HISTORY ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC: CIVIL RIGHTS

By civil rights we mean, the inherent rights of a citizen of a country. These rights sought to
protect them from exploitation or from infringement of their liberties and individualism.
These rights can be used against the state, any body or organisation of people and also against
other citizens as well. The civil rights are the very essence behind human rights, an example
of which, we can see in the constitution of our country, in the form of fundamental rights,
mentioned under Article 19.
Similarly, other countries also provide civil liberties and rights within their legal framework,
in an attempt to provide their citizens to some extent some benefit and protection from the
government. Therefore, in legal terms, civil rights tend to change depending upon which
country we are in, but their nature and essence remain the same. The very reason they exist is
to protect and preserve certain liberties of the people so that they can live their lives in better
integrity and can receive remedies if these rights are infringed upon. A true nature of these
civil rights is something we can never truly ascertain, as natural rights are themselves an
abstract and not a natural concept. However, through this concept, many citizens all over the
world have gained an inherent sense of freedom and security, and have had others treat them
with a certain level of humanity. Hence, abstract or not, they have been a fundamental tool
through which we have achieved and still are striving to achieve, the better welfare of all by
treating them all as one, as civil rights pertain to civilians, meaning, it is an inherent right of
every citizen.
But does this mean that in countries that have these fundamental human rights, they have
successfully protected these rights all through and through? No. Crimes still exist and are
impossible to eradicate, but very possible to lessen and mitigate. Protection of civil rights
brings many factors into play such as the literacy levels of the people, the police and other
means of security and also the nature of the state. In many cases, even the police fail to make
sure these protocols are followed and many times are also the perpetrators of these crimes.
This is why, even in countries like the United States atrocities are being committed not only
against the African American race but also many other ethnicities as well. A couple of years
after the Civil Rights Movement in the States, many cases of police brutality against the
African Americans still leech upon their society, the recent case of George Floyd which led to
the revival of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, movement and social media outrage was
not the only one case which has angered not only the African Americans, but members of
other ethnicities as well. Also, even as the case of atrocities against the African Americans
still exist within the North American society, the case is not such that the Civil Rights
Movement was completely ineffective.
What makes the Civil Rights Movement especially interesting, especially to us Indians is that
the method through which these people sought to gain equality of rights amongst African
Americans and Caucasians of United States was through peaceful means like civil
disobedience, similar to our history with our long fight with the British Imperial Empire.
Also, these movement did not only include these, but all the other races as well, with regards
to the fact that the Caucasians were not disclosed from the movement, there were countless
sympathizers as well.
The Civil Rights Movement was not a movement in itself, it was the fruit of many parent
circumstances, movements and attempts to provide equal rights and opportunities to the Afro
Americans. Shortly before the movement took root in 1954, we are aware of the fact that both
World War I and World War II, when fought by the United States had their army segregated
into ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’, it was only until after the Second World War that it was unified
into all races. Also, the many attempts after the war were hugely categorised by legal
attempts, and one of those examples would be when the National Association for the
Advancement of Coloured People was created. However, the legal system to get justice was
too slow. Hence, the Civil Rights Movement, a movement of peaceful protests was born
within the society of the United States.
Born in 1929, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior became the leader of this movement.
His work in the movement is not only categorised by his passionate speeches, he contributed
to many important events in the movement like the Montgomery Bus Boycott (in state of
Alabama), where the brave Afro American woman, Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (a member
of the NAACP) protested when she was told to give up her seat on a bus for a white man
which led to her and Martin Luther King Jr.’s arrest. This led to a widespread Montgomery
Bus Boycott which eventually led to a legal shift where Afro Americans could sit wherever
they liked. However, the harassment for Parks did not end there. She and her husband both
lost their jobs and have to move away, however, for her contribution, she won a
Congressional Gold Medal awarded to President Bill Clinton. Martin eventually won the
Nobel Peace Prize of the year 1964 himself. But all was not good for him as well, as the Ku
Klux Klan, known as a terrorist white supremacist group in the States harassed him and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation kept a close watch on him, but he was eventually
assassinated by a white man, James Earl Ray.
