Rights Movement Perspectives

The African American Civil Rights Movement signifies the social movement in the United States of America targeted at outlawing racial discrimination towards African Americans and reestablishing their voting rights. Although the civil right battles throughout the past centuries have had significant triumphs in defending the fundamental rights of African Americans from racial discrimination, the nation has had an extensive history of race clashes that have sparked civil unrests. The fight for freedom and equality amongst every individual is continuously a leading goal of this movement. Through the history of our nation, homogeneity no matter the race, gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation has always been a major focus of debate in American
society. Still with these controversial ideologies, our nation has been able to make major advancements to resolve these issues. A beginning effort that gave momentum to this movement started in the 19th century with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed freedom to all slaves in America. The movement was then characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance during the 1950’s and 1960’s, which gave birth to some of the most notable civil rights activists in history. The civil rights progress accomplished during this period of time forever changed history, but still in America today we continue to see reoccurring events that feature civil rights issues in society. Social Movements can be studied from a number of different perspectives.
Morris states in Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, “Perspectives determine which questions are asked and significantly shape the explanation that are thought to provide the key answers. A perspective is valuable if it provides answers to a set of core questions that enhance our basic understanding of an important phenomenon. Perspectives do not simply represent different opinions on a matter. Perspectives clash.” In order to understand how the civil rights movement worked, we need to grasp indigenous perspectives. These perspectives embody the organizations, institutions, leaders, monetary ties, communication networks, and organized crowds inside indigenous groups. To paint a clear picture of this movement we need to unpack the central pieces of rhetorical evidence that was used in theses indigenous perspectives. In the end this helped propel the fight for equality and freedom in America. From the first sit-ins, to the first African American President, the ideological perspectives have influenced the way our nation stands united and free. It is important to understand these perspectives because they were the conflicting issues that segregated a nation solely on the color of your skin. The African American Civil Rights Movement is perhaps the most controversial movement in history, but it is also holds some of the most important fundamental roots that structure our world
today. The ongoing battle to accomplish equality and freedom dates back to the early developmental period of our nation, due to the milestone adoption of The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.
The importance of these two documents signified the first instance in which African-Americans had a form representation, although it was not yet equal representation. In 1789, The Constitution was adopted delegating the governmental framework of our country. In this document slaves were counted a three-firths of a person for means of representation. “For several centuries, African Americans had been legally defined not as “citizens” but as private property through the legal institution of slavery”, according to Manning. The growth of slavery produced high rising political and social conflicts within American society, which culminated in the Civil War. In 1861, as the Civil War approached, tens of thousands of enslaved African Americans of all ages escaped from the South, to the North Union Lines for freedom. The Enlistment Act of July 1862 stated that black troops should receive half the amount of salary that whites received. Manning also states, “Despite the insult, close to 186,000 African-Americans enlisted in the Union army.” As the nation approached its third year of the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This was the most revolutionary pronouncement ever signed by an American president, breaking the
legal shackles from four million black slaves and pushing the nation towards total abolition of slavery. With this mark of freedom, the nation entered a reconstruction period, with the adoption of three new Reconstruction Amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of The Constitution. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified stating that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude….shall exist” in the United States of America (The Constitution). Within the next few years the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, this made African American’s full citizens of the United States, and prohibited states from denying them equal protection or due process of law. In the year to follow, the Fifteenth Amendment was enacted guaranteeing that the right to vote will not be denied or abridged on account of race. This period in history marked the first time in which the civil rights of African-Americans had been granted equal statue. Although these reconstructions laid out the foundation for equality, the fight to overcome discrimination was still ongoing. In the same year the first “Jim Crow” or segregation law was passed. Woodward quotes that these laws “regulated social, economic, and political relationships between whites and African-Americans, principally to subordinate blacks as a group to whites and to enforce rules favored by dominant whites on non-conformists of both races.” It was not until 1896, that the Supreme Court case, Plessy V. Ferguson defined the separation of the races are within the bounds of the Constitution as long as equal accommodations are made for African Americans. This established the “separate but equal” doctrine that justifies legal segregation in the south. Nearly 60 years later this “separate but equal” doctrine was officially removed after the “Brown Vs. Board of Education.” This case officially outlawed segregation in public schools, and is historically know for igniting the modern civil rights era.