultimately, African-Americans' epic efforts accompanied by leading churches' powerful support of the Blacks' cause ended legal segregation. Leading churches' vision was: eradication of color divisions in their Christian religious groups/institutions and the whole of America, by offering all individuals civil rights, under an integration system. The basic code informing church advocacy was their idea of racism resulting from personal preconceptions and ethnic/racial pride. Thus, church initiatives concentrated on altering personal views and overpowering prejudice.

The year 1963 proved historic in American race relations history. In April 1963, civil rights spearheads like Martin Luther King Jr. commenced a peaceful protest for the desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama's public facilities. Birmingham officials used police dogs and fire hoses against the huge throng of peaceful protesters (which included local school kids) and even hit and detained several hundred activists. This aggressive response was aired across national and global news channels, showing the world the shocking and brutal reality of racism in America. A couple of months after this incident, the then-President Kennedy proclaimed his support of a pending bill to ban discrimination based on race in the domains of employment, public accommodations and housing, on national TV. For backing this law, civil rights supporters arranged demonstrations in almost all major U.S. cities, with the famous, massive August 1963 protest march on the capital (Rogers, 2004). This event witnessed 250,000 Americans (the biggest group of demonstrators in the nation's history) making their way to the famed Lincoln Memorial, where a number of civil rights heads delivered speeches. This event's highlight was Martin Luther King Jr.'s stirring and earnest speech, "I Have a Dream" where he expressed his vision thus: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Half a century afterward, King's aforementioned words continue to be a symbol for individuals hoping to cultivate a society unhindered by racism. But present-day civil rights campaigners interpret the assassinated civil rights leader's dream and how to accomplish it in starkly diverse ways. Although progressives normally hold the belief that he would back race-sensitive initiatives aiming at counteracting discrimination (like positive action in the areas of employment and education), a majority of conservatives contend that he would back colorblind programs that give importance to merit and character, rather than race, in college/university admission- and recruitment-related decision-making (Rogers, 2004).

The "colorblindness" idea (of public policy being blind to ethnicity/race) is highly regarded by Ward Connerly, Glynn Custred and other Republicans. During the mid-nineties, the two aforementioned conservatives initiated Proposition 209 (Californian Civil Rights Initiative, CCRI), which was a poll measure for ending affirmative action public education, recruitment and contracting programs. Since the 70's, such programs needed the state to ascertain college and workplace minority representation by considering the aspect of race within policy decisions. However, in the year 1996, Californian voters embraced the novel initiative that forbade stare discrimination against or preferential treatment of any particular person or group of persons on grounds of nationality, race, gender, color, or ethnicity in public employment, contracting and education operations (Tauber, 1999). Washington State ratified a similar measure against affirmative action a couple of years later.

Washington and Californian program backers assert that these kinds of legislations facilitate in bringing America nearer to King's vision of a state that judged people based on abilities and character, instead of race. They hold that, positive action equals preferential treatment of minorities, and hence, becomes a form of reverse or positive discrimination against whites, which foils the values of justice and equality in opportunities. According to the CEO's (Center for Equal Opportunity) general counsel, Roger Clegg, the discriminatory treatment of some non-whites at the hands of some white citizens in an era long gone cannot be undone by new discrimination against a different group of whites by a different group of blacks, both of whom had no involvement in the injustices of the past (Tauber, 1999). Rather than attempting to resolve the problem of discrimination through more discrimination, the aim should be enforcing extant laws and stopping discriminatory treatment.

Patterns of Discrimination: Political and Legal Institutions

It has been many centuries since federal, state and local governments have proactively engaged in defending or magnifying the racial discrimination framework. A majority of such governments have an undemocratic nature; that is, they lack major influential input with regard to key operations and systems from American non-whites, both traditionally and at present. Although a few social scientists/theorists, including those who propounded the theory of racial formation, exaggerate the state's significance as a fairly neutral or impartial entity where several racial populations vie for social and political control, this hasn't previously been (and isn't currently) the nation's empirical reality (Henry and Sears, 2002). Right from the outset, the government of America has been influenced strongly by racial interests as well as white male framing. To this day, top governmental positions have largely, and extremely disproportionately, been held by white elites.

