Introduction
African Americans faced widespread racial segregation and discriminationduring the 1950s and the 1960s, especially in the southern United States. On December 1.1955, Rosa Parks declined to move to the back seat of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The Alabama incident marked the modern civil rights movement. The initial step in emancipating the enslaved people was passing the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. The civil rights movement, which was mainly spearheaded by civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther king jr, played a central role in ensuring that African Americans secured federal protection as enshrined in the amendments. The paper outlines and discusses certain economic, social and political factors which significantly undermined the civil rights movement. Also, the paper examines the extent to which the civil rights movement leaders challenged the factors.
Political factors
Historically, during the 1950s and the 1960s, civil rights leaders faced increased government threats; in some instances, many were targeted and assassinated. Thus, one of the most fundamental factors that highly undermined the activities of the civil rights leaders was political assassinations. [1]In remembrance of the individuals brutally killed during the struggle for freedom during the modern civil rights movement between 1954 to 1968, a civil rights memorial with names of the political martyrs was built. The active participation of the martyrs in the civil rights struggle mainly prompted their killings. Reverend George Lee was killed on May 7 1955. [2]Lee actively used his pulpit and printing press to urge others to vote and was also among the first black people registered as voters in Humphreys. The reverend was murdered after declining to accept the white officials’ offer to protect him only if he restrained from urging people to vote.
Likewise, on August 13, 1955, in Brookhaven, Mississippi, Brookhaven was murdered by a Whiteman on the courthouse lawn in broad daylight. Afterwards, nobody admitted to seeing a Whiteman shoot and black man; thus, the killer was never revealed. Similarly, on August 28, 1955, in Mississippi, Emmett Louis Till. [3]A 14-year-old boy was murdered after flirting with a white woman in a store. The body was later found dumped in the Tallahatchie River. However, an all-white jury found the men innocent. Young civil workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Henry and James Earl Chaney were, on June 12, 1964, released into the hands of the Klansmen after being arrested by a deputy sheriff.
Additionally, a Unitarian minister from Boston known as Reverend James Reeb was among the people who participated in the Selma marches. However, he was attacked and killed by white men while he was walking down Selma Street. [4]A Klansman in a passing car also shot and killed another civil rights activist, Gregg Liuzzo, on the Selma highway on march 25, 1965. The killing of martin Luther king junior marked the culmination of civil rights activism. Martin Luther King, a frontrunner in the civil rights movement between the 1950s and the 1960s, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Martin was a fierce civil rights leader, a Baptist minister, and a renowned leader who inspired several non-violent desegregation campaigns, such as those held in Birmingham and Montgomery. He was shot while preparing to lead a demonstration in Memphis.
[5]Police brutalities and unprecedented police arrests were also other challenges that civil rights leaders faced in the 1950s and the 1960s. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders were arrested and jailed for holding civil rights movements across various states in the United States of America. The civil rights leaders were thus denied their fundamental rights, such as the right to assembly and peaceful protests. During this period, police brutality was rampant, especially targeting African Americans. To silence the African Americas, the government applied the policy of government repression. Further, to suppress the activities of the civil rights movements, the government adopted torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The Detroit police department protected white supremacy, and most often, the police disregarded the law. Also, widespread mass racial profiling and inappropriate arrest policies mainly targeted civil rights activists. Also, the fierce demand by the civil rights groups for a civilian review board tasked with investigating the cases of police brutality was also squashed. [6]The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights and labor organizations were under police surveillance through the red squad. To counter the growing cases of police brutality, the civil rights movement groups organized demonstrations in different states.
Social factors
Police brutality was not just a political challenge that the civil rights movement leaders faced but also a social challenge. The civil rights movement activists highly challenged the Jim Crow system. In Detroit, African Americans faced open public and private discrimination, including unjust hiring practices, racist policing practices, and segregated public schools. To challenge the upsurge in discrimination, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments were introduced and the amendments mainly aimed at creating an equitable and equal society.
