Civil Rights Movement Pros And Cons

Actor and Civil Rights activist, Isaiah Washington once stated, “Imagine if every single African American in the United States that was really fed up with being angry, sad, and disgusted, would pick ONE DAY to simply ‘stay at home’ from every single job, work site, sports arena and government office in the United States of America. I’m pretty sure that within 72 hours from Wall Street to the NFL… Black Lives Would Matter” (Puglise). Since then, Washington has led movements against police brutality such as the #StayAtHomeSeptember262016 movement. However, more people must band together to fight the racial violence that is spiraling throughout the United States today. Although some people may wrongly criticize the boycotts, stating that movements
are taking place too quickly, or that they can not afford to miss work, they can effectively contribute to the boycotts in numerous other ways. To stop violent police brutality and racial violence, we must enact movements, such as peaceful protests and boycotts. Tactics such as these have been proved to have effectively worked in previous US history. According to statistics from Mapping Police Violence, in 2015 police killed at least 102 unarmed African Americans. This is nearly two people each week. Only ten out of the 102 cases resulted in officers being charged with a crime, and only two officers were convicted for the death. In the month of September 2016 only, at least three African American men were shot dead, including Darren Seals, Terence Crutcher, and Keith Lamont Scott. CNN journalists, Rachel Clarke and Christopher Lett published a timeline of the Brown-Wilson incident and reported that Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson (Clarke, Lett). After this incident, Darren Seals became close with the Brown family and eventually started a boycott of Democratic candidates in the local elections in Ferguson, Missouri stating that “they failed to protect black lives” (Mettler). Katie Mettler, an on scene reporter from The Washington Post, announced that on Tuesday September 6, Darren Seals was found shot dead in a burning car outside of the city of Ferguson. He died fighting for not only himself, but other people of his race and the justice that they deserve (Mettler).
On site reporter, Jason Morris reported that on September 16, 911 received two calls stating that there was an abandoned vehicle blocking a road with all doors open and the engine running, with one report stating that a man was running away from the vehicle, and had stated that it was going to blow up. Officer Betty Shelby arrived at the scene to find a man, who would later be known to be Terence Crutcher. Shelby questioned Crutcher and called dispatch with the intent of arresting him for being under the influence. She then drew her gun and ordered him to get on his knees, which he refused to do while walking toward the car. Just moments later, video footage from the event shows him falling to the ground. Shelby had shot him dead. He died with no other reasoning other than Officer Shelby stating that “she was afraid Crutcher was reaching for a weapon [in his car] when she opened fire”, (Blau, Morris, and Shoichet). And finally, Ed Lavandera and Boris Sanchez from CNN reported from Charlotte, NC and stated that on September 20th, Keith Lamont Scott, an armed man, was shot and killed by Officer Brentley Vinson. Scott was mistaken for a man with an outstanding warrant when the police spotted him with a handgun exiting and returning to his car by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte campus repeatedly. When he exited his car for the second time, he was asked to drop his weapon, to which he refused. This is when Vinson shot him three times, resulting in his death (Lavandera, Sanchez, Almasy) .
The staff of History.com writes that, Rosa Parks was an African American woman, who was also the Secretary of her local chapter of the NAACP, or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her seat on a bus, and in return was arrested and fined due to an ordinance in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. This ordinance reserved the front half of city buses for whites only, and if that section was filled, then those sitting in the back must yield their seats to the white men and women. After her arrest, she called E.D Nixon, a prominent black leader, to bail her out of jail. The WPC, or Women’s Political Council, then began sending around flyers calling for a bus system boycott on December 5th. On that day, about 40,000 African Americans boycotted the busing system. This jumpstarted the formation of a group called the Montgomery Improvement Association, or MIA, and Dr. Martin Luther King, a church pastor who would soon be known as the leader of the whole Civil Rights Movement, was elected president. They sent demands to the city, including courtesy, the hiring of black drivers, and lastly, a first-come, first-seated policy. The city did not adopt these demands, even though three quarters of ridership of buses consisted of African Americans.
This boycott would end up last 381 days, and participators sustained it by initiating carpools and African American taxi drivers only charging ten cents, the same amount as a bus fare. Finally on June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law pertaining to buses being racially segregated was a violation of the 14th amendment. This amendment, written by Congressman John A. Bingham, of Ohio, states “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property…” (Cornell). After taken to the Supreme Court, Montgomery’s buses were finally integrated on December 21, and the boycott ended. Buses were now segregated, but bus stops were not. However, violence was still prominent. In January of 1957, seven bombers set off bombs at African American churches and houses of prominent Civil Rights leaders, including Martin Luther King. These seven bombers were arrested by the Montgomery police and came out to be members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacy group.
Boycotts in general are proven to have good results, even if they are not for civil rights.
One example of this is the Moscow Olympic Boycott that took place in 1980. The US Department of State archived that on December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and said that the process would be “quick and uncontested” (US Department of State). However the invasion led to much greater conflict in the Central Asia region. If the invasion continued, the boycott would take place. Not many countries governments were supportive of the boycott until January 1980, when Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov announced the Russian boycott of the Games. On January 14th, the US set a deadline and if Soviet troops were not out of Afghanistan by then they would call for an international boycott of the Games. Eventually, the deadline passed and the Carter administration announced the US boycott of the Games. In total, by the time the Games began, 65 nations refused to take part, and only 88 countries did take part. Some countries put the decision on the athlete, which meant that if they wanted to compete they could, but their nation’s government would not be there. In the United States’ case, the government supported the boycott, as did the USOC, or United States Olympic Committee, which meant there would be absolutely no representatives of the United States at the games. This boycott, along with the Soviet Union’s boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles games are a factor in the
cooling between relations in the two nations (US Department of State).
Shaun King, an American writer, and civil rights activist believes that the protests that have been taking place over the past year build awareness, but not the political and economic persuasion needed to make a difference regarding police brutality. He is taking a step forward and planning many boycotts against cities, states, businesses, and institutions that are “willfully indifferent to police brutality and racial injustice or are deliberately destructive partners with it” (King). King has introduced InjusticeBoycott.com, which is where those who are interested in joining the boycott can go to read the plans. The boycott will begin on December 5th, 2016, the same day that the Montgomery Bus Boycott began just 61 years prior, and as of today there are 113,127 people joining, according to King’s website. They will not be stating the names of the cities, states, businesses, and institutions that they will be boycotting in hopes that cities and states will set police brutality and racial violence prevention laws before it occurs. Their targets will be those businesses and corporations that partner with or profit from systemic oppression, are headquartered in cities or states infamous for police brutality and say little about the topic, or fund, underwrite, inform, train, or support systemic oppression and brutality. Systemic oppression is the mistreatment of people within a select social identity group. Until the enactment of the boycott, they will “methodically roll out each and every target in a strategic and creative manner” (King). They also have began to build partnerships with outside organizations, leaders, and businesses who will co-sponsor the boycott. They will provide alternatives and exceptions for each target to support those who side with King and his supporters, and also provide cities and states with a clear path out of the boycott. This act will not end until many meaningful reforms are made and they are prepared for the boycott to last for months, and possibly even years (King).
Ultimately, to stop the violent acts of police brutality and the demeaning acts of racial violence that are becoming so present in our daily lives, we must take initiative.
By joining the fight, like Dr. Martin Luther King did in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Joshua King is doing today in his own boycott, we can fight racial injustice. Boycotts have been proven to effectively work in the past, so they will now too. Moreover, in order to prevent any more police brutality and racial violence, we must enact peaceful protest and
boycotts.