This is actually an essay I wrote for my history class but it discusses a topic that I feel very strongly about and I believe covers issues that are extremely prevalent today. Please share your comments/opinions, whether positive or negative and remain open-minded to others opinions. I encourage discussions in the comments and direct messages to me as well.
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Black Lives Matter is just the Shiny and New Civil Rights Movement
For several decades, citizens believed that the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 put an end to racial inequality and injustice in America. However, the entire Civil Rights Movement, in history textbooks, books, movies, and more, have completely whitewashed the movement to be nothing but a black protest, led by Martin Luther King Jr. which resulted in success and the equality for all in the United States. This, unfortunately, has proven to be false. The purpose of the Civil Rights Movement was to erase the line that separates blacks and whites in America. It was to gain equality and combat against racism, prejudice, and segregation through the use of nonviolent forms of protests and boycotts. Had the Civil Rights Movement been successful in all aspects of gaining equality and social justice for African Americans in the United States, the resurgence of another black liberation movement in the form of a chapter called Black Lives Matter would not have occurred.
The Civil Rights Movement took rise at the beginning of a pivotal moment in the social history of America. Brown v. Board, the supreme court case of 1954, resulted in the overturn of Plessy v. Ferguson, which coined the phrase "separate but equal," and desegregated American public schools at a federal level. Black Americans were beginning to take strides towards integrating themselves into a predominantly white society, with much resistance of course. Nine black students in the state of Arkansas, now recognized as the Little Rock Nine, had to be escorted to their new school in Little Rock by the National Guard due to the violent and harsh reactions and resistance of white students against the desegregation of their schools. Another event in which a president nationalized Mississippi's national guard was when James Meredith became the first African American to be admitted into the segregated University of Mississippi. The violent campus protests towards his admittance led to two men being killed by gunshot wounds. Although individuals during the Civil Rights movement took enormous steps to desegregate schools to create an equal playing field for blacks and whites, desegregation was a failure. Black students being plagued with long trips, violence from peers, and families negative views on black kids attending predominantly white institutions contributed to the rise of a new "school-choice" movement. Although it was proven that blacks integrating themselves into white institutions drastically decreased the gap of academic and societal achievements and success, the number of black kids still enrolling into and attending majority black and colored schools was high.
Martin Luther King Jr. is the most commonly recognized figure of the Civil Rights Movement for presenting his famous "I Have A Dream" speech at the nation's capital before hundreds of thousands of people. The march has been coined by King's plea for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," basic American freedoms, which often shadows his included message for economic justice. During a strike in Memphis to support sanitation workers, King stated that "It's a crime in a rich nation for people to receive starvation wages." With approximately 40 million people of the American population beneath the poverty line, the majority of those being minorities, racial inequality was prevalent. Income inequality and redistribution of wealth only favors those of Caucasian descent, helping those who come from old money, making it more difficult for those with less to gain more. As the phrase goes "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." The economic challenges that the Civil Rights Movements were targeting are still occurring with blacks still suffering from the highest unemployment rate and lowest wages in America. The movement succeeded, to an extent, with desegregating schools, however, what it failed in was supporting majority black schools economically. Black citizens were still struggling to get jobs and or funding when it came to creating black-owned businesses.
Police brutality may be a concern for modern black liberation movements today, however, this has been a reoccurring theme in African American history and black people focus of this issue really began with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. A march took place on August 23, 1963, in Washington, D.C. where people waved signs reading "We demand an end to police brutality now!" This is where the tie equating the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter movement really becomes clear. A movement that occurred decades ago is reoccurring in a new and evolved form in modern time.
The Black Lives Matter movement came to life in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the murderer of a then 17-year-old boy Trayvon Martin. This case revealed to the world that even today, in modern American society, blacks are still "systematically and intentionally targeted for demise." Since the Trayvon Martin case, many more incidents have occurred where a black life has been taken unjustly by law enforcement, the ones meant to protect its citizens. Just to name a few: Eric Garner, choked to death by an NYPD officer; John Crawford, shot dead by police for holding a toy gun; Michael Brown, killed by police officer for being unarmed; Freddie Gray, dies after injuries that occurred while in police custody; Philando Castile, shot to death by police officer with family in the car. These are very few of the many similar encounters that have happened in the last few years in America. Black people in America have always recognized the unjust treatment and deadly oppression that they have received since they've been forcefully brought to America, and the Civil Rights Movement has been revived through the modern day Black Lives Matter movement as a way to correct the shortcomings and failures of the Civil Rights Movement.
One of the biggest shortcomings of the Civil Rights movement is that the neglect and the whitewashing of the movement, its history, and its purpose have led people to believe that racism ended with the Civil Rights Movement. Recent events in America have shown otherwise. On August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, a white supremacist rally in protest of the removal of a Confederate monument, which quickly turned violent. This not only revealed American racism towards blacks but towards other ethnic minority groups as well. The goals of the Civil Rights movement are still being upheld by the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the failures of the past black liberation movement and the work that still needs to be done in order to create an equal and just American society.
The Civil Rights movement succeeded in bringing awareness to racial inequality in America. It took great strides towards creating a more balanced society and better opportunity for black people in America through federal level laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, what the Civil Rights movement failed to do was acknowledge all parts of their movement and fight for them at equal levels. The neglection of their struggle for economic justice resulted in a racially biased economic system in America that blacks are still struggling with up to this day. The movement pushed to desegregate schools but didn't do much afterward to fully reap the benefits of getting to attend the same schools as whites nor did they push as hard for developing their own black communities. The most consequential failure of the Civil Rights Movement was that it led people, mainly white American citizens, to believe that racism ended in the 1960s and has resulted in severe racial tensions, widening the bridge between black and white citizens in America.
Black Lives Matter was birthed from the shortcomings of the Civil Rights Movements. The movement was not without its faults, resulting in the creation of black liberation movement fighting for the same rights that they had been marching for just five decades ago.
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Formal
Essay by Leah Lee (2018)
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Your local curious cat,
Leah Lee
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