Free Essay Sample: Civil Rights Movement in United States

Introduction

The struggle for the rights of minorities in the United States has a long historical journey. One of the most recent movements, which also has the peculiarity of being born through social networks, is that of Black Lives Matter (BLM) (Cox, 2017). BLM is a movement that denounces the violence and discrimination that still exists against black people (Clayton, 2018). More than half a century ago, Martin Luther King led the fight to defend the civil rights of the African-American population. The situation in the United States was troubled with demonstrations, protests, and many clashes between advocates of racial equality and people who opposed it. Finally, in 1964 the Civil Rights Law was approved, supposedly putting an end to the racial segregation that divided public spaces between whites and blacks: schools, restaurants, transport, hospitals, etc. A year later, the Right to Vote Law allowed blacks to vote (Jones-Eversley et al., 2017; Mazumder, 2018).

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While the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement were significant advances at the time, decades later, however, racial inequality remains a serious problem in the United States. This paper explores how the Civil Rights Movement affected the way minorities are being treated by authorities in the United States and whether the BLM movement has improved or worsened the situation. The paper argues that the BLM, a movement created as a result of a case that initially only appeared in the local news, has managed to reach a global audience, effectively highlighting the plight of minorities and championing their rights, especially against police brutality.

The Situation of Minorities in the United States

Minorities are always at a disadvantage. The United States is defined as "the country of opportunities", where anyone can succeed, whoever they are and wherever they come from.

However, various studies show that, on average, the white population is richer and has a higher salary than black workers (Jones-Eversley et al., 2017). This situation affects the well-being of families and their quality of life, as well as the education their children receive. For example, black students are more likely to fail or be expelled from college, but less likely to finish a college degree. According to the National Center for Education Statistics(NCES), Black students take longer to graduate and opt for shorter, cheaper college (Carnevale et al., 2018). However, police violence against the black population remains one of the worst consequences of racial inequality in the country.

The Black Lives Matter association was created in 2013 after the acquittal of a white cop George Zimmerman of the death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, whom Zimmerman had shot even though Martin was unarmed (Clayton, 2018). The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter [Black Lives Matter] then went viral in the United States. The goal of this movement is to draw attention to police violence against black people that often occurs arbitrarily. Like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization with which Martin Luther King collaborated, Black Lives Matter organized protests, boycotts, and demonstrations to denounce the plight of the black population.

From Discrimination to Violence

In recent years, there have been multiple cases of black people being shot dead by police. In most of these incidents, the police had fired without verifying whether they were criminals or posed a danger. George Floyd's death on May 25, 2020, is among the recent events to highlight the plight of minorities in the US and reignited a movement with a long history.

In August 2014 another case of racial violence took place: the death of the young black Michael Brown by shots of Darren Wilson, a white policeman. This case caused serious disturbances in Ferguson, the city where the events took place. On March 18, 2018, the Sacramento (California) police shot Stephon Clark 20 times, because they mistook his mobile phone for a weapon. The disproportionate performance of the police and, above all, the fact that many of the accused police officers end up acquitted, causes many people in the United States to question the actions of the authorities.

The Impact of the Black Lives Matter Movement

BLM is not the first racial vindication in the United States, but it is the most relevant movement in this field since the beginning of the new century (Mazumder, 2018). Probably the best-known advocate for the rights of African Americans is Martin Luther King Jr., an American activist, and pastor who in the 1960s and 70s led the movement in defense of black people's right to vote, as well as other basic civil rights. In 1963, after leading the demonstration in Washington in favor of decent work and freedom for African Americans, he delivered his famous speech " I have a Dream" in which he defended a society in which blacks and whites live in peace and harmony. The demonstration prompted Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964, a landmark law that prohibited discrimination and racial segregation.

In 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated by a white segregationist in a Memphis motel, where he traveled to support a protest by local black garbage men. His death sparked a wave of riots in dozens of cities in the United States. The president at the time, Lyndon B. Johnson, decreed a national day of mourning, the first to honor an African American, symbolizing the political will of the country’s leadership in fighting racial segregation and inequality (Robinson, 2019). Although successive administrations reaffirmed their support for civil rights, minorities continue to be victims of abuse and discrimination in the hands of authorities.

