Equal rights, a social norm that Americans have long strived to accomplish in America during the various time periods of American history. Starting from the abolitionist movement from the nineteenth century which many people regard as the first reform for change and equal rights between colored people and whites stretching to the 21st century reform movement, BLM where the same motive arises for equal rights. Even though these two reform movements occured in different time periods of American history, they have similar ideas of equal rights. After researching both the abolitionist movement during the 19th century and the BLM movement in the 21st century, although finding similarities between the two, there were also a huge amount of differences that we can help use to compare the problems these reform movements tried to solve.
The first similarity between the two reform movements is that people of all backgrounds came and helped support each of these reform movements. During the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century, there was a huge number of people coming from all different types of backgrounds that supported this movement. By background, this meant not only people of the black race but also whites and other races all were behind this movement of equal rights that was meant to help gain equal rights of blacks in early America. “By stressing the moral imperative to end sinful practices and each person’s responsibility to uphold God’s will in society, preachers like Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel Taylor, and Charles G. Finney in what came to be called the Second Great Awakening led massive religious revivals in the 1820s that gave a major impetus to the later emergence of abolitionism as well as to such other reforming crusades as temperance, pacifism, and women’s rights” (Steward). This quote from Steward shows that during the abolitionist movement a lot of white males had come to support the black people of the time due to the Second Great Awakening which helped this people come together even though they have different background and help this reform movement reach its goal. This leads to the current reform movement of equal rights for blacks in today’s society which is the BLM movement. Shown in today’s society, there a lot of people also from different backgrounds that come together to unite against one common problem and help fight for their end goal. Whites, Asians, Latinos and every other race are all coming together and helping one another to achieve this goal of equal rights for black males in society. This really help shows that both of the reforms had people of different backgrounds unite together and strive for an equal goal which was a huge similarity between the two reform movements of their respected times.
With each reform movement, however, there has to be some key differences that occurred during the reforms. One key difference was between the two reforms was that the people in both of these reform movements targeted were different. For the abolitionist movement, the reformers aimed for the public officials where as for the BLM movement it was more aimed at the general public. During the abolitionist movement, many slaves revolted against officials for their freedom and unfortunately not many succeeded in getting the results they deserved. Nowadays in the present reform movements (BLM), although they are aimed somewhat at public officials asking for the change, the main group of people they are aiming for is the general public. The Black Lives Matter movement’s main goal is to convince the public that there is wrong in our society and that we must fix it in order to gain equal rights between blacks and whites in America. “TODAY'S RACIAL-JUSTICE MOVEMENT DEMANDS an end to the disproportionate killing of black people by law-enforcement officials and vigilantes, and seeks to root out white supremacy wherever it lives” (McClain). McClain states in his journal that although the movement is aimed at police officials the main thing they want to achieve is to get rid of the white supremacy idea that is in every person’s head in today’s society. Therefore, this means that they have to change the public's whole mindset in order to get the results that they want to see. As we can see, both of these reform movements have key differences between each other. Although both aim at officials, the main goal or “political body” they aim for is different, due to the fact that the abolition movement aimed towards government officials and people of higher rank, whereas the Black lives Matter movement aims more at the general public and the ideology they have within them.
Lastly, the other major difference is the means of spreading the reform movement messages around. During the abolitionist movement, ideas, especially the abolishment of slavery were established and talked about in the newspaper or anywhere where writing/information was available to the public. During the BLM movement, the ways of communication of message/ideas is through social media. Henderson says in his article that due to the deep influence of social media in people’s lives, if used correctly social media can be a huge platform to spread these message and to get the result that people want. He states, “Social media has allowed its members to share documentary evidence of police abuse, spread activist messages, and forge a collective meaning out of heartrending news. At certain key moments, Twitter in particular has reflected and reinforced the power of this movement” (McClain). We can see that with the help of social media now in today’s society, ideas/messages can spread around very quickly and can help solve issues and reinforce strong goals that people want to accomplish. Posts such as police violence towards blacks and hashtags like #blacklivesmatter all help contribute to the main spread of the BLM reform movement. Due to the difference in time periods of American history, in the earlier days getting ideas and messages spread across the public was much harder, and that made reform movements much harder to be fully backed up by, but now with the help of Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and every other social media platform these problems are no longer an issue and it has made the spread of ideas and movements much easier in today's society.
In conclusion, both the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century and the BLM movement had similar things between them but they also had huge differences that made both of them stand out. Even though they occured in different time periods of American history, they both still showed the importance that the voice of Americans can do in this country. Both of the reform movements show that no matter your background or beliefs, if we unite together we can get what we desire in this country.