White governmental systems and authorities have largely shown favoritism towards fellow white Americans' politico-economic and racial interests. Therefore, governmental programs traditionally offered considerable access to innumerable precious resources including homesteading land only or rather disproportionately to people from the white American community. Combined with the aforementioned, longstanding "affirmative action" in whites' favor, the nation's governments developed and emphasized widespread racial marginalization patterns, targeting non-whites. Over the long period of America's inhabitation by non-Natives, white-dominated governmental legislative, judicial and executive branches at all levels have characteristically maintained Jim Crow exclusion and slavery (Johnson, 2001).

About 138 years after America's independence, its Supreme Court finally started doing away with some state-level Jim Crow rules that were extremely discriminatory against African-American citizens. Nevertheless, greater political representation was slow to arrive. Ultimately, the civil rights effort of the 60's drove legislation modifications, such as the Voting Rights Act's (1965) enactment (Johnson, 2001). Partly, thanks to this act, the next decade saw millions of African-American inhabitants of Southern states finally getting to vote. Consequently, African-American elected officials grew in number from some dozen officials during the 60's to thousands in the present day. There are still, however, a number of places in which African-American voters cannot elect people belonging to their community as representatives. And in places where they can elect a few representatives, these representatives normally can't convince white-dominated legislatures to heed their views and feelings.

Current everyday voting restriction activities by the dominant white conservative politicians signify deliberate and consistent discrimination against non-white voters. Before the 60's, a majority of drives for decreasing non-white voters' numbers were initiated by Democrats. But the 60's saw Republicans (Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater) increasingly undertaking voting restriction activities against non-white voters (Krysan, 2000). Of late, such restrictive action remains a part of governmental campaigns at all governmental levels. Scholars reveal the application of an alarming range of blocking plans by certain white authorities to decrease Latin American and African-American voting or representation, including: gerrymandering the nation's political districts, making elective offices appointive in nature, destroying voter-registration lists, adding fresh criteria for assuming office, unexpectedly altering polling locations, complicating registration processes, and a number of other tactics for diluting Latin American and African-American votes (Maddox & Gray, 2004). Deliberately instituting or maintaining at-large voting systems, rather than small electoral districts, is one example of a geographical vote reduction tactic which helps white voters, controlling huge political units, determine political representatives of that unit, even when extremely few voters are non-whites.

America's enduring racial hierarchy has been replicated by several actions of innumerable governmental agents from diverse governmental institutions. For example, white policemen traditionally, and even today, have a great part to play in subordinating African-Americans, including individuals protesting against unfairness. Disturbing data can be found regarding historical American police violence. Between 1920 and 1932, much more than 50% of black killings at the hands of whites were committed by white policemen. Policemen were consistently implicated in approximately six thousand bloody killings of African-American males and females between the 1870s and 1960s (Altman, 2006). The decades following the aforementioned timespan have witnessed continued police persecution and brutality against blacks, and a reciprocal open resistance on blacks' part. Analysis of 1943-72 black "riots" suggests that the direct cause for several such community revolts was African-American urbanites' persecution or killing at the hands of white law enforcement authorities. Blacks publicly objected to police malpractice. Such a community response to police persecution or killings has been witnessed in newer revolts as well, by black inhabitants of Miami and Los Angeles during the 1980s-90s; ever since, non-whites have protested in many ways against police abuse in many other cities.

Despite sporadic policing improvements, police maltreatment and aggression continues to subdue the African-American community. According to a Gallup survey, one in five African-American participants suffered police discrimination; this proportion has risen slightly of late. A second Gallup survey revealed that 42% of African-American participants (75% of young adults) experienced police racial profiling.

