 |
| Martin Luther King |
The fight for civil rights in the USA
The Civil Rights Movement is historically a period of time between 1954 and 1980, which occurred in various ways and was marked by popular revolts and civil society upheavals in countries of all continents.
The most well-known of them throughout history was the Civil Rights Movement of Blacks in the United States, between 1955 and 1968, which consisted of achieving reforms in the United States aiming to abolish discrimination and racial segregation in the country. With the emergence of black movements such as Black Power and the Black Panthers in the mid-1960s, black society's struggle for racial equality eventually increased its claim to racial dignity.
The beginning
 |
Rosa Parks, with Martin Luther King in the background. W. 1955.
|
The initial mark of this movement came in the country's eminently racist south, in the town of Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, when black seamstress Rosa Parks (known as "The Mother of Civil Rights") refused to to give up his place to a white man, a practice that is obligatory according to the segregationist laws of that state
Historical milestones
1957 - The desegregation in Little Rock
Nine black students have been given the federal courts the right to study at the Central Gymnasium in Little Rock, Arkansas, where schools have until then been segregated. On the first day of school, in addition to the insults and threats made by students and the white population upon arrival at school, they were forced to return home by order of the state's National Guard, convened by the governor to prevent its entry, as opposed to the decision of the federal court. Then President Dwight Eisenhower dissolved the Arkansas National Guard and sent army parachute troops to secure and protect the entry and study of the nine black students in Little Rock, fulfilling the decision of the federal courts. South American racism was so entrenched that when the school year ended, members of the public school system in Little Rock preferred to close the school - in the wake of other schools in the state and south of the country - to allow the racial integration in them.
1961 – The Greensboro Protest
Black and white students from the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, began to sit in groups on the floors of diners, restaurants, shops, museums, squares, theaters and other establishments in the city in protest of black segregation at these locations. Hundreds were arrested and released, often torn from their places with violence by the police. The example began to be followed in several states throughout the early 1960s.
1962 – The James Meredith Case
On September 20, 1962, at the beginning of the American school year, student James Meredith, after winning the federal courts for the right to join the University of Mississippi, the most racially conservative in the nation, attempted to enter on campus twice blocked by personal interference of the state governor himself, who stated that "no Mississippi school would be integrated as long as it governed the state”. After Meredith's appeal to the federal court, he imposed a daily fine of $ 10,000 per day if he was barred from entering college. Meredith was escorted by federal agents on September 30.
White civilians and students began a major conflagration at the university and its neighborhoods which ended with the death of two people and gunshot wounds on 28 federal agents and more than 160 wounded among the population. The next day, President John Kennedy sent in army forces to secure Meredith's entry and stay at the university and master the riots in the city.
1963 – The March on Washington
 |
| Black and white activists march in Washington for civil rights to blacks. |
Black and white activists march in Washington for civil rights to blacks.
In August 1963, a quarter of a million black and white protesters from all over the nation gathered in the nation's capital for a day of speeches, protests and chants in favor of equal civil rights for all citizens, organized among others by Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin and Phillip Randolph, in the largest peaceful agglomeration held in the United States for purposes of racial integration, the right to housing, full employment, the right to vote, and integrated education.
Music in particular was crucial to inspiring, mobilizing and giving voice to the civil rights movement: professional singers such as Mahalia Jackson and Harry Belafonte supported the movement early on and the song "We Shall Overcome" became their unofficial anthem.
1964 – The Summer of Freedom.
During the summer months of 1964, school vacations in the United States, a group of more than one hundred volunteer civil rights volunteers in blacks and whites headed south to start a campaign for blacks' voting rights and the formation of a party by the freedom of Mississippi.
Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.
Three of them were killed by the Ku Klux Klan in collusion with Philadelphia, Mississippi cops and their bodies punctured from gunshot wounds found after more than a month of FBI stagecoaches, sent to the scene by President Lyndon Johnson to take over the investigations. Accompanied on a daily basis by the national television press and the country's most influential newspapers, the outrage that the case aroused in American public opinion helped President Johnson pass the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. (This case was counted in the hit movie, "Mississippi in Flames" by Alan Parker)
1964 – Nobel Prize
 |
Martin Luther King in 1964
|
At the end of the year, anti-segregationist Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful efforts to end racial segregation. And for the civil rights of blacks in the United States.
1965 – Selma (Alabama) and the Right to Vote
Martin Luther King led marches and demonstrations in the town of Selma, Alabama, for the right for black citizens to register as voters, as opposed to the city's chief of police, Jim Clark. He and hundreds of protesters were arrested, but demonstrations continued and ended in violence throughout the city, with the death of a demonstrator by police. In the days that followed, clashes between local white civilians, police officers on horseback and black demonstrators resulted in widespread riots with dead and wounded, broadcast on television throughout the country. The scenes caused the same outrage at the events in Mississippi last year and allowed President Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This decision prompted Lyndon Johnson's famous lamentation that "with this signature I have just lose the votes of the south in the next election ". (note: Lyndon Johnson gave up re-election in 1968 due to widespread protests in the country over the Vietnam War),
1966-1975 – O Black Power and the Black Panthers
In contrast to Martin Luther King's policy of integration through non-violence, a group of men led by Stokely Carmichael emerged in 1966, preaching the need for blacks to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan attacks in the south of the country. From their speeches, the Southerners, far more numerous than the racist organization, began to face the attacks of racist whites in the region, making the Klan desist from terrorizing the region's black inhabitants. This movement began to be called Black Power (Black Power).
Malcolm X, a leading advocate of African-American rights
 |
Malcolm X
|
The civil rights movement was beginning to face violence through violence. Young Black Power members began to show their pride of belonging to the black race gaining greater cultural identity, exteriorizing their feelings, wearing colorful clothes and hair in what they called Afro style, inspired by the tribes of Africa.
The feeling of combating racism, injustice, and white violence with ever-increasing currency eventually led to the organization known as the "Black Panthers," a small political party created in Oakland, California, willing to achieve racial equality and politics "by any means, ideological followers of the late activist Malcolm X. His standard outfit, black leather coats, black berets, blue shirts, and Afro hair became part of the American political and police landscape along with his waving salute up until the mid-1970s , always linked to aggressive methods of protest and retaliation. All of his best-known leaders, such as Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Angela Davis were eventually trapped and relegated to obscurity due to the repressive actions of Republican government Richard Nixon.
The black vote changed forever the political face of the southern US, making in 1966 the number of blacks elected to public office in Mississippi, the most racist of the southern states, was higher than in any other state of the United States. parents. In 1965, just over 100 blacks were elected to public office in the United States. Today, the now-called African Americans are more than 8,000, mostly in southern states.
"Injustice in any place is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King
ANA PAULA MENEZES
-Wikipedia-
No comments:
Post a Comment