From Civil Rights to Black Power Movement - Essay Example

From Civil Rights to Black Power Movement 1 Introduction "You cant separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”(Malcolm X). The history of slavery and subsequent issue of class conflict of African Americans are central to understanding the history of the United States. Class politics had become tangled with the politics of race as early as the seventeenth century, when a large number of African Americans took part in Bacons Rebellion against the Virginia planter gentry in 1676. With the rise of the Black Power movement and increasing anger and pessimism among young Blacks, many working- and middle-class Whites themselves became angry and suspicious, charging that Blacks had already made too many gains at Whites expense. President Nixon who referred this as “the Silent Majority" of Americans who supported "law and order" and other white Americans worried about their economic prospects and their own future, law and order meant using the power of the government to keep Blacks in their place; they had already achieved too much, and now must accept their second-class status in American society.(1) From the 1970s on, conservatives, Republicans, and White Southern politicians have used code words about welfare, law and order, affirmative action, drugs and crime, teenage pregnancy, and the breakdown of the family to attract concerned Whites, who feel that Blacks are responsible for their own problems, not the government, not the ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African American, by. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001 2 society, not racist whites. This conservative effort to shift the focus from the civil rights of Blacks to law and order and the rights of Whites has helped shaped a White backlash against civil rights and further gains for Blacks civil rights since the 1970s. Unfortunately, this White back clash has only made young Blacks more angry, cynical, and suspicious about the government and White Society. Regarding the emergence of civil rights and black power movement we can explore a detailed study related to these occurrences. Civil Rights Era On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued two executive orders, one instituted fair employment practices in the civilian agencies of the federal government; the other provided for "equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." This was a major victory for civil rights advocates in the quest for full citizenship.(2)Courtesy of the Chicago Daily Defender, Chicago, Illinois.)This was one beginning moment among others from which the racial sufferers gained inner strength to fight for the complete freedom. The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) refers to the reform movements in the United States aimed at abolishing racial discrimination of African Americans .In the 19th century, Democratic-controlled states, mainly in the South, passed racially discriminatory laws.. This period is known as “the nadir of American race ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2."By Executive Order--President Truman Wipes out Segregation in Armed Forces.” Chicago Defender, July 31, 1948. Microfilm, Serial and Government Publications Division (9-2 ) 3 relations." The government authorities who are elected, appointed, or hired began to require or permit discrimination, in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Kansas. This era found number of acts of discrimination against African Americans like, racial segregation, voter suppression or disfranchisement, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans etc. The combination in the southern states of these issues became known as "Jim Crow". The southern "Jim Crow" regime remained almost entirely intact into the early 1950s and contributed to the Great Migration, a steady northward flow of African Americans onwards. The situation for African-Americans outside the South was usually somewhat better, though not always appreciably so.(3) By 1954, 65% of all African-Americans live in urban areas. It is the first time in Americas history that the majority of blacks lives outside the South, and marks the completion of the population shift begun during the Great Migration. Still African Americans were facing discrimination on a daily basis remained much the same. They lived in substandard housing. Black workers continued to be concentrated in less-skilled jobs. They were the last hired; first fired. The average income of an African-American family was only three-fifths of that of a white family. These conditions set the stage for the urban riots of the 1960s. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Bas, S. Jonathan, Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Baton Rouge: LSU Press. 2001,ISBN 0807126551 4 The Civil Rights Movement prior to 1955 confronted discrimination against African-Americans with a variety of strategies. These included litigation and lobbying efforts by traditional organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court reverses Plessy v. Ferguson, declaring that "separate but equal" public education is unconstitutional and this legal victory made segregation legally impermissible but provided few practical remedies. In 1955 there was an incident in which a black woman ,Rose Parks, who refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus to a white man. Her arrest sparks a black boycott of the city buses. This is the time firstly the emergence of the famous leader Martin Luther King, Jr., happened and he becomes the spokesperson and organizer of the boycott and is catapulted into national prominence. In 1956, the Supreme Court declares that segregation on buses is unconstitutional, and buses throughout the U.S. are forced to desegregate. There after Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and other southern black ministers found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring about the end of segregation. The SCLC adopts nonviolent protest as the cornerstone of its strategy and builds alliances with local community organizations across the South. King heads the SCLC and builds it into a powerful civil rights organization.