Civil rights movements

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March on Washington

, August 28, 1963

Civil rights movements are a worldwide series of

and armed rebellion. The process has been long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not, or have yet to, fully achieve their goals, although the efforts of these movements have led to improvements in the legal rights of some previously oppressed groups of people, in some places.

The main aim of the successful

.

Northern Ireland civil rights movement

in 1920.

The civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland can be traced to activists in Dungannon, led by Austin Currie, who were fighting for equal access to public housing for the members of the Catholic community. This domestic issue would not have led to a fight for civil rights were it not for the fact that being a registered householder was a qualification for local government franchise in Northern Ireland.^{[citation needed]}

In January 1964, the Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was launched in Belfast.^[1] This organisation joined the struggle for better housing and committed itself to ending discrimination in employment. The CSJ promised the Catholic community that their cries would be heard. They challenged the government and promised that they would take their case to the Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg and to the United Nations.^[2]

Having started with basic domestic issues, the civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland escalated to a full-scale movement that found its embodiment in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. NICRA campaigned in the late sixties and early seventies, consciously modelling itself on the American civil rights movement and using similar methods of civil resistance. NICRA organised marches and protests to demand equal rights and an end to discrimination.

NICRA originally had five main demands:

• one man, one vote
• an end to discrimination in housing
• an end to discrimination in local government
• an end to the gerrymandering of district boundaries, which limited the effect of Catholic voting
• the disbandment of the B-Specials, an entirely Protestant police reserve, perceived as sectarian.

All of these specific demands were aimed at an ultimate goal that had been the one of women at the very beginning: the end of discrimination.

Civil rights activists all over Northern Ireland soon launched a campaign of

approved for use by British interrogators on internees in Northern Ireland amounted to "inhuman and degrading" treatment.

The IRA encouraged Republicans to join in the movement for civil rights but never controlled NICRA. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association fought for the end of discrimination toward Catholics and did not take a position on the legitimacy of the state.[3] Republican leader Gerry Adams explained subsequently that Catholics saw that it was possible for them to have their demands heard. He wrote that "we were able to see an example of the fact that you didn't just have to take it, you could fight back".^[2] For an account and critique of the movements for civil rights in Northern Ireland, reflecting on the ambiguous link between the causes of civil rights and opposition to the union with the United Kingdom, see the work of Richard English.^[4]

One of the most important events in the era of civil rights in Northern Ireland took place in Derry, which escalated the conflict from peaceful civil disobedience to armed conflict. The Battle of the Bogside started on 12 August when an Apprentice Boys, a Protestant order, parade passed through Waterloo Place, where a large crowd was gathered at the mouth of William Street, on the edge of the Bogside. Different accounts describe the first outbreak of violence, with reports stating that it was either an attack by youth from the Bogside on the RUC, or fighting broke out between Protestants and Catholics. The violence escalated and barricades were erected. Proclaiming this district to be the Free Derry, Bogsiders carried on fights with the RUC for days using stones and petrol bombs. The government finally withdrew the RUC and replaced it with the British Army, which disbanded the crowds of Catholics who were barricaded in the Bogside.^[5]

Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972, in Derry is seen by some as a turning point in the movement for civil rights. Fourteen unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers protesting against internment were shot and killed by soldiers from the Parachute Regiment.

The peace process has made significant gains in recent years. Through open dialogue from all parties, a state of ceasefire by all major paramilitary groups has lasted. A stronger economy improved Northern Ireland's standard of living. Civil rights issues have become less of a concern for many in Northern Ireland over the past 20 years as laws and policies protecting their rights, and forms of affirmative action, have been implemented for all government offices and many private businesses. Tensions still exist, but the vast majority of citizens are no longer affected by violence.

Canada's Quiet Revolution

The 1960s brought intense political and social change to the

and the creation of public companies for the mining, forestry, iron/steel and petroleum industries of the province. Other changes included the creation of the Régie des Rentes du Québec (Quebec Pension Plan) and new labour codes that made unionizing easier and gave workers the right to strike.

The social and economic changes of the Quiet Revolution gave life to the

on signs and restricting the eligibility of students to be taught in English.

