Civil Rights Movement in the USA Brief History From the Time Before the Civil War Essay

Introduction

The North and the South had been growing apart for quite some time before the Civil War broke out. The most important reason for the split was slavery. The Northern states did not permit slavery and opposed it in other states. Their view of slavery had been strongly influenced by the Abolitionist Movement, led by Quakers and other religious groups all of whom regarded slavery as unChristian, and by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 best-selling novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which described the horrors of slavery.

Many Northerners were outraged by the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857, which held that slaves were private property and could therefore not become citizens of the United States. Since Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln was regarded as representing the North, his election in November, 1860 caused seven Southern states to secede from the Union. These were joined by four more when the Civil War broke out in April, 1861, joining together to become the Confederate States of America with its own president, Jefferson Davis. The history of the struggle for civil rights for African Americans begins here because without a civil war it is unlikely that the South would ever have accepted the authority of the White House.

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Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not actually free any slaves. Slavery was officially abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which was ratified in December, 1865. Legal test cases determined that the Amendment gave slaves their freedom but not full citizenship, and that the Amendment could therefore not be used to enforce equal civil rights (Vorenberg 6). The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 gave former slaves citizenship and equal protection under the law but that protection, the Supreme Court decided, was limited to rights conferred under federal, not state law, which meant that private individuals and institutions could continue to oppress freed slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 guaranteed voting rights to all men (women did not get the vote until 1919).

When federal troops were taken out of the South as part of The Compromise of 1877 the Democratic Party started to take back the power it had lost. The Southern states passed laws requiring all those wishing to vote to first pay a poll tax and pass literacy and comprehension tests which ensured that poor, uneducated “freedmen” would actually be able to vote. In that way Southern politicians got around the Fifteenth Amendment without actually violating it (Vorenberg 85).

Civil rights groups had to take drastic legal action to stop this trend. The Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 involved Homer Plessy, an “octoroon” who by law was considered black even though he was seven/eights white. His appearance made it easy for him to buy a first-class rail ticket. Once he had taken a seat in the whites-only compartment he let it be known that he was “colored,” and was therefore violating the state’s separate-car law. This was part of a planned act of civil disobedience in which Plessy was to be arrested, charged and tried, and the court case would then be used to challenge the law. Everything went according to plan except that the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation, even in public accommodations which were to be “separate but equal” (Klarman 9-10).

Support for the civil rights movement came mostly from whites at this stage, but there was one notable exception. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery but taught himself to read, and proceeded to teach other slaves. The plantation owners disapproved of this practice, fearing that the ability to read would lead to discontentment among their slaves. Douglass escaped in 1838, at age 20, settled in New Bedford, MA, and became an anti-slavery activist, not only in the US but also in Great Britain and Ireland. He advocated equal education for all, desegregated schools, equal rights for African Americans as well as women, and – unlike many Abolitionists of that time – taught that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass fought for equality for his people.

Reconstruction was a stormy period but gradually whites reversed the gains blacks had made. Beginning in 1876, the Southern Democrats passed Jim Crow laws forbidding blacks and whites from using the same facilities. These restrictions, along with modifications of the Reconstruction Amendments, replaced the South’s Black Codes as a means of keeping African Americans powerless and poor. One consequence of the Jim Crow laws was “The Great Migration” during which 1.3 million former slaves moved to Northern cities find work and live in relative freedom.

The period between 1877 and 1954 did not see dramatic improvements in civil rights although the movement was far from inactive. The NAACP was established in 1909, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters under A. Philip Randolph became a powerful political force. However, change was slow, partly because of two World Wars and the Great Depression in between.

In 1954 the pace of change suddenly quickened when the case of Brown v. Board of Education was brought before the Supreme Court. By finding for Brown, the Court overturned the “separate but equal” ruling of the Plessy v Ferguson case, stating that segregation laws violated the 14^th Amendment (Wikipedia). There was a good deal of resistance to integration of schools, notably in Little Rock, Arkansas where the National Guard had to be called in to prevent violence, but for the most part the schools had been integrating themselves for some time.

Inspired by their legal victory, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) looked for a suitable person to challenge the legality of segregation in public spaces by means of an act of civil disobedience. When Rosa Parks, on her own initiative, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger, she was arrested, charged with violating the segregation code of Montgomery, Alabama, and put in jail. NAACP president E.D. Nixon bailed her out and persuaded the Women’s Political Council (WPC) to distribute 35,000 leaflets asking commuters to boycott the buses (Chappel). This was followed by announcements in the local newspaper and in black churches that Sunday.

After the first day of the boycott, community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), under the young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., to lead the boycott, which ended up lasting for 381 days. They also decided to file a law suit to test the legality of the city and state segregation laws, in which they were helped by NAACP counsel, Thurgood Marshall who would later become a Supreme Court justice.