[7]The Jim Crow laws continued racial segregation, which began with slavery. Immediately following the adoption of the 13th amendment and the civil war, several states adopted black codes. The black codes were mainly a collection of laws modelled on former slave laws. The black codes severely limited the newly obtained freedom of emancipated African Americans. Blacks could also be quickly arrested for minor infractions through the vagrancy laws. A system known as convict leasing was established during this time, and the black convicts would provide unpaid labor through this. Jim Crow thus promoted white supremacy, and several states passed the laws.
Jim Crow created a system whereby the blacks and the whites had separate public schools and other amenities. The blacks and whites also ate in different restaurants, and on the bus, the Africans were expected to sit in the rear of the bus. The black codes, however, created growing public outrage, which consequently led to the placement of the former confederate states under army occupation during the reconstruction. The civil rights activists thus increased pressure on the government to abolish the discriminative laws.
Another social challenge African Americans faced that affected their participation in the civil rights movement was poverty. [8]In the 1950s and the 1960s, the African Americans mainly worked as servants to the whites and, thus, were poor and faced increased social challenges such as poor housing and lack of basic needs. The African Americans also faced poor working conditions with poor pay. Racial segregation in the schools also denied African American children the opportunity to get the necessary education.
PresidentLyndon B Johnson introduced affirmative action, a series of policies, programs and procedures which majorly gave preference to the members of minority groups and women. Thus, through affirmative action, equality and equity were achieved during job hiring, admission to colleges and universities, and in awarding government contracts. The civil rights activists challenged the poor working and living conditions through written memoranda and publications.
Economic factors
Inadequate finance was the main economic challenge faced by civil rights activists during the 1950s and the 1960s. On most occasions, civil rights activists depended solely on donations from organizations and well-wishers. The African Americans worked in white-owned industries and were paid low wages. Higher levels of economic segregation are always associated with lower incomes. Lower educational attainment and racial segregation were also associated with lower payments for African Americans.
[9]Some of the strategies that civil rights activists used included civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, marches, protests, boycotts, and rallies. However, the activists significantly encountered the challenge of inadequate finances to sponsor marches in different states. Therefore, the financial strains the activists faced affected their involvement in the struggle for equality across the United States of America. In the 1950s and the 1960s, discrimination and all forms of exploitation were high: the workers were exposed to overtime with no pay and could work without offs. Thus, the operations of the activities were highly strained due to the lack of sufficient finances to sponsor the activities.
Similarly, African Americans experienced widespread discrimination across all the states during the 1950s and the 1960s. [10]Therefore, the operations of the civil rights leaders were highly affected by inadequate finances since movement from one state to another was difficult. The economic hardships also affected the attendance of the demonstrations across various states. The government thus used financial repression to curtail the activities of the activists. Further, even after the establishment of legitimate slavery, some oppressed African Americans decided to remain enslaved.
During the 1950s and the 60s, African Americans were also exposed to high living standards. The prices of the essential commodities were extraordinarily high, and thus, most African Americans, who worked for low wages on the white farms, could not afford them. Also, the African Americans were restricted from purchasing from certain shops and supermarkets, which were racially segregated and due to this, they lacked essential commodities which they required. The high standards of living across the various states in the united states of America was a plan by the white-dominated government to deny African Americans commodities. Thus, the government was not committed to developing strategies and policies to reduce the prices of essential commodities.
To overcome the economic challenges, specific organizations that supported the activities of the civil rights activists provided the money to run the activities of the movements. [11]During the 1950s and the 1960s, the national urban league and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) received the most grants, according to the Ford Foundation funding data. Activists in education and research highly benefited from the Ford Foundation. Also, the Rockefeller Foundation played a central role in financing the operations of the civil rights movement.By the mid-1950s, Ford had become the world’s billion-dollar foundation; thus, its activities made headlines that prompted public scrutiny. The critics of the company’s activities claimed that the organization’s operations were anti-American.
The focus areas of the organizations in the 1950s were mainly international cooperation and overseas development. The Ford Foundation directed enormous amounts of money towards educational institutions in the 1950s, just like its peers, the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations. Therefore, the organization’s efforts helped promote education among African Americans; thus, their participation in securing well-paying jobs increased.