A radical strand of

in Quebec, and arrested the kidnappers by the end of the year.

Movements for civil rights in the United States

Movements for civil rights in the United States include noted legislation and organized efforts to abolish public and private acts of

Reconstruction Era

(1863–77).

Ethnicity equity issues

Integrationism

After 1890, the system of

.

Noted strategies employed prior to 1955 included litigation and lobbying attempts by the

(NAACP). These efforts were a hallmark of the early American Civil Rights Movement from 1896 to 1954. However, by 1955, blacks became frustrated by gradual approaches to implement desegregation by federal and state governments and the "massive resistance" by whites. The black leadership adopted a combined strategy of

Besides the Children's Crusade and the Selma to Montgomery marches, another illustrious event of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August, 1963. It is best remembered for the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in which the speech turned into a national text and eclipsed the troubles the organizers had to bring to march forward. It had been a fairly complicated affair to bring together various leaders of civil rights, religious and labor groups. As the name of the march implies, many compromises had to be made in order to unite the followers of so many different causes. The "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" emphasized the combined purposes of the march and the goals that each of the leaders aimed at. The 1963 March on Washington organizers and organizational leaders, informally named the "Big Six", were A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, James Farmer and John Lewis. Although they came from different backgrounds and political interests, these organizers and leaders were intent on the peacefulness of the march, which had its own marshal to ensure that the event would be peaceful and respectful of the law.^[8] The success of the march is still being debated, but one aspect which has been raised was the misrepresentation of women. A lot of feminine civil rights groups had participated in the organization of the march, but when it came to actual activity women were denied the right to speak and were relegated to figurative roles in the back of the stage. As some female participants noticed, the March can be remembered for the "I Have a Dream" speech but for some female activists it was a new awakening, forcing black women not only to fight for civil rights but also to engage in the Feminist movement.^[9]

Noted achievements of the

that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

Black Power movement

Main article:

Black Power movement

By 1967 the emergence of the

.

Today, most Black Power advocates have not changed their self-sufficiency argument. Racism still exists worldwide, and some believe that blacks in the United States, on the whole, did not assimilate into U.S. "mainstream" culture. Blacks arguably became even more oppressed, this time partially by "their own" people in a new black stratum of the middle class and the ruling class. Black Power's advocates generally argue that the reason for this stalemate and further oppression of the vast majority of U.S. blacks is because Black Power's objectives have not had the opportunity to be fully carried through.

One of the most public manifestations of the Black Power movement took place in the 1968 Olympics, when two African-Americans, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, stood on the podium doing a Black Power salute. This act is still remembered today as the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

Chicano Movement

The Chicano Movement occurred during the civil rights era that sought political empowerment and social inclusion for Mexican-Americans around a generally nationalist argument. The Chicano movement blossomed in the 1960s and was active through the late 1970s in various regions of the U.S. The movement had roots in the civil rights struggles that had preceded it, adding to it the cultural and generational politics of the era.

The early heroes of the movement—Rodolfo Gonzales in Denver and Reies Tijerina in New Mexico—adopted a historical account of the preceding hundred and twenty-five years that had obscured much of Mexican-American history. Gonzales and Tijerina embraced a nationalism that identified the failure of the United States government to live up to its promises in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In that account, Mexican Americans were a conquered people who simply needed to reclaim their birthright and cultural heritage as part of a new nation, which later became known as Aztlán.

That version of the past did not, but take into account the history of those Mexicans who had immigrated to the United States. It also gave little attention to the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States in the 1960s— which is not surprising, since immigration did not have the political significance it later acquired. It was a decade later when activists, such as Bert Corona in California, embraced the rights of undocumented workers and helped broaden the movement to include their issues.

When the movement dealt with practical problems in the 1960s, most activists focused on the most immediate issues confronting Mexican Americans; unequal educational and employment opportunities, political disfranchisement, and police brutality. In the heady days of the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano movement brought about more or less spontaneous actions, such as the mass walkouts by high school students in Denver and East Los Angeles in 1968 and the Chicano Moratorium in Los Angeles in 1970.