Since the year 1994, it has been made mandatory for the U.S. federal government to gather police brutality-related data. However, subsequent Congresses haven't allocated sufficient funds for aiding this data collection effort. A social scientific research which studied 130 police brutality cases in numerous cities found Latin American or African-Americans to be the greatest police abuse targets, with nine out of ten involved policemen being whites. Even today, police brutality is typically inflicted by white officers on Latin American and Blacks (Bird & Clarke, 1999; Altman, 2006). Furthermore, some police persecution directed at non-whites is apparently linked to sustaining particular residential isolation aspects. Even in contemporary America, male Latin Americans or Blacks who wish to reside in traditionally white localities are typically threatened by private security guard- and police- inflicted persecution or pursuits.

Several contemporary law-enforcement organizations screen and stop motorists chiefly or only based on race, for the so-called offense of DWB ("driving while black"), as dubbed by African-Americans. An ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) report encapsulating police racial profiling reveals great differences in stop-and-search rates for African- and Latin- Americans, Asians and Native Americans despite these populations' lower likelihood of contraband possession (Bird & Clarke, 1999).

California, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New Jersey State judges have, from time to time, ordered against racial profiling. A California-based research demonstrated that African- and Latin- Americans were much more prone to being searched without obvious cause by highway police patrollers as compared to whites. Complainants, including the ACLU, resolved a racial profiling-linked class action suit against Maryland policemen in 2008. Researches over a lengthy duration revealed that non-white motorists were disproportionately made to halt, and searched, in the absence of sound cause. According to an ACLU statement, the aforementioned settlement's agreement requires Maryland's police to issue a statement disapproving racial profiling and to maintain an autonomous consultant for evaluating its progress in racial-profiling elimination (Eberhardt et al., 2006).

Racial profiling, considering non-whites inherently felonious, and stopping and checking non-whites without suspicion, the focus of which ought to be illegal drugs, aren't surprising and garner scant objections on white Americans' part. Despite "racialized" drug-carrier profiling popularity, governmental organizations are yet to prove that the drug profiles emphasizing non-whites are valid. This kind of policing is occasionally, and erroneously, justified as reasonable or statistical. The fact is that African-American youngsters consume substances slightly less frequently compared to white youngsters. Further, whites account for approximately 70% of illicit drug consumers (Altman, 2006; Bryson, 1998). Lastly, most drug couriers and pushers will likely be whites. Such white dominance on the drug dealing and consumption scene garners no much police scrutiny and action, which is another clear proof of discrimination on the part of law enforcement and the judiciary.

Discrimination based on race is not limited to policing but extends to many crime justice structure elements. A number of courts have fairly few African-American judges, whilst several white judges fail to adequately understand working-class African-Americans' lives (this is the racial subgroup they most commonly interact with). Further, judges normally hail from backgrounds dissimilar to that of black suspects, and consequently end up overtly or subtly discriminating against them at court. For instance, in a 90's New Haven research of over a thousand detentions, involving bail-connected variables' statistical analysis, researchers controlled for eleven crime severity-related variables and discovered that bail amounts fixed by judges for male African-American suspects were 35% larger than amounts fixed for white males (Bird & Clarke, 1999; Plant & Peruche, 2005). By contrast, community bond dealers who carried out their operations more sensibly charged considerably reduced bonding prices for African-American suspects, as compared to white suspects. A newer, North Californian research discovered an identical trend of fixing larger bail amounts for African-Americans as compared to whites.

For long, institutional racism is clearly apparent in the death sentence's pronouncement. A fresh Death Penalty Information Center report stated that from the time of the federal-level death sentence's reestablishment in 1988, federal government officials sought and gained approval for death sentence pronouncement against 382 offenders, of whom seventy-three percent (278 in number) were minorities. Nearly 60% of present death row inmates are non-whites (Staples, 2011). Furthermore, an analysis of Californian murder-entailing death sentence cases proved that if the victim was a white, the chances of getting a death sentence were higher as compared to a case involving a non-white victim. It appears that criminal justice authorities normally value white lives more than non-whites' lives. A Philadelphian research discovered that African-American offenders embroiled in murder cases were 4 times as liable to getting the death sentence as whites, even considering crime severity. A 2008 research on five hundred capital punishment prosecutions in Brewster County, Texas, revealed that African-American offenders were more liable to getting the death sentence than whites perpetrating similar crimes, and even more liable than white perpetrators of monstrous murders. Lastly, racial bias has a distinct relationship to region, as 82% of death sentences are pronounced in the Southern states.

Violence against African-Americans

America has a centuries-long history of widespread, brutal white-inflicted violence (involving lynching, whips and chains) aimed at racially subordinating black citizens. This aggression is a recurrent aspect of Jim Crow subjection and slavery. White elites and the general public alike perpetrated violence against blacks, including America's founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. Following the U.S. Civil War, the white community feared backlash from liberated blacks and thus perpetrated extensive violence for achieving legal discrimination (Staples, 2011); hence emerged the Jim Crow exclusion system, imposed with police and private violence. The 90's saw a few white southern Congressmen who had previously actively supported violence-enforced black exclusion.

Efforts to Stop Racism

Legal equality and non-discrimination are basic global human rights values. Human dignity, vital to all of humanity, and equality, are inseparable concepts. Respecting equality, non-discrimination and human rights represent mutually dependent aspects supporting key universal human rights accords and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Walker, 2011). Moreover, the ICJ (International Court of Justice) claims racial discrimination prohibition is an erga omnes (towards all) duty.

In spite of legal equality barriers, African-Americans doggedly pursue the goal of making the American Declaration of Independence's words a reality for their community. America has an extensive history of social equality of opportunity and civil rights campaigns. However, the American scene witnessed a drastic alteration during the 60's for two reasons, at least: extensive media exposure became a reality, with the TV helping spur the public to support integration and oppose white supremacists' fierce resistance. Michael Klarman, an American historian, states that the biggest difference between the 50's and 60's was the presence of a television in ordinary citizens' homes and that the 1954 -- 68 Civil Rights campaign would have seen a different outcome without the TV (Klarman, 2007; Welsh, 2009). Also, a newgroup of African-American leaders emerged, facilitating a successful fight against racism (Martin Luther King's 1963 speech 'I Have a Dream' is a splendid example). At the time, he was bothered, persecuted, badmouthed, and assailed by the very America which now commends his efforts on MLK Jr. Day and, in addition to naming streets across America after him. He was brave enough to publicly rebuke the violence inflicted on blacks, the extremist Ku Klux Klan's action and the aggression inflicted by the nation's government itself. As openly accepted by President Obama, King had hope founded on long years of struggle and study, rather than on ignoring the issue at hand. The President further stated that hope is something that's worked for and not attained by magic (Coates, 2014). The 60's may be rightly considered the nation's civil rights decade. Out of oppressed feelings, blacks protested peacefully to earn legal equality. Their Civil Rights campaign's aim was: making sure the law safeguarded all individuals' rights equally. Meanwhile, their Black Power campaign aimed for economic and independence. Until the year 1965, Jim Crow regulation mandated racial separation in every Southern school, restaurant, public transport and other public facilities. This 'isolated-but-equal' Black status characterized them as inferior to others. Ultimately, it was with the aid of several court rulings, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act that racial discrimination, at least theoretically, ended (Smith & Holmes, 2003). Racial bias in voting was barred by the latter act, whose ratification by President Johnson proved to be a huge milestone for African-Americans.

The aforementioned developments were direly-needed and important, but failed to suffice, as, in reality, separation continued in several indirect ways. White citizens changed attitudes and house prices based on the tenant's or purchaser's race, thus attempting to exclude blacks from white neighborhoods. Retail stores, banks, hospitals and organizations also commonly witnessed racial discrimination. Although subtle, this act of 'redlining' continues to this day (D'rozario and Williams, 2005). Furthermore, all through the course of the Cold War era, American racism, lynching and continued mass violence remained a huge concern for several American allies, destabilizing foreign relations, denting the nation's international status and repute, and making the nation's international public image contradictory to its professed hegemony; ultimately, it made, from its 'Negro' issue, the actual weakness of Truman's, Eisenhower's, Kennedy's and Johnson's governments.

The Big Five

The supposed Big Five represented key civil rights bodies which, beginning from the sixties, combated American racism, pushing the government to affect an appreciable change with regard to the existing racial inequality.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Established in the city of New York in the year 1909 by multiracial advocates, this Association is the earliest and biggest U.S. civil rights body, instituted as a response to fatal race uprisings in Illinois's capital, Springfield. The chief focus of the Association was: Black integration into every aspect of American life. The Association began publishing its own magazine, titled the Crisis in 1910, edited by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, and African-American leader (Tauber, 1999). The magazine formed a central crusading medium for black civil rights. This magazine is still published now and its original goal continues. Such bodies are vital as they have the nerve to rebuke and challenge public opinion and governmental leaders. In the year 1913, the Association openly slammed President Wilson for formally reestablishing segregation at the federal government level. Following immense NAACP pressure, he was ultimately forced to denounce lynching before the nation. In the war era, the Association effectively persuaded President Roosevelt into forbidding discrimination within defense industries and federal governmental organizations (Rogers, 2004). This eventually led to the opening of several thousand job opportunities for African-Americans. The year 1948 saw the Association pressurizing President Truman to sign an Executive Order officially forbidding federal governmental discrimination. It also engaged in the historic 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, declaring racially-divided public schools as "unconstitutional." During the 1950s-60s, a number of leaders and celebs like Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Robinson, Ella Baker Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte underscored the significance of enlisting youth and females in organizations, as well as their vital contribution to procuring funds and arranging local drives (Tauber, 1999). At present, the NAACP has roughly 425,000 members, with Roy Wilkins, the Association's executive director considered the smartest political figure in the civil rights arena.

The National Urban League (NUL)

The NUL's (1910) focus is: leading blacks into mainstream American life by way of projects involving education, vocational training, accommodation and welfare. In the 60's the NUL established an alternative educational system for preparing children dropped out from high school for higher education. It embarked on a campaign to surmount obstacles faced by Afro-Americans in the labor market (Klarman, 2007; Coates, 2014). Currently, over 100 local NUL associates are situated in 35 U.S. states.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

CORE is a biracial community effort agency instituted in the year 1942. Its operational principle is: attaining legal equality via direct action like rallies and protests. It is famous for its extensive attacks, with Floyd Mckissinck, its national director, being a key black power supporter. In the sixties, the organization arranged membership meetings once a month and chose its officials and volunteer teams by election, just like trade unions. It fought against Jim Crow rules, housing and employment discrimination, and educational-arena exclusion, and fought to achieve black voting rights. The mid-sixties, however, saw James Farmer, CORE's founder, becoming disappointed by the nationalist black sentiments surfacing in CORE (Smith & Holmes, 2003), which he felt would result in a Black Panther Party, which wasn't opposed to the government but was considerably more vicious than Farmer intended.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

MLK Jr. as well as MLK III headed this organization, instituted originally by the former for taking requisite action within Southern states. Its key political focus was absolute equality and racial integration. Mass protests and rallies became the SCLC's characteristic feature. It was deemed to be more uncompromising than the NY-based NAACP as the former's members, who rallied huge crowds of people to join their demonstrations and protests, undertook civil disobedience and direct-action demonstrations. On the other hand, the NAACP was against civil disobedience; it preferred the use of academic drives, lobbying, and litigations (Smith & Hattery, 2009). Initiating effective mass protests, the SCLC exemplified MLK's dream, desires, aims, ideology and activism. His peaceful direct action policy was considered by many as the ideal tactic to achieve social justice and progress. In Alabama, on March 7, 1965, he headed a 600-person-strong black human rights-targeted march from Selma to Alabama's capital Montgomery. While blacks had already earned their voting rights, they were registered as 'voters' and local government officials had them going to and fro to achieve this. At the bridge named for ex-leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Edmund Pettus, the peaceful marchers met brutal police resistance. They were attacked using whips, tear gas, and batons, and images of that confrontation were circulated across global media. This event marked the turning point of MLK's peaceful efforts. The march's final outcome was the 1965 Voting Rights Act's enactment.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

The SNCC was an action group whose roots could be traced to a student get-together. It became a major 60's civil rights body, ushering in a ten-year-long black civil rights campaign supported by considerate whites and Afro-Americans whose approaches grew more aggressive with the expansion of their goals. The SNCC was terminated in the next decade.

