Civil Rights Movement Essay Examples

Caused by: Racism, segregation, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, socioeconomic inequality

CORE (The Congress of Racial Equality): This movement was comprised of mixed races that came together with one single mission that was to seek change through no violent means. The very first sitting of this group was conducted with an aim of challenging Jim Crow laws. This group had several achievements including forcing president Harry Truman to appoint a special committee with orders of investigating racial conditions and including racial discrimination in the military. CORE also organized a march that was to take place in the US capital. The government had fears that this march would cause racial clashes that would embarrass the country a world platform or even cause mass damage in the capital. This, therefore, prompted the president to form another committee that was mandated to fair employment practices in the military and other public sectors.In 1942 students from the University of Chicago who were also members of another group (Fellowship of reconciliation), tried to experiment with non-violent methods to solve racial problems.

Democratic platform 1948: Initially, it was known as the Democratic Party. The roots of this party are dated back to Minneapolis. It is the mayor of Minneapolis, Hubert Humphrey (1911 – 1978) that stated a front for the party to join racial deliberation. It is during 1948 in the Democratic national convention that this matter was raised. This was after the mayor had mentioned it earlier on in his speech.Therefore after the convention, Joseph Rauh was joined by Hubert Humphrey in drafting the party’s civil rights plank. However, not every member was in support of the draft and as a result, southern delegates walked out of the convention and later formed the states’ Rights party that was led by governor Storm Thurmond who hailed from South Carolina as the new party’s candidate. However, Truman still got seventh seven percent of the black votes and won the re-election putting the party in a good place to fight for the civil rights of the black people. It was so easy for President Truman to issue executive orders regarding fair employment. This was because he garnered the majority of the black votes and had earlier promised to serve their interests and especially those regarding civil rights.

End date: 1968

Southern Christian leadership conference: This is an organization that is to present-day related closely to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960 Martin Luther King invited 60 black leaders in Ebenezer Church, Atlanta. This is believed to be the formation of this particular organization. SCLC is a civil rights movement organization and was founded as an improvement of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was very successful in staging a boycott for 381 days against the bus segregation system.This particular organization was formed with two main goals. One of those was to end segregation and the other was to lobby African Americans to register and vote.

Start date: 1954

Student non-violent coordinating committee: This was one of the major civil rights movement organizations during the 1960s. This is a group that emerged from student sit-ins that were organized by Ella Baker from Shaw University. Their main mission was pacifism, civil rights movement participatory democracy, and black liberation. When they termed themselves anti-racism, this meant in terms of their beliefs, actions, movements. The SNCC took strong stands against war, militarism, or any form of violence. Through this, they tried to discourage interracial wars that were mainly caused by racial politics.

Before World War II, most blacks did casual jobs such as farming, working in factories, and mostly being servants of the white man. By 1940, the Second World War was already around the corner, and jobs related to the same were already available. However, blacks were not allowed to join the military or even recruited to high-ranking jobs by that time. During that time the black labor leader (A. Philip Randolph) was already on the record for organizing a match to Washington to protest inequality in selection for jobs in the states.That fight against fascism brought forth a lot of contradictions between the government and several blacks and civil rights movement leaders who opted to form a movement to start opposing the ideals of the state. From this, there was the formation of the NAACP and other liberation movements. Apart from NAACP, the first group that was formed for the same purpose was CORE.

Fellowship of reconciliationThis organization was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight pacifists that included A. J. Muste and Jane. This was a totally non-violent organization that focused mainly on preaching the unity of ideals throughout the United States. They also picked and edited a radical journal that was termed ‘world tomorrow’ and published it as well. This book was very influential and helped a lot in the reconciliation processes. FOR also helped build coalitions and peace groups by bringing together people with the same ideal of peace.During World War II in 1942 when the Japanese – Americans were being forcefully relocated from the west coast, this particular group protested to the government agitating for the release and resettlement of those citizens.