Major Social Changes in America Which Led to the Civil Rights Movement - Research Paper Example

Multicultural issues in criminal justice Major Social Changes in America Which Led to the Civil Rights Movement (Topic no. 4) The Civil Rights Movement began in the mid 1950s in the south of America in the form of nonviolent demonstrations against racial segregation. This later evolved into a mass movement challenging all forms of racial discrimination throughout the land. The movement was successful in that it brought about major social changes in America by putting an end to racially segregated public facilities and “achieved the most important breakthrough in equal-rights legislation for blacks since the Reconstruction period (1865-77),” (Encyclopedia Brittanica) Legal backdrop to racial discrimination The movement aimed at enforcement of the guarantees of racial equality that were already contained in the Civil War (13th, 14th and 15th) Amendments to the US Constitution, as well as the Civil Rights Acts from the Reconstruction period. To the contrary, these guarantees were greatly undermined by subsequent US legislation. In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 had even been declared unconstitutional within just a decade by Supreme Court rulings in 1883 on the basis that “Congress had no right to trespass on the states’ internal powers of economic regulation”. (Chambers Dictionary) The consequence of this was that the fundamental citizenship rights promised to the blacks were denied, and the existent status of blacks as slaves since the founding of the republic was exploited to pave the way for the practice of racial segregation. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 did provide for equal accommodation for both blacks and whites, but it was limited to public facilities that excluded schools. Moreover, its annulment by the 1883 Supreme Court ruling put an abrupt end to the even limited promised rights and reinforced segregation practices. The Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case resulted in another landmark Supreme Court ruling wherein the segregation of blacks and whites was further legitimized by expounding the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine. “Plessy set the precedent that ‘separate’ facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were ‘equal’.” (Landmark cases). In this case, legislation was permitted to make distinctions based on race as long as neither was deprived of rights or privileges. Consequently, this doctrine was applied in many public places such as schools, restaurants, department stores, libraries, theatres, transportation etc. In effect, this created an unnecessary duplication of services, but the inequalities and inconveniences that black people faced can easily be imagined. From a legal perspective it also demonstrated the unwillingness or inability of the US courts to abolish racial discrimination and end slavery. Naturally therefore, if the legal system was incapable of remedying the injustice, it had to be achieved eventually through means of social reformation. The legal and judicial reforms prior to the movement To a limited extent some progress was starting to be made to end discrimination by legal means in the years prior to the Civil Rights Movement. For example, discrimination was outlawed in the defense industries during World War II and segregation abolished in the armed forces thereafter. Then from the late 1940s, lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) argued for the case that segregation created inherently unequal (and inadequate) educational and other public facilities for blacks in a series of cases before the Supreme Court. They successfully brought a landmark reversal of the prevailing doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), in which the Supreme Court decreed in its conclusion “that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (Our Documents) and therefore unconstitutional. This historic decision in particular stimulated the “mass movement on the part of blacks and white sympathizers to try to end the segregationist practices and racial inequalities that were firmly entrenched across the nation and particularly in the South.” (Encyclopaedia Brittanica) Social changes that led to the Civil Rights Movement What spurred the Civil Rights Movement and motivated the blacks of America to rise up against segregation and legally fight for equality was the racial discrimination they were experiencing on a daily basis and the injustices they were facing that had become the norm in their society and perpetuated by the majority white population. In particular, blacks couldn’t live close to or even enter areas where whites lived; couldn’t go to white schools and therefore acquired good education; couldn’t get high paying jobs as whites could so were not able to earn as much for a living; and couldn’t vote or express their freedom of expression. Moreover, this status quo was maintained by the prevalence of mistreatment of blacks including physical abuse and general intimidation. As far as the whites were concerned there was a belief that blacks had to be kept suppressed for the sake of their own economic conditions. The extent of the social setup made it extremely resistant to change. The situation was marginally better in the north than the south but the underlying social problem viz. the treatment of Blacks as slaves remained. This was a hearkening back to the underpinnings of the United States, which was formed only after the indigenous native American Indians were displaced, and the false belief of white supremacy. Any situation of injustice inevitably leads to a backlash sooner or later because tolerance is continually tested, and when it becomes unbearable and so entrenched, upheavals bring about the necessary changes. The whole edifice of institutionalized slavery had to be demolished to establish social justice. It was centuries of slavery and racial discrimination that was eventually forcefully ended by the Civil Rights Movement. An historical incident that is identified with the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement involved a black woman Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. She was brave enough to stand up for her right to remain seated on a bus when confronted by a white man but was arrested for refusing to go over to the separate African American section of the bus. This resulted in the Montgomery bus boycott that later ended segregation on public transport. Although it was initially a one-day local boycott, similar protests emerged in other communities encouraged by the Montgomery experience. Furthermore, it also sparked progress in a few other areas where there was discrimination against blacks, for example in integrating some schools. But this was a long process restricted to certain areas. It was only after the 1960s began that a strong resistance movement eventually emerged and brought about the real awaited changes in both society and in the American legal system. Nonetheless, these events of the 1950s and earlier were the foundations that led to the Civil Rights Movement. The Montgomery incident also popularized the movement’s leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He was originally a local Baptist minister but was instrumental in the struggle for equality of rights of his own people. An in-depth analysis of the social changes Examining the factors that encouraged or allowed the movement to form and spread, and the fabric of society that supported