Civil Rights Movement

US Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movements

Civil rights are personal liberties that belong to an individual, owing to his or her status as a citizen.

The civil rights movements aimed to eliminate slavery, racism, and social and religious discrimination. These movements had great, courageous leaders and participants who risked, and in some cases lost their lives for the sake of equality and racial justice. Leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela planned and led non-violent campaigns in pursuit of liberty and equality.

The pioneer of these movements was Mahatma Gandhi. His name means “great soul” in Sanskrit. He was born in India in 1869, when this country was part of the commonwealth ruled by the British Empire. Indian population was divided due to geographical, racial, social, cultural, linguistic, and religious reasons, but also it was divided into rich and poor

He knew about racial discrimination in South Africa, where he moved after graduating as a lawyer in London. It was then the idea of truth and firmness what inspired him “inflicting oneself the suffering one would impose to the enemy”. It demands great control, every insult, beating, imprisonment should be born patiently, make the opponent see their wrongdoing.

True to his belief in peaceful and non-violent civil resistance, Gandhi devoted his life to make India an independent country. By the time he died at 78 years old, India had already celebrated its independence.

Quotes from Gandhi: “They may torture my body, break my bones, and even kill me. Then they will have my dead-body not my obedience; “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind”.

Deeply influenced by the works of Gandhi, King made the struggle for civil liberty for African-American in the U.S.A. his sole motto. Although King became involved in the civil rights movement from his university days, his first major success came only in 1955 in Alabama. That year a black woman named Rosa Parks was arrested by refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger. In protest, African-American activists boycotted the state’s transport system and chose King as their leader. The boycott continued 383 days until the U.S.A. Supreme Court declared Alabama’s racial segregation laws unconstitutional. In December 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Delivering his Nobel lecture he said: “Non violence is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it”. Four years later, he was shot dead.

As regard Nelson Mandela, he was a son of an African’s tribal chief, and he became leader of the African National congress, political party that called for racial equality. In 1964, after sabotaging the government many times, he was sent to prison; there he became a symbol of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.

Civil rights movements were successful at least by some measures. The movements were also an inspiration; they evoked and embodied high moral ideas of racial equality and justice. Technology played a key role in these movements by making the struggles of protesters highly visible. The world could not help but recognize the righteousness of the protesters cause and the evil, violent repression necessary to subdue the wish for justice.

Students:

Cuello, Ana

Orieta Bertolotti, M. Cecilia


Other posts on the subject: Pioneer in India; A bird in a cage;   America also needs equality; Human Rights.