Also, the Civil Rights Movement did not start and end with Martin Luther King Jr. only, but
he was the man who sat at the frontline, therefore endangering his own life and also became
the one who led many events throughout the movement. He was the man who brought in the
nonviolent concept into the movement which made him lose a lot of his supporters to the
Black Power Movement, which was a more radical and violent form of gaining equality
amongst the Caucasians and the Afro Americans.
Ku Klux Klan was a group of Confederate veterans that was formed in Tennessee, in South
US where the segregation and atrocities were much worse as compared to the northern states.
When the civil rights bill was trying to be passed, they spread a lot of fascist propaganda and
attempted to ‘save the southern states from the negro’ (negro here, used originally in the
slogans, is a deeply offensive word used to refer to the Afro Americans). They were the
primary lynchers and committed numerous violence against coloured citizens of the States.
Talking about the southern states, a Kansas school had been sued by the parents of a student
as they segregated the children on the basis of race. Earlier court rulings had held that
segregation was legal as long as equality was shown to all the segregated sections but
eventually as the case dragged out, it was held that segregation was inequality in itself. This
case was fought headed by the NAACP, similarly was the case with a High school in
Arkansas. The school had agreed to let in Afro American students after the prior judgement,
however, the Arkansas government was against this. The judgement was a Supreme Court
and not a High Court ruling (keeping in mind that the federal structure of the States is not
similar to India, states have more independence and their own constitutions). However, this
judgement was still binding on them but the State revolted itself. On the command of the
Governor of Arkansas, the Arkansas National Guard prevented the entry of Afro American
students into the school, however, the former President Eisenhower reached the scene and
used his higher command over the Guard to order them to let the students it. He even ordered
the United States Army to protect these children in case they faced further harassment in the
school. However, they did face it which led to the school’s closing to prevent having more
accidents and letting in African American students, and other schools all across the Southern
states followed suit.
In Money, Mississippi, a South-eastern state in the US, a fourteen-year-old boy named
Emmett Till was badly beaten and mutilated beyond recognition by two white men on the
pretext of having ‘flirted’ with a white woman. His face and body were so badly mutilated,
and one of his eyes were gouged out, that even his great uncle that was staying with him at
the time of this incident could only identify him from a ring on his finger. They made him
remove his clothes and carry a 75-pound cotton mill on the river before beating him up. The
pictures published by the Jet magazine, from the open casket funeral his mother had for him
in order to show the world what the white supremacists do to the coloured people, sparked
extreme international outrage and even more when the criminals, even after being identified
by Till’s half brother and great uncle in court were let off as ‘not guilty’ showing the
deplorable favouritism when it comes to the African Americans committing crimes and the
Caucasian committing crimes.
This incident brought into light the Jim Crow Laws in the Southern United States, which
legalised segregation on the basis of race. The Jim Crow laws were born from the Black
Codes, which were issued immediately after the abolition of slavery to determine how and
where the ex-slaves could work and live, but this proved to be the one fatal instrument
through which the African Americans were segregated. Before the civil rights movement
took place, these people could not buy and rent homes where the white people lived, and in
educational institutions faced segregation, also the prementioned segregation in the United
States Army and also could not climb ranks in job hierarchies. The Black Codes also made it
hard for these people to win court cases. From an era where everyone flocked to the newly
established cities, white people demanded more segregation and hence all public places were
thereby segregated. Public parks forbade them to enter and even inter race marriage and
cohabitation were prohibited by law. Many people fought against the Jim Crow laws, some
following the equal rights approach, some following the separatist approach. One of the main
achievements of the Civil Rights Movement was the removal of these laws, both from the
Southern and the Northern States. The prior judgement mentioned about the segregation of
children in school finally brought to a legal end to these laws, however, it is still prevailing in
the minds of some people. Another major achievement was the passing of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The act prohibited discrimination on the grounds of gender, faith, race and
nationality, passed in the era of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was the successor to
President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated before he could pass the bill.