its growth we can identify a number of these. The prevailing social problem of racial discrimination having its roots in slavery has already been mentioned as well as the cause for which the movement struggled viz. to put an end to the discrimination and grant equality to people irrespective of their race. However, certain characteristics of 20th American society made it conducive for the movement to build up. The first and foremost of these was a greater awareness that a problem existed in the first place. This came about through more widespread knowledge about the condition of the blacks amongst themselves, how they ought to be living, formal education and schooling, and mass media especially television. In addition, there was industrialization resulting in greater social interaction and mobility of all people in general, and also increased urbanization due to the expansion of cities. All of these factors made it possible for the blacks to come together, talk about their shared problem and cooperate together to resolve it by means of the movement. The development of these aforementioned factors no doubt brought about major social changes in the way the society was structured and functioned and thereby facilitated the Civil Rights Movement in particulars. In ‘The Preconditions for Racial Change’, Harvard Sitkoff describes how certain economic changes created the right conditions for the movement. After World War II, there was renewed prosperity in many American homes. For instance, he mentions how television enabled the race problem to enter people’s living rooms, thus increasing awareness of the problem as mentioned previously. Although he describes it as economic prosperity, the effects concern the major developments of society at the time. “The growing majority of Americans favoring racial equality and justice had those sentiments reinforced by TV shots of snarling dogs attacking black demonstrators, rowdy white hoods molesting young blacks patiently waiting to be served at a lunch counter, and hate-filled white faces in a frenzy because of the effrontery of little black children entering a previously all-white school" (Sitkoff, H) The television as an example was a symbol of economic prosperity but also a significant agent of social change that aided the Civil Rights Movement. Other social changes that help explain how the Civil Rights Movement came about were the migration of blacks away from the South of the country and the promotion of the American values of freedom, justice and equality. We shall explore the latter. During the cold war, these ideals were boasted by the country’s leaders for the purpose of contrasting it with communist societies. But in reality America itself was far from living according to these ideals. On the other hand, if we look at the global history of the period during the movement, some African nations were becoming independent from their colonial European rulers at the time. And, their people enjoyed many privileges that American blacks were being denied. Therefore, these false descriptions and unequal comparisons affected the consciousness of the American blacks, so stirring them to escape from the vicious cycles they were in, improve their conditions, establish such ideals as freedom, justice and equality and live their lives as other human beings around the globe were already enjoying. In this regard, it can be said that the American presidents at the time were also keen to see change because America was increasingly being perceived as a racist country and this was a hindrance to accepting America as a legitimate global superpower. The legal and judicial reforms that the movement accomplished The first signs of success of the Civil Rights Movement showed when segregation was being eliminated on buses following the Montgomery boycott. But it was only after a continuation of the movement, many more peaceful protests, enduring the brutality of police and white supremacists alike, the emergence of leaders like Martin Luther King amongst others, that eventually led to constitutional changes. The decisive moments in legal history that put an end for what the movement was struggling for came when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted barring discrimination in public accommodations and in employment; the Voting Rights Act (1965) giving blacks the right to vote in those places where they had previously been denied; and the Civil Rights Act (1968) prohibiting discrimination relating to the sale or rental of housing. For the first time, many rights had been granted for the black population giving them equality with whites, but many social problems continued to trouble them, especially with respect to their economic conditions of poverty, unemployment, and poor living standards. Racial tensions also remain to date. Concluding Remarks The major social conditions that prevailed at the time have been described in detail above. The major social change that led to the movement was therefore the desire to improve these conditions and put an end to racism. The Civil Rights Movement was a reaction to a history of growing unease, inconvenience in public places, helplessness before the judicial system, racial tension, and above all discrimination. The minority black population of America was being treated unfairly in the 20th century whilst there was greater freedom, justice and equality in other countries around the world. In my view it was a necessary explosion of feelings of inferiority and social discontent amongst blacks at the time that gradually transformed into a movement potent enough to argue for itself and fight for its rights and bring about a new legal framework for the state and a vision of hope for the blacks. And, certain social changes helped to facilitate this transformation from a racially segregated society to an equal one. These we have identified as education, mass media, urbanization, greater mobility and economic prosperity, migrations etc. Although the frustration was present for a long time, the one ‘initiating event’, to borrow sociologist Neil Smelser’s phrase, that triggered the movement was the Montgomery bus boycott. The social change this brought about was the end of segregation on the buses, but what this turning point in history managed to achieve in the longer term was even greater equality for blacks through the subsequent stages of the Civil Rights Movement. References Brittanica. (2008). Civil Rights Movement. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/119368/Civil-Rights-Movement Chambers Dictionary. (1994). Chambers Dictionary of World History. Chambers. Landmark Cases. (2008). Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). The Impact of the Case: “Separate But Equal”. Street Law and the Supreme Court Historical Society. Retrieved November 28, 2008, from Landmark Cases Supreme Court: http://www.landmarkcases.org/plessy/impact_separate_equal.html Morris, A. (n.d.). Origins of the Civil Rights Movement Our Documents. (2008). Transcript of Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954), 100 Milestone Documents. Retrieved Novmeber 28, 2008, from Our Documents: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=87&page=transcript Sitkoff, H. (n.d.). The Preconditions for Racial Change. In Major Problems in American History, Making the Great Society: Civil Rights, Vol. 2, Ch. 12. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Jon Gjerde, Thomas Paterson. Cengage Learning, December 2001 Sitkoff, H. (n.d.). Struggle for Black Equality 1954-1980 Read More