Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States refers to the social,political and legal struggle to gain equal rights for the black Americansand to end racial discrimination. Although the movement has a history ofstruggle dating back to the time of abolition of slavery, this essay looksat civil rights movement since 1945. It discusses the major factors thathave contributed to its success and lists some of its major gains. A number of social, political, historical factors combined to make thecivil rights movement successful-culminating in the Voting Rights Act of1965. Some of these are summarized below. The end of World War II saw the United States and the Soviet Unionemerge as the two major global powers, with both countries attempted toseek the moral high ground. The US was supposed to be the bastion of'individual freedom' but racial discrimination and segregation of theblacks in its own backyard was highly embarrassing for the country. The
Before World War II, the Americans had lived relatively isolatedlives. The development of inter-state highways, the expanding nationalradio and television networks started to link the people closer. Equal opportunity for blacks waspromoted by the affirmative-action programs that emerged in the 1970s,supported the hiring and promotion of minorities and women. [1] Increasedeconomic prosperity brought the focus on the deprived social groups (mainlythe blacks), which remained mired in poverty and advanced the cause of thecivil rights movement. They were the post WWII "baby boomers" who had spent more yearsin school than the previous generations and were prone to question theexisting unjust social order and the 'spiritual health' of the country. For example, legalsegregation as a system of racial control was dismantled, and blacks wereno longer subject to the humiliation of Jim Crow laws. [3] Although racial discrimination has not been fully eliminated from theAmerican society, the civil rights movement was responsible for removingsome of the most blatant discriminatory laws. It inspired people to fight against injustice andfor equal rights for the deprived and suppressed sections of the society. was the most prominent among these leaders, who employedthe principles of non-violence to the struggle and managed to convincePresident Kennedy and, later, President Johnson to push for legislation toend discrimination against the blacks. rs argued that the US could never persuade the rest ofthe world to reject Soviet communism and accept US leadership until iteliminated inequality in its own country. [2] College students were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement inthe 1960s. Unprecedented economic prosperity in the US after the World War II sawthe GNP of the country rise by 250% between 1945 and 1960. It was a potent argument thateventually got through to the political leadership in the 1960s. But, perhapsthe most important legacy of the Civil Rights Movement was that it set inmotion a tradition of questioning the traditional social practices of theAmerican society.
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