Civil rights movement
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Revision as of 07:42, 6 December 2014
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The African-American Civil Rights Movement encompasses social movements in the United States whose goals were to end racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1954 and 1968, particularly in the South.
The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.
Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement were passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to take action.
A wave of inner city riots in black communities from 1964 through 1970 undercut support from the white community. The emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted from about 1966 to 1975, challenged the established black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its nonviolence, and instead demanded political and economic self-sufficiency.
While most popular representations of the movement are centered on the leadership and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., many scholars note that the movement was far too diverse to be credited to one person, organization, or strategy. Sociologist Doug McAdam has stated that, "in King's case, it would be inaccurate to say that he was the leader of the modern civil rights movement...but more importantly, there was no singular civil rights movement. The movement was, in fact, a coalition of thousands of local efforts nationwide, spanning several decades, hundreds of discrete groups, and all manner of strategies and tactics—legal, illegal, institutional, non-institutional, violent, non-violent. Without discounting King's importance, it would be sheer fiction to call him the leader of what was fundamentally an amorphous, fluid, dispersed movement."
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Documentary films
- Freedom on My Mind, 110 minutes, 1994, Producer/Directors: Connie Field and Marilyn Mulford, 1994 Academy Award Nominee, Best Documentary Feature
- Eyes on the Prize (1987 and 1990), PBS television series; released again in 2006 and 2009.
- Dare Not Walk Alone, about the civil rights movement in St. Augustine, Florida. Nominated in 2009 for an NAACP Image Award.
- Crossing in St. Augustine (2010), produced by Andrew Young, who participated in the civil rights movement in St. Augustine in 1964. Information available from AndrewYoung.Org.
- Freedom Riders (2010), 120 min. PBS, American Experience.
Activist organizations
- National/regional civil rights organizations
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)
- Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
- Organization of Afro-American Unity
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF)
- Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC)
- National economic empowerment organizations
- Local civil rights organizations
- Albany Movement (Albany, GA)
- Council of Federated Organizations (Mississippi)
- Montgomery Improvement Association (Montgomery, AL)
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership (Mississippi)
- Women's Political Council (Montgomery, AL)
- Virginia Students Civil Rights Committee
Individual activists
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Maya Angelou
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Unita Blackwell
- Julian Bond
- Amelia Boynton
- Anne Braden
- Carl Braden
- Mary Fair Burks
- Stokely Carmichael
- Septima Clark
- Albert Cleage
- Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Jonathan Daniels
- Annie Devine
- Doris Derby
- Marian Wright Edelman
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- James L. Farmer, Jr.
- Karl Fleming
- Sarah Mae Flemming
- James Forman
- Frankie Muse Freeman
- Dick Gregory
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Myles Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Winson Hudson
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Esau Jenkins
- Gloria Johnson-Powell
- Clyde Kennard
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- W. W. Law
- James Lawson
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Joseph Lowery
- Autherine Lucy
- Clara Luper
- Thurgood Marshall
- James Meredith
- Loren Miller
- Jack Minnis
- Anne Moody
- Harry T. Moore
- E. Frederic Morrow
- Robert Parris Moses
- Bill Moyer
- Diane Nash
- Denise Nicholas
- E. D. Nixon
- David Nolan
- James Orange
- Nan Grogan Orrock
- Rosa Parks
- Rutledge Pearson
- George Raymond Jr.
- James Reeb
- Gloria Richardson
- Amelia Boynton Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Bayard Rustin
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Rev. Charles Kenzie Steele
- Dempsey Travis
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hosea Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Malcolm X
- Andrew Young
Related activists and artists
- Joan Baez
- Harry Belafonte
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Robert Carter
- William Sloane Coffin
- Ossie Davis
- Ruby Dee
- James Dombrowski
- W. E. B. Du Bois
- Virginia Durr
- Bob Dylan
- John Hope Franklin
- Jack Greenberg
- Anna Arnold Hedgeman
- Dorothy Height
- Charlton Heston
- Mahalia Jackson
- Clarence Jordan
- Stetson Kennedy
- Arthur Kinoy
- William Kunstler
- Staughton Lynd
- Constance Baker Motley
- Nichelle Nichols
- Phil Ochs
- Odetta
- Sidney Poitier
- A. Philip Randolph
- Paul Robeson
- Jackie Robinson
- Pete Seeger
- Nina Simone
- Norman Thomas
- Roy Wilkins
- Whitney Young
- Howard Zinn
See also
- African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954)
- Timeline of the African American Civil Rights Movement
- List of civil rights leaders
- Executive Order 9981, ending segregated units in the United States military
- Photographers of the American civil rights movement
- "We Shall Overcome", unofficial movement anthem
- List of Kentucky women in the civil rights era
History preservation:
- Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
- Read's Drug Store (Baltimore), site of a 1955 desegregation sit-in
Post-Civil Rights Movement: