Civil rights: historical overview and key concepts

¶ … history of the United States without acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the civil rights movement. From the beginning of United States history, the fate of blacks, in general, and their respective civil rights have been a disputed issue. In nearly every election throughout the history of the republic, race has been a central issue in some form but the change that has occurred in the country relative to the rights of blacks has occurred as a result of the attitudes of national elite, comprised of educated whites, instead of a response to the pressures of the majority (Dye, 2011). If the civil rights movement would have waited for the white majority in the United States to take action relative the civil rights of blacks, chances are that blacks would still be waiting for any change. The advancements that have occurred in civil rights in America have been the result of the actions of the elite and their ability to influence public policy. Once public policy was changed the white majority reacted and adopted their behavior accordingly.

The change in public policy and the attitudes of the white majority toward civil rights has been a slow and arduous journey and there have been ups and downs in the process. From the period immediately following the end of the American Revolution, the enactment of the U.S. Constitution, and the years leading up to the Civil War the nation endured one compromise after another in an attempt to satisfy the white majority in regard to the rights of American blacks. The Civil War was largely fought over the issue of slavery and brought into focus the civil rights of blacks. Reconstruction after the War brought a promise of major change but within a few years a new compromise was reached which resulted in the election of Rutherford Hayes and the end of any further attempt to transform the civil rights of blacks for almost eighty years.

Some minor advances were made by blacks and their efforts to advance their civil rights as they forced the issue of segregation. Various groups were organized such as the NAACP and the Urban League in an effort to provide organized opposition to the discrimination and segregation that blacks continued to endure in America. The most significant advance in the civil rights' battle was the U.S. Supreme Court's rendering of its decision in Brown v. Board of Education (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954) that overturned the separate but equal standard that had been the law in the United States. In Brown, the Supreme Court recognized that the separate but equal standard was unreasonable and that blacks must be afforded equal access to the nation's schools in order to be afforded true equal treatment.