Government's Responses

MLK and other civil rights spearheads contended that blacks had been deprived of their right to equality in political positions, employment, earnings and material possessions. The day before the massive Watts riots on 11th August, 1965, MLK asserted that racially preferential programs were the lone effective remedies. In the course of the subsequent 3 years, 257 U.S. cities witnessed 329 racial conflicts, leading to almost 300 fatalities, 60,000 apprehensions, 8,000 injuries, and several hundred million dollars' worth of property losses. Owing to these riots and King's assassination, violence completely took over Afro-American localities and created a rift between the whites. Local, state and federal governments reacted by usurping funds and setting up crash programs for alleviating a few grievances brought to light by the violent rioting. Under President Nixon, 'Law and Order' supporters were victorious over 'Justice and Equality' advocates (Rogers, 2004). The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (NACCD) observed ghetto-inhabitants' wretched living conditions and white-inflicted racism which led them to rebel. Its recommendations took the shape of expensive government measures on penury, joblessness, and inferior housing.

Kerner Commission

A look at the Kerner Report, its history, solutions and recommendations helps one understand the U.S. government's endeavor to adequately respond to Watts' riots. Assessing the effectiveness of such policies half a century later is valuable. The most important thing was to understand the 60's race riots which threatened national security. Thus, in the year 1967, President Johnson established the 11-member NACCD for studying the reasons underlying the riots in Los Angeles, Newark, Detroit and Chicago. The chief questions to be answered by the Commission, nicknamed the Kerner Commission after Otto Kerner, its chairman, with regard to the riots were: What happened and why? How can we ensure this doesn't repeat (Rogers, 2004)?

Following a 7-month-long study, the commission's Kerner report, published on Leap Day, 1968, offered facts regarding ghetto residents' dismal living and workplace setting. The riots resulted from the frustration owing to African-Americans' deprivation of economic opportunities. The report condemned federal as well as state governments. Additionally, it harshly slammed the media as well, which was supposedly responsible for aggravating the issue. The fundamental conclusion was: America was progressing toward two distinct, unbalanced societies, a white society and a black one. Destitution and exclusion led to a destructive ghetto atmosphere the whites were unaware of (Childers, 1997). White racism was the chief source of these urban riots; thus, white Americans were largely to blame for the losses incurred. Factors shaping black violence included unfair policing, joblessness and inadequate employment, inferior education, political structure inefficacy, insufficient welfare initiatives, inadequate federal initiatives, and discriminatory dispensation of justice. Consequently, the commission's recommendations included governmental investment in employment and housing schemes for improving African-Americans' quality of life and a cessation of segregation in urban localities. The commission also demanded increased racial diversity in police departments, income redistribution and educational investments.

President Johnson, who had already enacted the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, basically overlooked the report, going as far as to actually reject several recommendations made by the commission. The Millennium Breach that depicts the Commission's effectiveness reveals that throughout most of the 70's, the nation improved on the aspects of poverty, inner urban localities, and race. Later, progress ceased and even somewhat reversed due to a succession of economic trends, blows and governmental action/inaction (Rogers, 2004; Childers, 1997). A month following the report's publication saw the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King, leading to riots over 100 cities. This proves the fact that the Report was simply a change in theory. In truth, individuals struggled to eliminate discrimination were silenced.

