The Historiography of The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement: An Overview

The Civil Rights Movement is an encompassing topic for a lot of activism that sought to gain and safeguard full social, political, and economic rights for African-Americans beginning in 1954. Civil rights activism entailed a variety of approaches including the filing of lawsuits in courts, mass direct movements, black power, and petitioning the federal government. The compelling efforts of civil rights activists occasioned numerous extensive victories but also received fierce criticism and hostility from white supremacists. The historiography of the civil rights movement has evolved over recent years. This leaves the question of how it has reshaped itself to its current state. The aim of this paper is to identify ways recent scholars have expanded our understanding of the civil rights movement. Three books will be analyzed: Carol Anderson's White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, and Danielle L. McGuire's At the Dark End of the Street.

The Role of the Courts and Nonviolent Protest

The courts were one of the earliest approaches employed by civil rights activists. A lawsuit was filed to undermine Jim Crow, a racial segregation, in the South. The Supreme Court decision on desegregation was a massive blow to white supremacists, who threatened to lobby massive resistance against it. Civil disobedience and nonviolent protest then emerged, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., who spearheaded efforts to secure rights across the nation. It was the most effective approach due to widespread media coverage of nonviolent protests being met with violence and harassment by law enforcers. Some African-Americans were not satisfied with civil disobedience and nonviolent protest and opted for black militants. This move encouraged some whites to join the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement, such as during Freedom Summer of 1964.

White Resistance and the Legal System

Carol Anderson, a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, in her book denotes the fierce reaction to Obama as well as the series of misfortunes that have pursued African American steps extending back to the Civil War and liberation. She traces a path of white resistance from anti-liberation rebellions through post-Reconstruction racial terror and Black Codes and peonage enactment, to the extreme legal and non-legal attempts by Southern authorities to hinder African-Americans from evading subjugation amid the Great Migration. She keeps digging deeper into modern judicial and legislative actions across the nation that have excessively condemned blacks and stifled their voting rights. Anderson contends that this trend of progression succeeded by retreat has adequately crumbled, if not abandoned, each speck of advancement attained by African-Americans since the Liberation Declaration. She narrates various occasions when hard-won achievements by African-Americans have been overturned.

The Impact of Mass Incarceration

During the '60s and '70s, unemployment rates among Blacks had significantly subsided, essentially decreasing the racial gap. Furthermore, by 1970 and 1978, the number of blacks enrolling into institutions doubled. However, Reagan derailed these achievements through gigantic cuts in government jobs and programs. Blacks' unemployment rates increased, hitting 15.5%, the highest rate experienced since the Great Depression, with black youth employment clocking 45.7%. As of late, the criminal justice system has turned into an area of controversy in the deliberation of civil rights in the US. Various analysts have contended that the framework adds up to 'another Jim Crow,' portraying blacks as inferior with no rights (Alexander). In addition to this contention, civil rights concerns have been put forth regarding each component of criminal justice in the U.S., from the inspection and detention of black suspects to the weight of capital punishment.

Gender Sensitivity in the Civil Rights Movement

A number of scholars have studied the level of gender sensitivity in the human rights movement in the past and present. Of particular interest is the topic of sexual violence which black women were subjected to during the Jim Crow era. McGuire, a historian at Wayne State University, goes beyond the sexual violence experienced by these women to explore their responses to such abuses and their role in civil rights movements. According to McGuire, black women showed consistent and deliberate resistance against violations by speaking out and condemning these acts on them or their persons. Their actions culminated in a 'women's movement for dignity, respect, and bodily integrity'. She argues that struggles by African American women in their homesteads, in jails, and on buses to protest against sexual abuse and interracial rape led to the rise of the modern civil rights movement.

The Future of Civil Rights in the 21st Century

Moving forward in the 21st century, America is faced with the start of a new era characterized by a unique set of civil rights struggles. The struggles of today are in numerous ways significantly different from the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. The signs of 'whites only' and overt demonstrations of societally tolerated racism have become a thing of the past. However, the country remains with a population of disparately impacted individuals, people of color faced with biases in the judicial system, in schools, at work, and at home. The shift in landscape implies that scholars should shift their focus in line with modern realities.

References

• Anderson, C. (2016). White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Bloomsbury USA.
• Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press.
• McGuire, D. L. (2010). At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. Alfred A. Knopf.