Social inequality spawns the African-American civil rights revolution

The late 1950s into the 1960s American minorities established a variety of civil rights movements to change the status quo of America. America has predominantly been a society that has benefited white males throughout its history. These so-called traditional values of America began to be questioned during this decade as African-Americans and various racial groups, along with women and the physically challenged began their call for equal rights in the American social sphere.

During this tumultuous period of social anguish, the United Nations proposed international legislation to spread human rights and civil liberties on the global scale. Many United States government officials started to champion this initiative of humanitarian rights and civil liberties across the world but were hesitant to establish this ideology within the borders of American to its citizens who were not of Caucasian descent. Segregation and Jim Crow laws left a social, ethnic divide between Caucasians and Americans of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, which is a contradiction of the principles to the modified U.S. Constitution that states all men are created equal.

After World War II the United Nations made the proclamation of human rights for all people officially protected around the world. Within this proclamation, the UN established the Universal Doctrine of Human Right. Under this declaration by the UN, every individual from the moment of birth is “born free and equal the in dignity and rights” and no nation should infringe on this liberty or the welfare of individuals. It was with good faith that first world Western countries such as the United States would ad-here to this declaration by improving his race relations with all minorities particularly African-Americans.

Instead race ties in America during the 1950s and 60s was tumultuous as ever. From a constitutional standpoint, America was infringing on its obligation of civil liberties as established in the 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown versus the Board of Education. Under the Constitution, African-American students were not granted educational equal rights as their Caucasian counterparts as states would consciously undermine “protection of the laws under the 14th amendment” which protects the rights of African-Americans from dehumanizing social injustices before this post-Civil War amendment.

Individuals such as Rosa Parks use their integrity and will to use the American social system of democracy and free speech to advocate change in the American social structure. As Rosa Parks to the initiative to not sit at the back of the bus and infringe on her God-given right as an American to sit where she liked was the very essence of what America was founded upon, and not something that can happen in a communist regime.

This sentiment was echoed by Martin Luther King during this cold war era as he stated that the act of Rosa Parks not be tolerated in a “totalitarian regime,” which created a paradox on the part of Martin Luther King. America was acting tyrannically by imposing Jim Crow laws and segregation, and the act of fighting for civil rights and liberty was an un-act of exercising “American democracy,” is an act of enduring freedom within our borders. Martin Luther King made the astute observation that discrimination towards African-Americans stems from “the struggles of black people” beginning in Africa, and this was a global issue that needed to alleviate the harsh treatment of Caucasian cultures towards those of African descent.

The US government was well aware of the international community’s perception of white America’s intolerance for African-Americans to gain social equality and civil liberties because this would dissolve the ideological principles of democracy and the free world versus communism during the Cold War era. Improving the civil rights of African-Americans within the borders of America was an initiative on the part of Washington’s “foreign policy and national security,” this was in regards to stifling insurrection within American borders, and shaping the perception of democracy internationally.

Individual segments of the African-American civil rights movement wanted to use nonviolent protest to avoid political confrontations with opposition, as a means to achieve the ultimate end goal of equality. Other segments of the civil rights movement have been tormented and emasculated by Caucasian terroristic acts of racism. Robert Williams knew all too well the burden of holding the moniker of self-defense as a fundamental component of the civil rights movement.

Williams felt this was the right approach to equality, others oppose his view and found it to be radical and circumventing the agenda of the movement of nonviolence and moving towards a more proactive approach. Since African-Americans are considered second-class citizens and not protected by the Constitution, Robert F Williams felt there needed to be an alternate approach to dealing with the oppressors with the initiative of “arms self-reliance” as a means for self-defense, and to let the white oppressors know that they will meet violence for the terroristic acts.

Williams mindset was that white racist terrorists will stop at nothing to dominate Afro-Americans in every aspect whether it be physical, mentally, or financially. It was up to men such as Williams to be self-reliant and protect their family, and property, because the nonviolent approach of being subservient and docile only leads to the physical and mental torment for African-Americans. Since Southerners were accustomed to carrying firearms, it was easy for Southern African-Americans to be willing to protect “home, family, and community by force if necessary” because they felt this would be the only way that white terrorists would reconsider violence towards Blacks for fear of losing their own.

As the world was recuperating itself after World War II, basic human rights became the mantra in the post-war era as a means to recoup after the war and to establish a sense of civility among all race creeds and colors. In the United States, white Americans have used their dominance over minorities as a means of prosperity. With the introduction of the black civil rights movement, the United States had to reevaluate its race relations and treatment of all minorities. For African-Americans, this was a period of redefining their place in American culture, by creating a sense what it means to be an American citizen by exercising the rights of the Constitution by protecting themselves with the right to bear arms, and protesting civil inequalities with the First Amendment. The civil rights revolution was an exercise of American democracy during the Cold War era, which showed the very essence of what the American Constitution stood for, and how it represented all Americans.

Source: Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. "Chapter 12 "We Can Do Better": The Civil Rights Revolution: Documents and Essays / Edited by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, Jon Gjerde. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

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