Social Movements Today

BlackLivesMatter

This American movement commenced in July of 2013, following the clearing of George Zimmerman, accused of murdering Trayvon Marti (aged 17). The movement gained fresh impetus after the succeeding year's event: Michael Brown's shooting and Eric Garner's death. Cofounded by Afro-American campaigners, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, has garnered international media focus, with no less than 700 BLM demonstrations held worldwide. Campaigners met with leaders including Barack Obama, demanding the elimination of racial profiling, police force militarization and police violence. African-Americans generally sense a sort of deprivation of fundamental dignity and human rights. Newspapers depicted several hundred demonstrators holding 'Black Lives Matter' placards assembled in South Central LA's Leimert Park on 14th August, 2014, in protest of Mike Brown's shooting at police hands in Missouri State (Chaney & Robertson, 2013). Ferguson, Missouri authorities plan on replacing Mike Brown's makeshift shrine with a fixed tablet dedicated to his memory. This makeshift memorial is now a 'Black Lives Matter' symbol, as the movement was, to some extent, triggered by Brown's shooting and the resultant protests in the city. The BLM website displays their 'New America' vision.

Hands Up Don't Shoot

Over 1000 protestors across America raised their hands in the traditional 'I surrender' (so don't shoot) gesture in protest against Ferguson's grand jury ruling of not indicting ex-Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson, who shot an unarmed Michael Brown to death; the 18-year-old's body was riddled with several bullet wounds (Chaney & Robertson, 2013). Just like 60's movements, this fresh campaign has its very own 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot!' chant. The slogan is now a rallying call for Ferguson's people, who came out on the streets in protest against the killing. Several thousand demonstrators subverted this gesture to challenge the police force.

Eyewitnesses offer conflicting accounts of whether Mike had held his hands in the 'surrender' gesture or had said 'don't shoot' just when he was being shot. However, as stated by one demonstrator, even if both accounts are actually false, the rallying call is valid, as it's only a metaphor. This rallying call has been adopted across the U.S. by citizens frustrated with police force brutality. Sports persons, including 5 Saint Louis Rams footballers who entered the arena with the 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' gesture before a game, are participating in the drive. Black Congressional staff members and others held up their hands at a protest outside the Presidential residence, the White House, on 11th December, 2014 (Alter, 2014).

Racism in America Today

A number of present-day whites display gullibility or eager ignorance regarding their cruel history of forcible exclusion and aggression against blacks. One radio show caller, responding to the show's pursuit of public responses to the jury acquittal of O.J. Simpson, an African-American sportsman suspected of homicide, half-jokingly recommended a white rioting. The conclusion of the show was "whites do not riot." But they do act as if they are unaware of their cruel history. Nearly every one of the many American racial riots between the 1840s and 1930s involved whites attacking non-whites (Winter, 2015). White employees in the city of New York rebelled for several days because of fresh draft legislation and black employees' usage to halt a strike, in 1863, in the era of the American Civil War. These revolts claimed the lives of over a hundred individuals, several of whom were blacks, making it the largest fatality for any American riot. The post-Civil War decades witnessed extensive lynching and killings of African-American males, females and children at the hands of white mobs.

Hate crimes directed at blacks and other non-whites, including direct attacks by whites continue to dominate America. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) 2012 report on the subject of single-preconception hate crimes revealed that the year 2011 saw 3,645 being victimized by racially motivated crime (Rosino & Hughey, 2016; Bonilla-Silva, 2015). About 70% were made targets owing to a supposed anti-black (or anti-non-white) prejudice; aside from blacks, the victims included Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latin Americans, and Asian-Americans. (The aforementioned report defines "victims" as individuals, organizations or enterprises; the majority, however, are individual citizens. The figures are regarded as serious underestimates as a majority of the over-17,000 jurisdictions of police failed to self-report hate crimes, stated they encountered no hate crime, or provided reports for only some part of the year. The SPLC's (Southern Poverty Law Center) 2013 report stated that the reported hate crime cases only accounted for a small share of the roughly 195,000 unreported and reported hate crimes which, according to a Justice Statistics Bureau statement released in 2011, took place per annum from 2003 to 2009.While blacks continue to be key targets, the SPLC claims the recent growths in hate crimes largely involve non-white migrants, particularly Latinos. Of late, there has also been a drastic growth in neo-Nazi, Klan-related and other racist hate organizations (Rosino & Hughey, 2016).