The NAACP, CORE, and the abolitionist movement are a few of the main organizations that supported and influenced the fight for civil rights and equality for African Americans. The Civil rights movement is a globally known concept that connotes a series of well-organized political movements that aim to achieve equality before the set legal frameworks. The concept of fighting to achieve equality can be traced as early as in the 1960’s when it was given voice to by different people across the globe. It is important to note that the struggle to obtain equality took different forms and strategies. Consequently, civil rights movements took the form of either violent or non-violence. Most civil rights movements resorted to violence as a last resort where their quests were not realized by means of nonviolent forms of demonstration. According to the American Government book, the struggle to obtain civil rights for African Americans was “arguably the greatest, longest, and most violent struggle.” (Kurtz, 2016)
In the United States civil rights movement can be traced to the period known as the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century. The civil rights movements wanted issues dealing with legalized racial segregation and discrimination addressed. Whether the civil rights movements in the United States achieved the purposes for which they were formed in the first place is debatable. However, as a result of the efforts by these civil movements a number of milestones have been achieved especially with regards to the passage of laws that seem to encourage the need to offer acceptable solutions to the racial issues in the United States. However, it is evident that there is room for doing better and that other than just the drafted legislation there is need to push for the implementation. This paper reflects on the struggles for equality and acceptance by the African Americans and the challenges that they still face.
Body
The arrival of African Americans in the New World was highly controversial. First, African Americans came to the United States against their will due to slavery and slave trade during that period in time. The translocation to the United States was marred by a lot of problems that led to a significant number of African Americans either dying from disease or getting killed by wild animals. On arriving to the New World they were introduced to legalized slavery and slave trade consequently exposing them to hardships and mistreatment. Slavery denied African Americans the privilege of choice and the opportunity to determine the direction that they deemed fitting for their lives. Being under control of another person, mostly the slave owners curtailed decision making on issues that impacted directly the lives of slaves.
Conflicts often rose between African Americans and white Americans with the former championing for the improvement in their welfare and the latter fearing that such a move would lead to competition by putting African Americans on the same level as the whites. Immediately after the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement of the later 19th century in the United States resorted to getting rid of racial discrimination against African Americans. The result would be fair and equal treatment of African Americans by their white counterparts in racially segregated social facilities. This would mean granting equal opportunity of using the social amenity in question by either white or black. Additionally, the civil movement wanted to improve educational and ensuring that African Americans got a fair deal in the employment market. Additionally, there was need to have representatives in the governance system as well as providing for equal voting rights for all.
The result of this push was the abolition of slavery in the South by use of the ratified Thirteenth Amendment. It was in this era that there was use of force and violence by members across the divide. Strategies employed included militant resistance by groupings such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Shirts. These were strategies by the American White to counter the push by African Americans for equality. They figured violence on the part of the African Americans could only be dealt with using violence. Another aspect from this period was the lynching incidences that were witnessed in the United States. Attacks on African Americans in the South rose and an interestingly low number of culprits were arrested and brought to book. However, the lynching was an element across board by both African Americans and Whites despite a higher number of African Americans being victims.
Civil rights movement of the earlier 20th century was however generally a series of long term efforts that involved use of nonviolent techniques aimed at ensuring that the achieved civil rights could be expounded to also cover all the races in America. This period generally involved legal interpretation of the consented amendments and push to have them ratified and enforced. The great milestones achieved during this period can largely be accredited to the expansion of the legal rights of the African Americans by the US government.
Civil Rights Organizations
It is close to impossible to talk about the strides made in the fight for equality and civil rights without mentioning the roles played by the civil rights organizations. The leaders of the African American community used and continue to use civil rights organizations as the rallying point for people in the struggle to have equality across the American racial community. The civil rights groups and organizations allowed the people to speak in one voice in the agitation and the demand for reforms. The organizations call on responsible leadership to adhere to efforts that seek reforms in the highly segregated society and demands that discriminatory laws are changed or abolished all together.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was formed to protect and enhance the civil rights of not only African Americans but also other minorities that faced similar predicaments with regard to racial segregation and the mistreatment of other races by the white Americans. The NAACP uses its Legal Defense Fund to seek redress for ills on African Americans and other minority races. The achievements by NAACP has opened doors for exploring by other fighters for equality.