The fight against the abuse of minorities by authorities has been one of the most relevant in the past decade in the United States. From 2014 to 2016, the visibility of the BLM movement grew, in part, thanks to support from celebrities like Serena Williams. The protest, generated around the rejection of the violence exercised by the Police towards the African-American community - in some cases ending with the death of the victims - raised a very controversial debate in the country and even beyond the US borders. Beyond the US borders, the BLM movement has made its mark on an international scale (Clayton, 2018). Currently, there are divisions of BLM in the United States and Canada, with other countries such as France organizing several marches in support of the struggle for minority rights.

International solidarity with the BLM movement and the identity reference of the black people that are organized and manifested in several cities and discontent with the political and organizational structure that maintains inequalities are fundamental parts of the indignation that is ongoing and beginning to spread throughout the world (Jones-Eversley et al., 2017). Its impacts are already visible in many places, with the debate about racism and political questioning in search of answers to old and new social problems gaining strength in the US.

With increased media coverage and conversations on social media platforms, protesters against police brutality are gaining popular support during the clashes, with attempts to criminalize the protests, like other episodes of the racial struggle, having a harsh response from American society (Cox, 2017). Research shows that two-thirds of the population supports the demonstrations (Reinka & Leach, 2017). In a permanent effort to combat vandalism and also a change in the posture of the police forces in the monitoring, which started not to intervene in the movements directly, instead, plainclothes police now follow from afar, including episodes of solidarity between the police and protesters as witnessed in the George Floyd's protest.

Although the civil rights movement and the BLM movement have made significant progress in highlighting and championing racial equality and respect for minority rights, the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many other African Americans, as well as the protests in Minneapolis and around the world have caused upset, anger and pain domestically and abroad. Just like the Civil Rights Movement, BLM continues to disseminate information and raise awareness on various issues of racial inequality, sharing frustration at the US's failure to bring about meaningful change (Mazumder, 2018). As a social impact organization that aims to build a world that values differences, the movement has dedicated itself to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through the collective efforts of other champions of racial equality, it continues to embrace and promote differences of all kinds.

Conclusion

Black Lives Matter, a movement that was born in the networks, through a hashtag in a Facebook post and as a consequence of a specific case of unpunished violence against a young black man, has achieved global notoriety in a troubled moment. This resurgence of the civil rights movement, which began in the middle of the last century after the violent death of Emmett Till, is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights never ends. George Floyd's death in 2020, under the leadership of Donald Trump, is a perfect example. BLM continues to reach out to people who have been systematically oppressed, providing them access to support resources, listening, and expanding the voices of underserved communities.

While the United States has made significant progress on many issues related to civil rights and equality, much more still needs to be done. BLM continues to actively promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in all tenets of society.

References

Clayton, D. M. (2018). Black Lives Matter and the civil rights movement: A comparative analysis of two social movements in the United States. Journal of Black Studies, 49(5), 448-480. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0021934718764099

Jones-Eversley, S., Adedoyin, A. C., Robinson, M. A., & Moore, S. E. (2017). Protesting Black inequality: A commentary on the civil rights movement and Black Lives Matter. Journal of Community Practice, 25(3-4), 309-324. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2017.1367343

Mazumder, S. (2018). The persistent effect of US civil rights protests on political attitudes. American Journal of Political Science, 62(4), 922-935. http://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WKJJ3Z.

Reinka, M. A., & Leach, C. W. (2017). Race and reaction: Divergent views of police violence and protest against. Journal of Social Issues, 73(4), 768-788. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josi.2017.73.issue-4/issuetoc

Cox, J. M. (2017). The source of a movement: making the case for social media as an informational source using Black Lives Matter. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(11), 1847-1854. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1334935

Robinson, K. M. (2019). Two Sides of a Democratic Coin: President Johnson's International Approach to the Civil Rights Movement. https://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=senior-theses

Carnevale, A. P., Van Der Werf, M., Quinn, M. C., Strohl, J., & Repnikov, D. (2018). Our Separate & Unequal Public Colleges: How Public Colleges Reinforce White Racial Privilege and Marginalize Black and Latino Students. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED594576.pdf