The movement was particularly strong at the college level, where activists formed MEChA,

, which promoted Chicano Studies programs and a generalized ethno-nationalist agenda.

American Indian Movement

At a time when peaceful sit-ins were a common protest tactic, the American Indian Movement (AIM) takeovers in their early days were noticeably violent. Some appeared to be spontaneous outcomes of protest gatherings, but others included armed seizure of public facilities.

The Alcatraz Island occupation of 1969, although commonly associated with NAM, pre-dated the organization, but was a catalyst for its formation.

In 1970, AIM occupied abandoned property at the

Courthouse in 1973, though police routed the occupation after a riot took place.

In 1973 activists and military forces confronted each other in the

Wounded Knee incident

. The standoff lasted 71 days, and two men died in the violence.

Asian American movement

Gender equity issues

If the period associated with first-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage (which led to women attaining the right to vote in the early part of the 20th century), the period of the second-wave feminism was concerned with the issues such as changing social attitudes and economic, reproductive, and educational equality (including the ability to have careers in addition to motherhood, or the right to choose not to have children) between the genders and addressed the rights of female minorities. The new feminist movement, which spanned from 1963 to 1982, explored economic equality, political power at all levels, professional equality, reproductive freedoms, issues with the family, educational equality, sexuality, and many other issues.

LGBT rights and gay liberation

Since the mid-19th century in

.

The words "Gay Liberation" echoed "Women's Liberation"; the

Power. The GLF's statement of purpose explained:

We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature.

— GLF statement of purpose

GLF activist Martha Shelley wrote,

We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure.

— "Gay is Good", Martha Shelley, 1970

Gay Liberationists aimed at transforming fundamental concepts and institutions of society, such as

began to emerge.

By the late 1970s, the radicalism of Gay Liberation was eclipsed by a return to a more formal movement that became known as the

.

Soviet Union

In the 1960s, the early years of the Brezhnev stagnation, dissidents in the Soviet Union increasingly turned their attention civil and eventually human rights concerns. The fight for civil and human rights focused on issues of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom to emigrate, punitive psychiatry, and the plight of political prisoners. It was characterized by a new openness of dissent, a concern for legality, the rejection of any 'underground' and violent struggle.^[11] It played a significant role in providing a common language and goal for many Soviet dissidents, and became a cause for diverse social groups in the dissident millieu, ranging from activists in the youth subculture to academics such as Andrei Sakhrarov.

Significantly, Soviet dissidents of the 1960s introduced the "legalist" approach of avoiding moral and political commentary in favor of close attention to legal and procedural issues. Following several landmark trials of writers (Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, the trials of Alexander Ginzburg and Yuri Galanskov) and an associated crackdown on dissidents by the KGB, coverage of arrests and trials in samizdat (unsanctioned press) became more common. This activity eventually led to the founding of the Chronicle of Current Events in April 1968. The unofficial newsletter reported violations of civil rights and judicial procedure by the Soviet government and responses to those violations by citizens across the USSR.^[12]

Throughout the 1960s–1980s, dissidents in the civil and human rights movement engaged in a variety of activities: The documentation of political repression and rights violations in samizdat (unsanctioned press); individual and collective protest letters and petitions; unsanctioned demonstrations; an informal network of mutual aid for prisoners of conscience; and, most prominently, civic watch groups appealing to the international community. All of these activities came at great personal risk and with repercussions ranging from dismissal from work and studies to many years of imprisonment in labor camps and being subjected to punitive psychiatry.

The rights-based strategy of dissent merged with the idea of human rights. The human rights movement included figures such as Valery Chalidze, Yuri Orlov, and Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Special groups were founded such as the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (1969) and the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR (1970). Though faced with the loss of many members to prisons, labor camps, psychiatric institutions and exile, they documented abuses, wrote appeals to international human rights bodies, collected signatures for petitions, and attended trials.

The signing of the

^{: 159–194}

Prague Spring

The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar, Russian: пражская весна) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia starting on January 5, 1968, and running until August 20 of that year, when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies (except for Romania) invaded the country.

