Civil Rights advances of African-Americans
Consider the Civil Rights advances of African-Americans in the post-World War 2 United States. To what extent were these advances the result of grassroots, local initiative? To what extent did they result from the activities of national organizations? To what extent were they the result of government actions? Which of these three mattered most, and why? Your essay should discuss important Civil Rights controversies and crucial episodes, and identify key individuals and organizations. The essay should draw with specificity from Steven F. Lawson and Charles Payne, Debating the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1968 (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), ISBN-13: 9780742551091. Your paper should have a clear argument, which should be articulated in the introduction, supported throughout the body of the essay by evidence from the book, and then re-stated in the conclusion. Citations may be parenthetical (Lawson and Payne, 72). http://www(dot)freeonlineresearchpapers(dot)com/debating-civil-rights-movement http://www(dot)rowan(dot)edu/colleges/chss/departments/history/current/syllabi-fall2008/Debating%20the%20Civil%20Rights%20Movement0002.pdf
Instructor:
Course:
Date:
Civil Rights Advances of African-Americans
The civil rights movement had been a long struggle of the African Americans around the year nineteen fifties to the late nineteen sixties. The movement was for achieving equal civil rights with the whites that included equal chances in housing, employment, education and the right to vote, among others (Alexander, Michelle, pg. 23). The civil rights movement was greatly energized after the Second World War, which invigorated it and roused the African American who had already recognized their potentiality in political influence. It is important to explain the extent in which the results of grassroots and local activities, national organization activities, actions of the government contributed to the advances, while reasonably pointing out the one that mattered most.
The grassroots or local initiatives were actually the backbone of the advances if civil rights after the World War Two. This is because the beginning of civil rights movement was mainly initiated in the grassroots during and after slavery. There were great efforts from the grassroots national leaders as well as activists whose purpose was to obtain the basic rights for African Americans, which was guaranteed to the citizens of America as per the constitution. This also included the rights to the due practice and equivalent laws protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as the right of voting. After the civil war, the local activists comprised of both whites and African Americans persisted in the movement. Most of the blacks that lived in poverty dwelt in the local areas where their fellow blacks would greatly mourn after seeing the living conditions, which always reminded them of the need for equality. The civil rights advances were derived from the existing local initiatives that most people had joined prior to the Second World War, meaning that they had gained ground and the necessary number of people to progress with the movement (Lawson and Payne, pg14). The most affected places acted among the main resistant and later spread the resistance into the other grassroots. For instance the oppression of African American was more reflected within the southern states because of the legislation and customs of Jim Crow, which were passed during the period of eighteen nineties and nineteen twenties. This was meant to segregate the public venues that included restaurants, trains, theaters, schools, beaches, hospitals as well as cemeteries. The tactics of intimidation and laws further oppressed the blacks by denying them citizenship rights like voting, which made them more aggressive after gaining ground of protesting. It is through the black activists and several whites that the injustices started to be voiced, after which blacks were encouraged by B. Wells to travel northward protesting unjust practices of hiring in the South, among other oppressions. Some of the activists from the local areas of South would later form an organization that would push civil rights movement to another level (Lawson and Payne, pg12).
The activities of national organiz...