The United States and Europe have different historical formations. While the history of Europe is characterized by imperialism and the desire of the rich to dominate the poor, the history of the United States is characterized by racial segregation and discrimination. Before the American Revolution which culminated into American independence from Great Britain, the Americans were literally united against one enemy; the colonizer.
However, after independence, very sharp divisions emerged between the white Americans and the non white Americans especially the black and Asian Americans. Racial discrimination was the order of the day and was propagated in various institutions such as schools, churches, and hotels and even in the transport sector.
In 1960s, the blacks under the influence of Martin Luther King staged what they termed as a resistance of white racial discrimination. This was the onset of many civil rights movements which emerged spontaneously to agitate for various rights and resist racial segregation on various grounds.
By 1960s, Americans were considering themselves not only as civilized but also as mature enough to be a liberal society and this made the non whites come out to stand for their rights once and for all. In fact, they considered the civil rights movement as a second liberation.
The difference between the civil rights movements and the revolution war which led to American independence was that the civil rights movements were largely peaceful even though some got out of control and turned violent. One of the famous civil rights movements was the bus boycott, which saw the blacks walk to work for many days to resist racial segregation in the transport sector (Morris 18)
The civil rights movements spread to Europe but took a different form. While the American civil rights movements were mainly against racial segregation, those in Europe were against class and gender segregation.The civil rights movements coincided with the feminist movement in Europe, which was primarily formed to defend the rights of women and the minority groups in Europe.
Before the emergence of feminism, women were denied some basic rights such as the right to vote, the right to decide when to have children and also the right to own property. The civil rights movements in Europe therefore aimed at attaining equality between men and women and do away with social classes which had threatened to cause a revolution.
The gap between the rich and the poor and also widened tremendously. The teachings of Karl Marx, the German sociologist were also gaining popularity in Europe and the proletariats were ready to push for better wages and improved working conditions.
Karl Marx had argued that the poor were being exploited by the rich and both the rich and the poor suffered what he called a false class consciousness. The poor were also alienated from their labor in the capitalism system which had penetrated the European society after war. The civil rights movements awakened the poor and made them realize that they were being exploited by the rich through hard labor and poor wages.
The difference in the nature of the civil rights movements in the United States and Europe was that both had different issues of interest to them. However, the civil rights movements happened spontaneously both in the United States and Europe. Through the civil rights movements, the discrimination against the blacks in the United States was reduced to a great extent while in Europe; women were granted the rights which they had been denied before the civil rights movements (Hall 15).
Works Cited
Hall, Simon. Peace and freedom: the civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.Print.
Morris, Aldon. The origins of the civil rights movement: Black communities organizing for change. New York: Free Press, 1986. Print.