Even though she was a quiet and unassuming woman, Rosa Parks was acutely aware of the injustice of the segregation laws. She had attended the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee some months prior to the bus incident, learning about civil rights reform and non-violent resistance. The school trained many black leaders, and how effective their techniques were was seen in early 1960, when black students used those tactics to protest against segregated public facilities in their city. Neatly dressed, quiet and respectful, they persisted in their non-violent protest until all restaurants were fully integrated.

The Highlander school was suspected of being a Communist front by local segregationists. When the integration of schools in Tennessee commenced “with all deliberate speed” after the Brown decision, 600 National Guardsmen had to be called in to prevent whites from attacking black students entering Clinton High School. The following year, when the first black students graduated from a public high school, Clinton was almost completely destroyed by three bombs. Hattie Cotton Elementary was also bombed. Local segregationists blamed the Highlander Folk School for stirring up trouble, and had it closed down (Anonymous).

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was the most prominent civil rights organizer in the country. His greatest achievement may be March on Washington, held on August 28, 1963, when about 300,000 marchers assembled in front of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial to hear him give his “I have a dream” speech. The March was televised and had a tremendous impact on all Americans, including President John F. Kennedy. King received the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. King’s method of dealing with social injustice has proved to be far more effective than any other types of protest. By his brilliant use of the media he was able to show the world the effects of racism on American society and to shame political leaders into taking legal action.

When Lyndon B. Johnson took over after Kennedy’s assassination, civil rights leaders feared that this Texan would not be as sympathetic to their cause as Kennedy had been. They were pleasantly surprised when Johnson pushed hard to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Congress and Senate. The Act “strengthened voting rights, banned discrimination in public facilities and in employment, empowered the attorney general to begin suits against school segregation, and authorized the withholding of federal funds from noncomplying schools” (Weisbrot 89).

The next step was the National Voting Rights Act but Johnson wanted to give the country a chance to get used to the Civil Rights Act before eliminating the last of the Jim Crow laws. “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama changed his mind. In the aftermath of this widely televised and reported event, Johnson gave an emotional speech before the House of Representatives, finishing by saying : “Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.” (Weisbrot 152). The Act passed 328-74 and the signing was witnessed by Rosa Parks, who had been especially invited for the occasion.

In theory, this Act completed civil rights movement’s quest for equal rights. Since then Barack Obama has been elected president, and two African Americans have served as Secretary of State. As a result, some people have decided that the civil rights struggle is over. However, the story of how an enslaved and persecuted people overcame adversity to reach those heights will serve as an inspiration as well as a warning to future generations, and must therefore never be forgotten.

Works Cited

Anonymous. “Brown v. Board of Education.” Wikipedia. 2009. Web.

Anonymous. “1960: The Untold Story of Jackson’s Civil Rights Movement.” The Jackson Sun, 2003. Web.

Chappell, Kevin. “Rosa Parks: The Life and Legacy of ‘The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’.” Ebony Magazine, 2006.

Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford UP, 2004.

Loveland, George W. “A Greater Fairness: May Justus as Popular Educator, Part 2.” Ferrum College, 2006. Web.

Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.

Weisbrot, Robert. Freedom Bound: A History of America’s Civil Rights Movement. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.

Outline

1. The North and South split over the issue of slavery. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president, eleven states formed the Confederacy and with that the Civil War began. This is where the history of civil rights begins.
2. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves but the 13^th Amendment did. However, blacks remains second-class citizens. The 14^th Amendment was made ineffective because while it gave African Americans equal protection under the law, that only applied to rights granted by the federal government. Private individuals and institutions could persecute “freedmen” without fear of the law. The 15^th Amendment gave all men the right to vote but the states made sure few blacks actually did vote.
3. Plessy v. Ferguson challenged segregation laws but the Supreme Court decided public facilities must be “separate but equal.” Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, taught himself to read, escaped and became an international civil rights activist.
4. Jim Crow laws kept African Americans poor and powerless. As a result, about 1.3 million moved to the cities in the North to find work and live in relative freedom.
5. Between 1877 and 1954 change came slowly. Brown v. Board of Education changed that. It overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal,” and ordered integration of all public schools.
6. The NAACP took advantage of Rosa Park’s courageous act of defiance by challenging segregation laws. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. lasted 381 days and resulted in the integration of Montgomery.
7. Rosa Parks attended the Highlander Folk School for several months before the bus incident. The school taught civil rights reform through non-violence. It was involved in the lunch counter protests in Nashville, inspired by the success of black students in Greensboro. School integration in Nashville resulted in the bombing of Clinton High School and Hattie Cotton Elementary, but Highlander students were blamed for creating unrest. The school was accused of being a Communist operation, and closed down.
8. Martin Luther King’s greatest achievement may be the March on Washington in August, 1963. He used the media there, and in other demonstrations, to show the world the injustices of racism, and shamed politicians into taking action.
9. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through in spite of strong resistance in the Congress and Senate. He followed it with the National Voting Rights Act, which finally gave African American equal rights fully supported by the law.
10. Even though an African American now occupies the Oval Office, the struggle against prejudice will never end. Future generations can learn valuable lessons from the civil rights movement.