The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement - Assignment Example

The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement Causes of the Cold War While it is arguable that there was no single reason for the Cold War, it evolved from the international power vacuum that resulted from the decline of European global power in WWII, leaving the USSR and the USA as the dominant global super-powers (Ross 31). However, their conflicting economic interests and political ideologies led to a tense relationship between the two super-powers referred to as the Cold War because the two super-powers never clashed in battle directly.

The USSR helped Communists seize power in Eastern Europe, sealing off its occupation zones in Germany and Austria and creating the ‘Iron Curtain’. US officials, on the other hand, viewed nuclear energy as having potential non-military benefits, thus giving rise to atomic diplomacy, in which the US sought to prove to the USSR that it was capable and willing to execute a nuclear attack (Ross 33). Atomic diplomacy was used in the Korean War, the first confrontation between the two super-powers, during which the US deployed B-29 bombers as a signal of its resolve, although by 1953, this idea was rejected as a means of coercion to further a cease-fire agreement in the conflict (Arnold & Wiener 21).

When the USSR acquired capabilities to deliver nuclear war-heads on Western European and US territories in the late 50s, atomic diplomacy gave way to mutual deterrence, in which the two super-powers refrained from attacking each other due to the certainty of mutually assured destruction. During this period in which the USSR, the US, and its allies were separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’, the West’s general policy was to contain Communist states by keeping them within their present borders and hoping for internal failure and division that would end their threat (Arnold & Wiener 22).

Martin Luther King’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement Although Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) was not the founder of the Civil Rights Movement, he can be considered its formative figure and its de facto leader due to his sacrifices and the influence he had on some of its most seminal milestones (Ward & Badger 18). MLK was one of the first African American leaders to advocate for a social movement against racial segregation that used non-violent means, which was a hallmark of the Civil Rights Movement.

He provided leadership for the Civil Rights Movement, which sought to end racial discrimination and segregation against blacks, while also securing federal protection and legal recognition for them as enumerated in federal and constitutional law. He was a major contributor to the Second Reconstruction, which was a bi-partisan collaboration with US political leaders that gained the people’s consent through sweeping electoral victories (Ward & Badger 18). MLK dismissed violence as immoral and impractical, essentially endorsing the use of non-violent direct action that became the movement’s major characteristic.

Although he was not directly involved in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he later used the decision to champion the efficacy of non-violent resistance (Kirk 35). He also led a boycott against Montgomery city buses that prohibited African Americans from sitting at the front of the bus, which succeeded and allowed for the desegregation of buses. In addition, despite not having a major role in the lunch sit-ins in North Carolina, his non-violence strategy was the main weapon for the students who, despite intimidation and threats, waited quietly to be served at an all-white lunch counter.. However, his warnings against proceeding with the Freedom Ride campaign and his comments that the Freedom Summer Movement should compromise, disappointed many young Civil Rights Activists.

Still, his actions as part of the movement were hugely responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965, achieving his stated goal to ensure desegregation and legal rights for African Americans (Kirk 39). Works Cited Arnold, James. and Wiener, Roberta. Cold War: The Essential Reference Guide. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Print. Kirk, John A. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies and Debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. Ross, Stewart.

The Causes of the Cold War. Milwaukee, WI: World Almanac Library, 2012. Print. Ward, Brian. and Badger, Anthony. Badger. The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Washington Square, N.Y: New York University Press, 2014. Print.