Civil Rights Movement Issues - Essay Example

Civil rights did not just begin in the 1950s, it began when Africans were initially brought to America as slaves. The blacks were the pioneers of civil rights when fought tirelessly for their enslavement and demanded their fundamental citizenship rights that were blunt. This article examines the role and achievements of the civil rights movement.

Leaders of the civil rights movement used various strategies to communicate their complaints. Generally, the success of the Civil rights Movement was attributed to good coordination of the three-prong strategy which included civil disobedience, well-articulated grass root organizations and mass boycotts, and economic withdrawal. Some of the strategies used before 1955 were litigation and lobbying through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people between 1896 and 1954. There was a powerful combination of gradualism in legal issues and advocacy of far-reaching change that was adopted by the initiators of the Brown strategy (Ollhoff, 2011).

However, NAACP later employed the tactic of directly challenging the constitutionality of “separate but equal” education. By 1955, most blacks were frustrated by the slow approach that was taken by the federal and state governments to look into their plights. This prompted the black leadership to adopt a collective strategy of direct action and nonviolent resistance which was popularly known as civil disobedience which produced a crisis in the country (Ollhoff, 2011).

Strategies used by the Civil Rights Movement especially civil disobedience caused a lot of concern between the movement’s members and the federal and state governments thus forcing them to act. Mass actions that were accompanied by violence, and lynching led to public exposure which brought about substantive change since the progress and the needs for the movement became a reality. During the 1960s, television covered the protests in various places such as Birmingham, Alabama, and other places which shocked viewers across America. These made president John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson try to put a halt to the violence by supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 respectively (Ollhoff, 2011).

The Federal Government was reluctant to act because President Kennedy feared that the protests and mass actions would make it harder to convince congress members who did not concur with him to create a civil rights bill. However, after watching the incidents on television, he was forced to act by sending thousands of troops to Alabama airbase and comprehensive civil rights bill to Congress. This made Kennedy appear as a friend to the civil rights movements, although this was rather symbolic than substantial. Kennedy’s interest to maintain the Image of an activist president made him give legitimacy to civil rights, respond to the civil rights pressures, and further exhilarated Youth Activism on Civil Rights matters. Hoover who was the FBI director during Kennedy’s reign was deeply racist and assumed that the movement was profoundly infiltrated by communists (Ollhoff, 2011).

There were many achievements of the movement by 1968 during President John F. Kennedy’s reign. By 1968, segregation in public places was abolished especially from the very resistant part of the South making it one of the most remarkable achievements. Public transport facilities were integrated and many blacks registered as voters. A good number of American citizens acknowledged the principle of equality and black people occupied senior positions in public offices. Considering the armed forces, blacks were integrated into the army and were allowed to rise to high ranks within the forces. Many state governments implemented racial integration of schools by even introducing bussing to ferry students from different places to another as a way of achieving racial mix (Ollhoff, 2011).

However, the civil rights movement lost momentum because of major economic and social challenges that remained significant in both the north and the south. Additionally, the movement was weakened and divided over the best tactics to employ as well as the major assassination of their spokesmen. However, the civil rights movement completely changed the face of America in terms of law, politics, and culture. Some legislations led to the protection of minority groups’ rights and further improved the role of the judiciary by making Supreme Court to be active in defending individual rights.