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Civil Rights: The African American Struggle For Equality
Civil Rights: The African American struggle for equality
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Introduction
The history of African-American struggles remains vital to date in the US. This movement does not pause at equal rights but calls for the capitalist order. The struggle of African-Americans has become a myth. But this story is often falsified or sanitized. The civil rights struggle is particularly valued. Fighting against economic and social inequalities is more hidden. The struggle for equal rights faced a lot of challenges. The thesis statement is to explore the struggle that was made by black people for equal rights.
Body
The abolition of slavery was promulgated in 1865. But the southern states were developing black codes to limit their economic and physical freedom. In 1890, the "Jim Crow" system institutionalized true racial segregation. The toilets, schools or hospitals were separated. It urged blacks to endure the various insults and abuses of the segregationist system. But African-Americans adopted lifestyles that were just as different as Whites to each other. These social and geographical differences had an impact on Black's fight for equality (Patton, 2004).
The black population joined the industrial cities of the north, like New York or Chicago. But it suffered misery and poor housing conditions. In 1919, the riots of Chicago broke out. It imposed urban segregation on Blacks. In 1930, the New Deal helped the economic crisis. Blacks were given access to public jobs other than labor work. Part of the black population integrated into the middle class through school meritocracy. But another party remained locked in misery. It is this black middle class that wanted to frame the popular classes to steer the fight for racial equality towards a legal process (Krutz, 2017).
After the Civil war, nonviolent direct actions predominated. The shops that did not hire African Americans were boycotted. The NAACP valued the legal dimension and registration on the electoral lists. Racial integration in employment and in institutions took precedence over the economic concerns of the working class. In 1967, a wave of riots spread in many cities. In Detroit, the army and police failed to maintain order. Nixon denounced a "hell of urban anarchy". The war in Vietnam also created a rift within the country. Blacks were gradually opposing the war (Lucic, 2013).
Black Power also included a cultural dimension. Creativity allowed the emancipation of the black community. The artistic expression, including popular cultures, including a liberating and revolutionary potential were valued. This culture refused to integrate and fight against the oppressive workings of American society. Larry Neal proposed to connect art and politics in a very conscious way for the liberation of the black people. Theaters and independent publishing houses were able to get out of white commercial culture (Hemmingson, 2014).
In 1968, riots broke out after the murder of Martin Luther King. The institutions decided to reinforce the repression while the black movement became more and more threatening. Nixon became president and imposed a conservative policy. In this context, the BPP moved towards direct solidarity in neighborhoods. It organized free meals. The black wanted to integrate into capitalist society and become assimilationist. This class defended equal rights. Some black became nationalist and even separatist. This social class defended exclusively black institutions to consolidate its small power. Only the working classes had an interest in transforming the whole of society against racism and social inequalities (Civil Rights, 2004).
Conclusion
The fight for equal rights faced many challenges but this movement has been able to make concrete progress. It is the struggles of the black proletarians, both men and women, who had emancipatory perspectives. The black working classes led the fight against racism and social inequality. These movements carried the perspective of a world without hierarchies, without class, and without the state. Although the fight for civil rights has achieved a lot, there is still much more to do.
References
Civil Rights. (2004). Civil rights chronicle: the African-American struggle for freedom. Choice Reviews Online, 41(11), 41-6276-41-6276. doi: 10.5860/choice.41-6276
Hemmingson, G. (2014). The Fourteenth Amendment and The African American Struggle for Civil Rights. The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review, 3(0). doi: 10.21061/vtuhr.v3i0.24
Krutz, G. (2017). American Government. Retrieved from https://d3bxy9euw4e147.cloudfront.net/oscms-prodcms/media/documents/AmericanGovernment-LR.pdf
Lučić, I. (2013). African American's Struggle for Equality and African American Literature. Mediterranean Journal Of Social Sciences. doi: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p123
Patton, J. (2004). Essay Review I: African American Women, Civil Rights, and Black PowerBettye Collier-Thomas and V. P. Franklin, Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. The Journal Of African American History, 89(3), 262-265. doi: 10.2307/4134078
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