(4) The year 1958 was still under the capture of the discrimination. In this period unemployment for blacks is 14.4% and 6.9% for whites. The economic indicators for ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. This Far by Faith, 1946-1966 from civil right to black power, 2003 The Faith Project, Black side Inc 5 black Americans lead some to argue that the 1954 school desegregation had made little difference to the majority of African-Americans living outside the South. Indeed, the benefits of desegregation flowed first to the black upper classes: At the time, their achievements were lauded as a sign that times had gotten better. Nevertheless, the black upper classes contributed in time and money to the civil rights effort: for them, times may have gotten better, but things had gotten worse. In 1960 with the aim to end segregation and giving young blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement. Some Black college students formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC members demonstrate the efficacy of non-violent sit-ins, a tactic that is soon taken up by other civil rights groups. SNCC members participate in the Freedom Rides, trips taken on interstate buses to challenge the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and waiting rooms of bus stations. After the Freedom Rides, SNCC focuses on voter registration. Friction between SNCC and SLCC develops, and by 1965 some SNCC members question the effectiveness of non-violent activism, precipitating a dramatic shift in SNCC practices. Due to the emergence of non violent freedom movements which were mainly stood for attaining the rights of the black and emergence of powerful leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.; Malcolm X etc the attitude of the government also began to change. In 1964 in the wake of President Kennedys assassination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed. The act mainly aims at public facilities, by enumerating the equality as "all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public 6 accommodation without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin." Moreover in 1964 Congress passes the Voting Rights Act in 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices. The 1965 Act bans the literary tests and poll taxes used since Reconstruction to prevent blacks from voting of,which was the result of a major march with 25000 supporters from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights led by Martin Luther King. The year 1966 witnessed a great revolutionary group called Black panthers who authorize the use of violence as self-defense, unlike the civil rights activists who preach non-violence. Their message of self-determination and power wins thousands of followers throughout the country. During this period SNCC headed by Stokley Carmichael also rejected its historical strategy of non-violence to embrace a doctrine of "Black Power," which emphasizes Black Nationalism and self-reliance. Violence is accepted as a legitimate form of self-defense, same time the SCLC and NAACP stay away from this new change of strategy. This is the period where the robust emergence of Black power movement was witnessed by the country. (5) Black Power Movements The advocates of Black Power reject the old slogans and meaningless rhetoric of previous years in the civil rights struggle .The black people did not have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we going to use the word "Black Power” by ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. ibid 4 7 rendering the comment on the exploitation of the African Americans Stokely Carmichael who was the advocate of revolutionary movement SNCC, emphasized that no political parties in the country do meet the needs of people on a day-to-day basis. The blacks can not get decent jobs, decent houses, and they can not begin to participate in the policy and major decisions that affect their lives. This type of hatred feelings of number of wounded blacks paved the way of movement of black power. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the death of Malcolm X in 1965() and Martin Luther King in 1968 and the FBIs war ()against the Black Panthers and other Black Power groups, many young Blacks concluded that White America and the government were unwilling to accept continued movement for black equality. To many young Blacks, it appeared as if there was an ongoing white racist backlash against the gains of the civil rights movement. It was in this environment that many young Blacks concluded that if White America would not let them become full citizens of American society, then they would form their own Blacks communities and societies that would protect and support American Blacks. Many young Blacks were increasingly angry, cynical, and suspicious about the motives and intentions of the government and white society. Moreover many working- and middle-class Whites considered the blacks were gaining at white’s expense and naturally the feeling turned into angry and suspicious.. These worried Whites are what President Nixon referred to as said before “the Silent Majority" of Americans who supported "law and order." The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) was the only secular political organization that Malcolm X joined before his fateful trip to Mecca in 1964. RAM was 8 an “underground” movement, with the objective of building a revolutionary cadre among dispossessed urban ghetto dwellers. RAM members were pivotal in influencing the adoption of Black Power by erstwhile integrationists in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the mid 1960s. (6) The advocates of black power movement were always fastened with the ideas and concepts of the term "integration”. According to its advocates, social justice will be accomplished by "integrating the Negro into the mainstream institutions of the society from which he has been traditionally excluded." This concept is based on the assumption that there is nothing of value in the black community and that little of value could be created among black people. The thing to do is to draw off off the "acceptable" black people into the surrounding middle-class white community. They opined that the fact that in order to have a decent house or education, black people must move into a white neighborhood or send their children to a white school. This reinforces, among both black and white, the idea that "white" is automatically superior and "black" is by definition inferior. For this reason, "integration" is a subterfuge for the maintenance of white supremacy. (7) Black Panther Party The formation of Black Panther Party was one of the major milestones in the ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. LexisNexis ,The Rise of the Black Power Movement, Malcolm X Links Papers of the Revolutionary Action Movement,1963–1996ISBN 1-55655-927-5. 7. Stokely Carmichael, "Black Power Speech" delivered October 1966, Berkeley, CA 9 history of the African American revolutionary period. The Black Panther Party was a progressive political organization that stood in the vanguard of the most powerful movement for social change in America since the Revolution of 1776 and the Civil War:” The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October, 1966, in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale who described the foundation of the organization as being based on "black nationalism”. He further explained the evolution of the organization into an instrument adapting to counter what it perceived to be social oppression on an international scale.(8) The organization initially espoused a doctrine calling for armed resistance to societal oppression in the interest of African American justice, though its objectives and philosophy changed radically throughout the partys existence. While the organizations leaders passionately promote socialist doctrine, the partys Black Nationalist reputation attracted an ideologically diverse membership base.(9) The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program, i.e. "Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace" as well as exemption from military service for African American men, among other demands. (10)The movement worked on the principle of self defense, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8. Bobby Seale, in his book Seize the Time, The Black Panther Party (BPP) began spreading eastward through the Black urban ghetto colonies across country. 9. Jessica Christina Harris. Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party." Journal of Negro History, Vol. 85, No. 3 (summer, 2000), pp. 162-174) 10. Newton, Huey (1966-10-15) the Ten-Point Program, War against the Panthers. Marxist.org 10 Revolutionary Nationalist Ideology through which the party aimed the national liberation of African people in the U.S and Practice of Womens Equality etc. The party put forward the Mass Organizing Techniques by which they attracted members and mass support to the BPP was its policy of "serving the people". This was a policy of going to the masses, living among them, sharing their burdens, and organizing the masses to implement their own solutions to the day to day problems that were of great concern to them. Through Propaganda Techniques the party tried to spread its message and ideas through its newspaper The Black Panther, mass rallies, speaking tours, slogans, posters, leaflets, cartoons, buttons, symbols (i.e., the clenched fist), graffiti, political trials, and even funerals. The BPP also spread its ideas through very skillful use of the establishments TV, radio, and print media. From these it can be seen that the black power spreaded throughout the country with great Spirit and deep rooted purpose. Conclusion However a transition from era of civil rights to the black power movement brought some success to the efforts like the Brown decision in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965etc. It helped bring about the demise of the entangling web of legislation that bound blacks to second class citizenship. The blacks and their white allies still pursued the battle for equal rights in every area of American life. While there is more to achieve in ending discrimination, major milestones in civil rights laws are on the books for the purpose of regulating equal access to public accommodations, equal justice before the law, and equal employment, education, and housing opportunities. Whatever it is, the black struggle for civil rights always inspired other liberation and rights movements, including those of Native Americans, Latinos, and women, and African Americans have lent their support to liberation struggles in Africa. ************************************** Bibliography Books and Authors 1. Harris, C. Jessica, Revolutionary Black Nationalism: The Black Panther Party." Journal of Negro History, Vol. 85, No. 3 (summer, 2000), pp. 162-174) 2. Horton O. James and Horton E., Lois Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African American, by. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001 3. Jonathan, S. Bas, Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Baton Rouge: LSU Press. 2001,ISBN 0807126551 4. Seale, Bobby, Seize the Time, the Black Panther Party (BPP) began spreading eastward through the Black urban ghetto colonies across country. Articles 5. Chicago Defender” By Executive Order--President Truman Wipes out Segregation in Armed Forces, July 31, 1948. Microfilm, Serial and Government Publications Division (9-2) 6. Lexis Nexis ,The Rise of the Black Power Movement, Malcolm X Links Papers of the Revolutionary Action Movement,1963–1996ISBN 1-55655-927-5. 7. Newton, Huey 1966, the Ten-Point Program, War against the Panthers. Marxist.org Stokely Carmichael, "Black Power Speech" delivered October 1966, Berkeley, CA 8. This Far by Faith, 1946-1966 from civil right to black power, 2003 the Faith Project, Black side Inc Read More