Lastly, the media also played a central role in overcoming the economic, social and political challenges that the activists faced. The activities of the civil rights activists in the United States were highly influenced by the American media, especially television, radio and newspapers. The media plays a vital role in public opinion, and through the media, the images of white police attacking the black protesters swayed public opinion in favour of martin Luther king Jr. and his followers. Also, during this time, print publications and radio programs were one of the most popular forms of media. The civil rights leader’s attended various radio programs to air their grievances and communicate to the affected blacks. Also, the Americans who lived far from the scene of protests could receive live footage into their homes through the television.
The Montgomery bus boycott was one of the first protests to earn national attention. The boycott mainly began after the arrest of Rosa Parks after refusing g to comply with the segregationist policies that required her to sit in the back of the bus. The boycott attracted the attention of the national and international media and was mainly coordinated by the president of the Montgomery improvement association, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The media also played a crucial role in covering the Birmingham protests, which broke out in April 1963 and were mainly coordinated by the Alabama Christian movement for human rights and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As a result of the protests, the whites were not able to do their businesses. The media helped immensely in covering the Birmingham protests, and this helped in ringing many Americans to the side of the protesters.
Conclusion
Conclusively, as already discussed, the civil rights activists experienced a wide range of political, social and economic challenges which highly inhibited their struggle to fight for equality and equity in the United States of America. The actions of the civil rights activists played a crucial role in promoting the liberation of black Americans. The white-dominated system highly compelled the demonstrations, sit-ins, and resistance from the oppressed African Americans. However, it is prudent to note that African Americans are not entirely free today. Recently, there have been cases of police brutality, mainly against African Americans. For example, after the killing of George Floyd, the protesters, who were primarily demanding justice, were brutalized by the police and arrested. The media still plays a central role in agitating for the rights of oppressed African Americans. Multiple cases have been exposed with the emergence of various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Bibliography
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[1] JACK M. BLOOM, “Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, Second Edition,” 2019, doi:10.2307/j.ctvktrxqj.
[2] Mitchell G. Klingenber, “Robert Penn Warren, Wendell Berry, and the Dark Side of Civil War History,” Civil War History 64, no. 2 (2018): doi:10.1353/cwh.2018.0037.
[3] Mitchell G. Klingenber, “Robert Penn Warren, Wendell Berry, and the Dark Side of Civil War History,” Civil War History 64, no. 2 (2018): doi:10.1353/cwh.2018.0037.
[4] Jakobi Williams, “Power to the People!” Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, 2019, doi:10.2307/j.ctvvsqcd0.19.
[5] “LibGuides: Martin Luther King, Jr. Resources: Films/Speeches,” Cornell University Research Guides – LibGuides at Cornell University, last modified September 23, 2021, https://guides.library.cornell.edu/mlk/films-speeches.
[6] Mitchell G. Klingenber, “Robert Penn Warren, Wendell Berry, and the Dark Side of Civil War History,” Civil War History 64, no. 2 (2018): doi:10.1353/cwh.2018.0037.
[7] Gary S. Selby, “Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1975. By Carolyn Renée Dupont. (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013. Pp. 290. $55.00.),” The Historian 77, no. 3 (2015): xx, doi:10.1111/hisn.12072_13.
[8] Jakobi Williams, “Power to the People!,” Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, 2019, xx, doi:10.2307/j.ctvvsqcd0.19.
[9] Jakobi Williams, “Power to the People!,” Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, 2019, xx, doi:10.2307/j.ctvvsqcd0.19.
[10] Gary S. Selby, “Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1975. By Carolyn Renée Dupont. (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013. Pp. 290. $55.00.),” The Historian 77, no. 3 (2015): xx, doi:10.1111/hisn.12072_13.
[11] Gary S. Selby, “Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1975. By Carolyn Renée Dupont. (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013. Pp. 290. $55.00.),” The Historian 77, no. 3 (2015): xx, doi:10.1111/hisn.12072_13.
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