Abolitionist movement: the main focus was in the attempt to end slavery through the spread and distribution of written materials that talked about the immorality of owning one individual by another. The writings called on the slaves to rise against their maters and to defend themselves.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE): it was founded in the 1940’s and helped in organizing the freedom rides of 1961 in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the transport sector covering the interstate terminals. Despite resulting in assaults on the participants of the freedom rides, the move achieved its main objective of testing the ruling by the Supreme Court. The authorities responded by enforcing the ruling in Boynton hence acting as clear sign of the existence of the laws that were aimed at curtailing the civil rights of the African Americans.
However, the civil rights organizations occasionally worked together for common goals. For example, a number of the organizations collaborated in the effort to organize initiatives aimed at encouraging enfranchisement, local efforts to seek and exercise the rights to vote by African Americans. The campaign had skyrocketed in the Summer Project of 1964 hence it was largely called Freedom Summer. The project saw organizations such as Council of Federated Organizations comprising of NAACP and CORE come together for the same goal attainment.
Ethical Issues
Learning the historical background of civil rights movement in America is critical in ensuring that emerging issues on the same are properly addressed. It is recommended that researchers approach this topic with an open mind due to its sensitivity and the weight it carries.
Race issues have seen some forms of advancement in the form of paper work, yet, very little has been achieved virtually in the community. For example, the legal documents on the need to reintegrate schools and society exist in well drawn forms yet the reality on the ground is different. Most schools and communities in the United States are yet to implement what is documented in the files in the societies. Reintegration is yet to take effect despite government efforts to encourage the same. Communities that are poverty stricken and riddled with crime have the worst educational system. This ensures that minorities access to a good education is influenced by where you live. In neighborhoods with less crime and affluent status, these schools typically provide a very high-quality education. Denial of voting rights was also an issue that took place for minorities. “Indeed, the denial of voting rights on the basis of race or previous condition of servitude was both legal and widely practiced.” (Hench, 1998)
Achievements of the Civil Rights Movement
i. The overall legal abolition of segregation that was seen in emerging victorious in the Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The result was the overturning of “separate but equal” legal doctrine and a declaring of the impermissibility all forms of segregation.
ii. A reduction in discrimination in the housing sector due to the ratification of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
iii. The passed Voting Rights Act helped in safeguarding black’s suffrage. African Americans acquired equal say in voting as their White counterparts.
iv. The immigration policy was dramatically altered as a result of the ratification of the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965.
v. Discrimination in public accommodations as well as in places of employment was fixed by the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. All the races were allowed to seek employment opportunities wherever one felt qualified enough to work in.
Challenges Facing the Civil Rights Movements in the United States of America
Lack of focus by the movements. The civil rights movements were divided into factions with one side seeking to achieve greater equality pride in the history of the United States race relations. On the other hand, the other factions were committed to promoting and fostering black identity in the struggle for change in socio-economic structures. Failure to align the interests resulted in the drifting apart of the civil rights movement groupings.
The whites used two different styles of segregation in the North and South of the United States. In the North, the system used was a de facto segregation while in the South it was de jure. African Americans in the South faced harder challenges given that de jure segregation was enforced by law hence it became harder to talk the whites into sharing socio-economic opportunities that existed at the time.
The Whites-dominated government in the late 1960’s seemed unaware of the struggles that the African American community was putting. This was evident in the abrupt realization of this fact when black civilian riots emerged in Harlem and the government was contemplating the need to consider whether this was an issue that need intervention given that focus at the time was on the Vietnam War.
The leadership in the African American struggle for equality and the fight for civil rights was not united. They did not share in ideologies and each faction seemed to advocate for a different strategy and approach aimed at attaining equality. The leadership included Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Elijah Mohammad and Martin Luther King Jr. The result was a failure to speak in one voice seen by many critiques as a disastrous move. Some of the leaders advocated for peaceful methods of advocating for change such as freedom marches by Martin Luther King. On the other hand, some of the leaders pushed for a more active and violent approach such as the rhetoric of ‘ballots or bullets’ as espoused by another faction.
Conclusion
Attempts by African American civil rights groups have had great impact on addressing equality and civil rights issues in the United States of America. There has been an increase in political representation in both houses of governance as well as a fairly improved access to rights. As had been earlier stated deciding on whether the effort by these groups was successful is debatable. However, what is evident is that despite the milestones achieved there remains a need to do more to ensure that the minority population is liberated from oppression.