Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Race and sexuality intersect
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Race and sexuality intersect
Several years before Jacqueline Dowd Hall would publish her influential call for a “long civil rights movement,” Payne warns us that the lack of context of the traditional civil rights narrative makes it hard to understand why the Black freedom struggle entered such a forceful phase in the 1950s and 1960s. Without understanding the new self-consciousness among African Americans during the World War II-period, the strategizing over a double victory campaign that Richard Dalifume called attention to as early as 1968, we literally fail to understand the importance of grassroots self-empowerment and activism that created the need for a national leadership in the first place. However, we should also keep in mind that some of these long-established …show more content…
Ella Baker is a case in point: she grew up experiencing strong female leadership, and by the time she helped to found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee she had a clear idea how a lasting strategy, one that not solely depends on the political positions of federal incumbents, be it in the administration or the judicial branch, needed to look. While Ella Baker forced leadership independent of existing notions on constraints of race, gender, and class, few people were ready to follow her lead in all of these aspects. This is still true today, as ideas of race, gender, class, and education still too often inhibit people’s ideas as to how a leader needs to look. Of no lesser importance is the fact that our society still idealizes a model that revolves around notions of excellence and merit that disguise how privilege is recreated across racial and social lines. Central to the issues that Ella Baker’s and others before and after her struggled to achieve was a mindset of lasting self-empowerment among people that would outlast volatile and ephemeral political coalitions on the national and the local level. This meant more than just teaching them how to write or read, so that they could pass the required literary test. Rather, it entailed a strong psychological component, a guidance to live one’s life in a self-reliant way: a long-term strategy to create a better humanity without barriers of race, class, gender, and religious views. The question we need to ask in this case is whether the U.S. and the rest of the world were ready for such a leadership or not. A question that is still relevant today as our political and economic system still thrive on the basis of guidance from “above,” as we continue to idolize and vilify
Over the course of five chapters, the author uses a number of sources, both primary and secondary, to show how the National Negro Congress employed numerous political strategies, and allying itself with multiple organizations and groups across the country to implement a nationwide grassroots effort for taking down Jim Crow laws. Even though the National Negro Congress was unsuccessful in ending Jim Crow, it was this movement that would aide in eventually leading to its end years later.
The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".
Josephine Baker was an exceptional woman who never depended on a man. She never hesitated to leave a man when she felt good and ready. In her lifetime she accomplished many great things. She adopted 12 children, served France during World War II, and was an honorable correspondent for the French Resistance. She fought against fascism in Europe during World War II and racism in the United States. She grew up poor and left home at an early age and worked her way onto the stage. Baker was more popular in France than in the states. Audiences in America were racist towards Baker and that’s when she vowed she wouldn’t perform in a place that wasn’t integrated.
In the American society, we constantly hear people make sure they say that a chief executive officer, a racecar driver, or an astronaut is female when they are so because that is not deemed as stereotypically standard. Sheryl Sandberg is the, dare I say it, female chief operating officer of Facebook while Mark Zuckerberg is the chief executive officer. Notice that the word “female” sounds much more natural in front of an executive position, but you would typically not add male in front of an executive position because it is just implied. The fact that most of America and the world makes this distinction shows that there are too few women leaders. In Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In,” she explains why that is and what can be done to change that by discussing women, work, and the will to lead.
The Author has richly illustrated and vividly detailed the rise of slavery, the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the role of blacks in the nation's wars, the Harlem Renaissance, the emergence of the civil rights era, and the arduous struggle for the full claims of citizenship. Hazen (2004) offers lively portraits of key cultural and political figures such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and countless others who make clear the enormous contributions of blacks in
Next, the Birmingham movement was successful in that for the first time in a long time, the Negroes felt free. King said, “The full dimensions of victory can be found only by comprehending the change within the minds of millions of Negroes. From the depths in which the spirit of freedom was imprisoned, an impulse for liberty burst through” (135). The blacks realized that freedom c...
Baker, Ella. A. Developing Leadership among Other People in Civil Rights. The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000. A Brief History with Documents. Comp.
