The Civil Rights Movement for African Americans in America before 1980

Week 5 Assignment
SHONA D. WEST
HIS 300
Instructor: Mr. David E. Henriksen
26 August 2019
The Civil Rights Movement for African Americans in America Before 1980
The struggle against racial discrimination had been an important issue for African Americans even the period following the Civil War in 1865. Many politicians had defended their cause to American citizens by promising to bring equality to all Americans but African Americans remained as second-class citizens for decades. However, the situation changed when the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) was born in the mid-1950s as African Americans became relentless in their demand for equal treatment. Eventually, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were landmark legislation passed by the U.S. Congress that provided for the elimination of all racial discrimination among the citizens of America, especially the blacks. The feats of the Civil Rights Movement demonstrated that power and sovereignty are with the people.
Way prior to the start of the Civil War in 1861, African Americans had already initiated the long and arduous journey towards freedom. Moreover, the period of slavery that subjected Africans to dehumanizing conditions triggered different forms of resistance that affected the profits of the slave masters. Some good examples of active resistance include the 1822 and 1831 slave revolts. Meanwhile, a network of antislavery advocates known as the Underground Railroad provided means of escape to the North where the slaves could have relative freedom (Stein & Taylor, 2015, p. 113). Therefore, African Americans were resolved from the beginning to defend their dignity and fundamental rights through passive and overt defiance. They also realized that their strength depended on strong and resilient communities.
The Reconstruction era (1863-1877) marked the historic victory against slavery and the beginning of a new phase of struggle to reinforce the gains of the Civil War. The primary gains of the anti-slavery movement included the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments in 1865, 1868, and 1870 respectively. Henceforth, no American would be enslaved or denied American citizenship. Additionally, voting rights were accessible to all regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or skin color.
Despite the constitutional and political milestones, widespread exclusion and discrimination continued, particularly in the Southern states. A system of local and federal laws popularly known as Jim Crow exposed African Americans to conditions that rendered them second-class citizens. For example, they could not vote or access employment and education opportunities. The discrimination was so deep-rooted that African Americans were restricted from using public transportation and other facilities because they were racially different from the whites (Edwards & Thomson, 2010). However, the racial hierarchy that even denied African Americans their rights of citizenship would face fierce and persistent opposition from the beginning of the 20th century.
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B Du Bois were among the African American leaders who made initial attempts at disrupting the racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow era. They were both highly educated but they differed on how to deal with racial segregation. While Washington sought “racial accommodation” to uplift African Americans within the existing system, Du Bois demanded equal rights to be served to African Americans as a matter of principle (Velm, 2009, p. 188). As such, Du Bois was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. The NAACP had the objective of combating the system of racial segregation through advocacy and media tools such as The Crisis newspaper for which Du Bois remained its editor (Dzanouni, Dantec-Lowry, & Parfait, 2016). In essence, the formation of NAACP marked the birth of a more formal approach of combating Jim Crow as the organization provided mechanisms of coordinating legal, political, and social resistance.
Some of the achievements of the NAACP include the successful advocacy for the inclusion of African Americans in the U.S. military and the establishment of the Legal Defense Fund which litigated against segregation in public schools. In a landmark ruling that fueled protests and contributed to the growth of the CRM, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ruled in 1954 that the principle of ‘separate but equal’ was unconstitutional (Lehman College, 2019). Consequently, all schools were ordered to integrate. However, the actual trigger for the CRM was the December 1955 arrest of Rosa Parks after she refused to vacate her seat on a public bus for a white man to seat. Since Parks was a leader of the NAACP in Montgomery, her arrest sparked a major protest referred to as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott that lasted for more than a year ended in a Supreme Court ruling that stopped the segregation in public transport. The success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott inspired similar local actions to oppose discriminatory laws.
In North Carolina, a group of four students targeted a store in Greensboro and initiated a sit-in movement that challenged the consistent refusal by whites to serve t...