It was not simple to resolve the inequality problem between the White community and African Americans. When white people treated black Americans unfairly, a revolt known as the Civil Rights Movement was eventually begun. It was basically a fight that started around the middle of the 1950s and lasted until the civil rights act was changed in 1968. The African American community sought the same rights that white people did, including the right to equal job opportunities based on an individual's qualifications rather than their skin color. After the Civil War, African-Americans were freed from enslavement in the 1950s, but they were discriminated upon regarding their right to vote, equal access to public facilities, the right to housing and equal opportunity in education and employment. The denial of these rights brought a revolution so profound that a moment was born. It sorts to restore African Americans’ right for citizenship but the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments which had been done by Jim Crow who was a segregationist from the South. The fundamental relations between the federal government and the states were built considering the emphasis of the law and protection of rights of the citizens who were African American. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr posed as the leaders of this movement and Randolph started the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters which turned out to be the first majority black labor union. It is also remembered Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, estimated that the outcome of the struggle would give rights for all including women, children, and people with disabilities. The aim of the research paper is to analyze different approaches taken by historians in their elaboration of the civil rights movement. The discussion will consider the frameworks of their work and methods made in describing the facts of the civil rights movement.
Approaches on Frameworks of the Civil Rights Movement
Different writers have covered the civil rights movement in other types of ways. The focus of their studies depends on the kind of view like the events and every detail as they transpired. In the book, Major Problems in American History Robert and Gavin the authors of the article on “Liberal Hour: Top down Determination” have described the events that led to the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. They have portrayed Johnson, the successor to the murder of J. F. Kennedy as a southern radical leader who was the son of a longtime temporizer on civil rights legislation. Other authors have shown the same result of the bill being signed in 1964 but put into focus the root of the civil rights bill and some of the people who inspired this movement.
On the initial stages, as it was portrayed by authors, the black protest was supposed to have begun in December 1955 in Alabama when Rosa Parks of Montgomery, refused to give up her seat to the white man. Due to this defying, she was arrested and jailed what resulted into a black community boycott which may have lasted more than a year inspiring blacks all over America to stand for their rights. Martin Luther understood the significance of the boycott and used tactics that demonstrated his leadership and unique oratorical skill. In the boycott, Martin urged the black people of the south to stand up against segregation, and in February 1960, four students in North Carolina started another wave to end educational segregation. They sat in a class which was meant for the White genealogical community. Later that year the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee was formed to fight against the discrimination happening in schools, and they employed Martins nonviolent direct action tactics.
The book Major Problems in American History describes the civil rights movement from the angle of the events and how they transpired since the start in 1954 when it sparks the large-scale discussion on the bill. They further show us the chronology of the bills and the pushers and how it all went down. Major problems portray the president’s successor Lyndon Johnson carrying on the works of J. F. Kennedy on the Civil Rights Bill. He was an active supporter of the southerners, and he was the only Democrat who had an affiliation to white favoritism. He did not have the affection for the African American community who had voted for Kennedy in 1960 running as a Republican.
Robert and Gavin discuss further the way Johnson took the martyrdom of Kennedy due to the civil rights bill that had been floored to the Senate and among his goals was to make the bill pass. The bill was to segregate the people according to races and factions where the black community did not get the right to vote, education and other public functions. Johnson summoned the NAACP leader for a strategy summit held privately. The president and Roy Wilkins discussed matters related to the bill, and the latter is seen to demand that the law is passed which was delivered in “Johnson treatment” tone. Johnson encourages Milkins to talk to Everett Dirksen the Senate minority leader and the Republicans to rally behind his presidency, and black leaders should agree and offered a senatorial position for anyone who supports him. The talks were to strengthen the supporters of the bill on the floor that had to pass. The house required a two-third majority to enact the law, and the Johnsons talks had one agenda, to make the members of Congress join in support of the bill. They only required sixty-nine votes.
Among Johnson’s goals during his succession, was to get the Civil Rights Act passed with the clauses of segregation which in turn would have led to discrimination. He was determined as he asked the floor to be deliberate on it however long it stays. The discussion indicated that the bill had been drafted by President Kennedy and Jonson was to represent and enforce the ideas and virtues that the former stood for. In 1960 the authors narrated the passing of the “weak-bill” that involved a decision passed by Supreme Court in 1954 in brown v board of education claiming equality when it comes to education.
Some authors have shown the leader of this “weak-bill” passing which later revolted to the large-scale concentration on the civil rights act and making amendments to give equality. The journal narrates the freedom story where the civil rights began in 1919 to late 1960’s.Most remember the movement through significant actions like the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, but the struggle had roots back in the 1930s. The NAACP anti-lynching campaign and as such the National Negro Congress was formed to fight lynching too. The campaign made NAACP the most influential organization that fought civil rights. In a journal written by Kenneth Janken (2014), he shows how the Supreme Court passed that segregation in education was unconstitutional and should be abolished.
Kenneth R. Janken (2014) covers the topics of Martin Luther King as being the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC was to later become a force in the Civil Rights Movement and its organization. A mass protest is done in Birmingham Alabama which Martin Luther called the most segregated city. The author describes Martin to use the SCLC to demonstrate which got him in prison where he wrote a letter on racial injustice and civil disobedience dimmed “letter from Birmingham jail.” It’s also shown that Martin had seen a time where equality will be same not based on any social aspect. He is remembered for the famous “I have a dream” speech where he points out the balance of jobs and justice. During his time in jail for one week, he argued the fellow leaders to continue the fight. A march in the streets led by James Bevel began at the beginning of May, and the commissioner used extreme force to put down the protest. The excessive force used resulted in the arrest of close to a thousand young African Americans. An activist at this time had to figure a way to end the cold war and the McCarthy treatment in the states.
In the Major Problems in American History book, the conflict is shown to be fought by the Republicans in Congress and file the signing of the Civil Act in 1964 was a result of the southerners losing their motion to keep the bill and took a defeat to four over the two majority rule of amending laws. The total tally was seventy-one to twenty-nine. The bill lost most of its power when a feminist in Congress Democrat Martha Griffins divided the amendment as it placed the white women at a wrong position during job hiring. They put white women at the bottom of the list after black men and women and making the white man most supreme. The women advocated for equal pay for work done and the excitement in the South was short lived after the inclusion of women in the civil right act and face of six female counterparts joined the movement. Lyndon Johnson on after hearing this gave his go ahead and urged the House should also help transform the society.
Conclusion
It is hard to change history, and the civil rights movement shaped America and the virtues it possesses of equality for all. Accounts documented in this paper have contrasted, and the events are consistent though the fluctuation point is the angle the author wants to record the movement. In its consistency, the evidence shared by individual authors which show the chronological order of events. The study was not affected by the time of scribing the books written like Major Problems. They incorporate the frameworks of Civil Rights Act Bill and the Voting Act of 1965 that shaped the country.
Bibliography
Dierenfield, Bruce J. The Civil Rights Movement. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs. Major Problems in American History: Documents and Essays. 1, To 1877. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2012.
Janken, Kenneth R. "The Civil Rights Movement: 1919-1960s. Freedom’s Story." National Humanities Center. 2014. (accessed 2017).
Rhym, Darren, and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. NAACP administration 1956-65. General office file. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.
Sunnemark, Fredrik. Ring Out Freedom! : The Voice of Martin Luther and the making of the Civil Rights Movement. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