The Life and Activism of Angela Davis. I chose to do this research paper on Angela Davis because of her numerous contributions to the advancement of civil rights as well as to the women’s rights movement. I have passionate beliefs regarding the oppression of women and people of racial minorities. I sought to learn from Davis’ ideology and propose solutions to these conflicts that pervade our society. As well, I hope to gain historical insight into her life and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and 70’s.
Ella Baker and Martin Luther King Jr. did have their similarities as leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, but there were vast differences as well. Their differences allowed the Civil Rights Movement to be more encompassing while fighting for the same cause. Baker and King both grew up in the South, had religious upbringings, had at least some level of a higher education, and were public speakers. What set them apart was their differing opinions on who contributed to social change, and how. This is expressed through the varying social classes they depended on, importance placed on reputations developed through public associations, and nonviolence tactics that used to fight for equality. Even though Baker and King had different methods in which
Here, Malcolm begins his analysis by talking about the distinct political climate that existed at that time where many individuals in both the South and the North were frustrated with the stagnant pace by which racial progress was being achieved in context of civil rights legislation. In this, Malcolm in many ways levies a threat by which he warns the political elites of that period that the time is now to enfranchise African-American’s, not later. Additionally, Malcolm furthers his analysis by also critiquing the political trickery played by both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in Northern States. In this, Malcolm posits that each of these parties have relied on the negro vote to gain and hold office, yet these parties in many instances have left many black issues—like civil rights legislation—on the table rather than actively fighting for them in the roles in which they serve. Lastly, Malcolm concludes with a discussion on liberated self-sufficiency. In context of this notion, Malcolm focuses on the need for black people explicitly to unite to form a concentrated and deliberate attack on the structures of white supremacy and the political institutions that perpetuate and ultimately preserve
The book, “My Soul Is Rested” by Howell Raines is a remarkable history of the civil rights movement. It details the story of sacrifice and audacity that led to the changes needed. The book described many immeasurable moments of the leaders that drove the civil rights movement. This book is a wonderful compilation of first-hand accounts of the struggles to desegregate the American South from 1955 through 1968. In the civil rights movement, there are the leaders and followers who became astonishing in the face of chaos and violence. The people who struggled for the movement are as follows: Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and others; both black and white people, who contributed in demonstrations for freedom rides, voter drives, and
In the 20th century, Greensboro, North Carolina was recognized for its “progressive outlooks, especially in industrial development, education and race relations” (4). As a progressive city, Greensboro allowed its blacks some educational and intellectual freedom. For example, individuals like Nell Coley and Vance Chavis openly announced their participation in the NAACP and advocated blacks to register for voting (24). This open exchange of ideas gave blacks a sense of power and ultimately led to gatherings with an agenda. At these gatherings, blacks began to demand: better job opportunities, decent housing, and quality equipment for schools (9). The ability for blacks to speak freely on their opinions is an example of progressive mystique, and the philosophy of hospitability to new ideas. As a result of this freedom, Greensboro’s blacks woul...
From bold investigations of mob brutality, protests of mass murders, segregation and discrimination, to testimony before congressional committees on the vicious tactics used to bar African Americans from the ballot box, it was the talent and tenacity of NAACP members that saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society. While much of its history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets and magazines, the true movement lies in the faces—black, white, yellow, red, and brown—united to awaken the conscientiousness of people, and a nation. Work Cited www.en.wikipedia.org www.naacp.org www.spartacus.schoolnet.co
Recently you have received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr. entitled “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Dr. King’s letter he illustrates the motives and reasoning for the extremist action of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960’s. In the course of Dr. King’s letter to you, he uses rhetorical questioning and logistical reasoning, imagery and metaphors, and many other rhetorical devices to broaden your perspectives. I am writing this analysis in hopes you might reconsider the current stance you have taken up regarding the issues at hand.
Gloria Steinem’s “Living the Revolution” commencement speech highlights the hardships and stereotypes placed on women and men of all ethnicities in general society of the 1970’s decade, and suggests a necessary change is needed in the way we view people in general. Steinem goes on to support her ideas with numerous pieces of evidence. Foremost, she calls attention to the past and present stereotypes and prejudices and suggests that these ideas are “imbedded so deeply in our thinking” that we don’t often realize they are there (5). Secondly, she points out our society’s lack of female and African American role models and that the traditional white male leader is outdated and overdue for an upgrade (12-16). Steinem also puts for...