During World War II, Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, the Eastern Bloc. Since 1948 there were no parties other than the Communist Party in the country and it was indirectly managed by the Soviet Union. Unlike other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the communist take-over in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was, although as brutal as elsewhere, a genuine popular movement. Reform in the country did not lead to the convulsions seen in Hungary.

Towards the end of World War II Joseph Stalin wanted Czechoslovakia, and signed an agreement with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt that Prague would be liberated by the Red Army, despite the fact that the United States Army under General George S. Patton could have liberated the city earlier. This was important for the spread of pro-Russian (and pro-communist) propaganda that came right after the war. People still remembered what they felt as Czechoslovakia's betrayal by the West at the Munich Agreement. For these reasons, the people voted for communists in the 1948 elections, the last democratic poll to take place there for a long time.

From the middle of the 1960s, Czechs and Slovaks showed increasing signs of rejection of the existing regime. This change was reflected by reformist elements within the communist party by installing

.

However, a sizeable minority in the ruling party, especially at higher leadership levels, was opposed to any lessening of the party's grip on society and actively plotted with the leadership of the Soviet Union to overthrow the reformers. This group watched in horror as calls for multi-party elections and other reforms began echoing throughout the country.

Between the nights of August 20 and August 21, 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. During the invasion, Soviet tanks ranging in numbers from 5,000 to 7,000 occupied the streets. They were followed by a large number of Warsaw Pact troops ranging from 200,000 to 600,000.

The Soviets insisted that they had been invited to invade the country, stating that loyal Czechoslovak Communists had told them that they were in need of "fraternal assistance against the

, along with several of his colleagues.

Movement for civil rights for Indigenous Australians

Australia was settled by the British without a treaty or recognition of the Indigenous population,

.

While there has been significant progress in redressing discriminatory laws,[15] Indigenous Australians continue to be at a disadvantage compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts, on key measures such as: life expectancy; infant mortality; health; imprisonment; and levels of education and employment. An ongoing government strategy called Closing the Gap is in place in an attempt to remedy this.^[16]

See also

• Civil and political rights
• Protests of 1968
• Timeline of the civil rights movement

Notes

Further reading

• Manfred Berg and Martin H. Geyer; Two Cultures of Rights: The Quest for Inclusion and Participation in Modern America and Germany Cambridge University Press, 2002
• Jack Donnelly and Rhoda E. Howard; International Handbook of Human Rights
  Greenwood Press
  , 1987
• David P. Forsythe; Human Rights in the New Europe: Problems and Progress University of Nebraska Press, 1994
• Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman; Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis Oxford University Press, 1997
• Mervyn Frost; Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States Routledge, 2002
• Marc Galanter; Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India University of California Press, 1984
• Raymond D. Gastil and Leonard R. Sussman, eds.; Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1986–1987 Greenwood Press, 1987
• David Harris and Sarah Joseph; The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and United Kingdom Law Clarendon Press, 1995
• Steven Kasher; The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History (1954–1968)
  Abbeville Publishing Group (Abbeville Press, Inc.)
  , 2000
• Francesca Klug, Keir Starmer, Stuart Weir; The Three Pillars of Liberty: Political Rights and Freedoms in the United Kingdom Routledge, 1996
• Fernando Santos-Granero and Frederica Barclay; Tamed Frontiers: Economy, Society, and Civil Rights in Upper Amazonia Westview Press, 2000
• Paul N. Smith; Feminism and the Third Republic: Women's Political and Civil Rights in France, 1918–1940 Clarendon Press, 1996
• Jorge M. Valadez; Deliberative Democracy: Political Legitimacy and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies Westview Press, 2000

External links

• We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage at Travel Itinerary
• A Columbia University Resource for Teaching African American History
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle, an encyclopedia presented by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University
• Altman, Andrew. "Civil Rights". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle ~ an online multimedia encyclopedia presented by the King Institute at Stanford University, includes information on over 1000 Civil Rights Movement figures, events and organizations
• "CivilRightsTravel.com" ~ a visitors guide to key sites from the Civil Rights Movement
• The History Channel: Civil Rights Movement
• Civil Rights: Beyond Black & White – slideshow by
  Life magazine
• Civil Rights Digital Library from the Digital Library of Georgia