The different social rights movements of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s all employed a variety of tactics with which to help their cause. All of the different methods chosen to make people aware of what that movement was trying to accomplish seemed to be a direct reflection of the group leader’s personality and beliefs. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Richard Oakes stand out due to their influence during these times. Other tactics were employed depending on the principles and goals of the groups using these tactics. The SNCC, Black Panthers, CORE, MAPA, and AIM each had different goals that they wanted to accomplish, and each group adopted different tactics to reach their goals.
I think that the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s had the greatest variety of tactics used in their struggle for true equality. Men like Martin Luther King Jr. used a non-violent approach to civil rights that many of his fellow rights movement brothers thought to be too “low impact” or not radical enough, contrary to what most whites thought, which was that King was very radical. King’s non-violent protests, marches, and boycotts worked well to bring African-American civil rights into the spotlight to force the U.S. Government to deal with them, and his tactics did it in a way that would show people just how rational and civilized African-Americans were, and at the same time made the white southerners trying to stop him look like crazy, unjust, fanatics. In the end, the work he did and the way in which he did it earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom among many other awards and distinctions.
Malcolm X chose words to make people aware of the injustices facing African-Americans in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. The speeches he gave were very powerful and moved many people and united them in their fight. Although sometimes his words got him into trouble some of the time, he kept up his public speaking until he was assassinated just before he was about to speak at a protest in 1965.
Stokely Carmichael was an African-American man who embraced more physical and confrontational methods of making an impact. Carmichael adopted very separatist views and was heavily vocal about “Black Power”. After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Carmichael was part of a riot that ruined downtown Washington D.C. and brought a very negative impact on their cause and was also very ironic since they were rioting for the respect of a man who would have condemned the violence caused by the men causing it.
Richard Oakes was smart and went about his business as an activist by doing things that would attract lots of media attention and at the same time, call out the U.S. Government in a way that they almost had to agree or they would look bad. A leader in the council for the occupation of Alcatraz Island, Oakes put the U.S. Government in a Catch 22 that took months for them to find a way out of. Alcatraz made people realize that American Indians weren’t going to be pushed around by the government anymore and it also helped unite many Indians in the common fight for civil rights.
Among all these tactics, the more confrontational, militant tactics of groups like the Black Panthers were probably the most debated. Many African-Americans thought this would be the way in which to get the recognition they needed in which to further their cause. However, it also put a negative feel in the civil rights movement because it reinforced the brutish, savage stereotype they had been fighting for so long to get rid of. The rights movements of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s may not have worked without this variety of methods employed. Each different tactic focused on a different group of people creating a larger unity. None of the men and women fighting for their rights would have been able to do it on their own, so even if they did not all agree with each others principles, they still very much needed each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment