The Civil Rights Movement - Essay Example

? CIVIL RIGHTS The Civil Rights Movement was a defining period in American history. Some say it was the fulcrum upon which America turned, shaping the history that would come after from that which came before. American history can be defined as what happened pre-Civil Rights and what happened post-Civil Rights. It was a truly traumatic experience for the United States. Many decades have passed since the movement climaxed, and still the United States is trying to resolve the aftermath of the conflict. Many of the men who marched are now long gone, and so we cannot hear from their own live voices what the Civil Rights Movement was actually like, but we can read accounts. This kind of history really brings the story to life. We need to go back to these primary sources to constantly refresh our knowledge of events. First-hand accounts of the Civil Rights Movement are common. They provide a superb window into the United States of the time. One of the things that make America such a strange country is that it was founded as a beacon of liberty, and was indeed the freest country in the world for much of the 18th and 19th centuries—if you were white. The flip side was that millions of Americans were slaves—treated like objects or animals. How could this dichotomy exist during this time in American history? The answer is that it could not continue to exist—it would be destroyed by the Civil War. While many Americans lament the loss of life during the Civil War and the destruction wrought by the dispute, the truth is that there was a glorious side to the War. It set millions of people free. One of the great predictors of this was John Quincy Adams. He was a president in the 1820s and died before the war began. Nevertheless, his first-hand account of what slavery meant to the United States is a very important aspect of our understanding of the United States at this time. In his memoirs he wrote: If slavery be the destined sword of the hand of the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dissolution of the Union for the cause of slavery would be followed by a servile war in the slave-holding States, combined with a war between the two severed portions of the Union. It seems to me that its result might be the extirpation of slavery from this whole continent; and, calamitous and desolating as this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its final issue, that, as God shall judge me, I dare not say that it is not to be desired (Haysville). An account such as this one really breathes new life into our understanding of the precursor to Civil Rights Movement. In his memoir, Adams shows us just what America should be and what a cancer slavery and racism truly are. Without this kind of language it would be hard to grasp the full dimensions of the conflict that would come—both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Flash forward to the 1960s. A hundred years have passed since the slaves were emancipated and yet little has truly changed. African Americans cannot vote and have few rights. Something must be done about this situation. And so the Civil Rights movement was born. This was a gathering of millions of Americans who believed that the promise of American has not yet been fulfilled. They came from all backgrounds and races and they all believed in the worth of their country and themselves. They believed that America should truly be a beacon for freedom. Their leader was Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose speeches and writings provide an excellent view of this incredible historical movement. Few men left us much of a mark on the movement as Martin Luther King Jr. King Jr. is famously known today as a great speaker, but his words are more than great rhetoric, they are a depiction of a whole era and the soul of the movement. We understand from just a few sentences what the Movement means to the country, when in a Birmingham jail, King says: You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. . . It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative. (King 1) These are very powerful words. They give a sense of time in place that no historian could properly recreate. King is speaking to the nation, even as he is speaking to a smaller group of people. His words are so powerful that they have echoed down the decades since he first uttered them. We see the full range of human emotion employed in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. King is completely unbowed by the gathering storm of racism around him. He is unrepentant as he fights for what he know is right. Reading King’s work during this period is an extremely valuable way to gain insight to the tumult of the time. We see from these first-hand accounts a Movement gaining traction and eventually kindling an undying spark among a people yearning to be free. King’s most famous speech, and a primary text of the Civil Rights Movement, is the speech he made at the Washington Monument at a giant protest rally. Over the years, this has become one of the greatest speeches in human history. It bundles up so much emotion and so much hope. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. (King 2) These words are a first-hand account of history in the making. They show us the pride and sadness of being an American. They show us a first draft of history. King stands before the nation in the capital and looks back over the history of the country which he loves but which has treated him as a second citizen. He says that he is there on behalf of all second class citizens to collect on a debt that was written into the American constitution. The words are stirring and the carry with them the context of all of American history. King is looking back on the past and forward to the future. He knows America can be great and he is showing it the way: freedom and civil rights for all. The United States is a great country, but its history is full of ups and downs. It can be hard to navigate that full narrative. We need to understand America in a first-hand way by looking at the primary sources of events. Too many contemporary history books have been politicized. We need to get beyond all of this and look to what men and women were saying at the time. In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, the words of Martin Luther King do just that. References Adams, John Quincy. Diaries. Retrieved from Haysville Library website. http://haysvillelibrary.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/john-quincy-adams-on the-civil-war/ Hansen, D, D. (2003). The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Speech that Inspired a Nation. New York, NY: Harper Collins. King, Martin Luther. (1963). “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Bates College Library Retrieved from http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html King, Martin Luther. (1963). “I Have a Dream.” Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-mlk-ihaveadream,0,36081.story Read More