Comparing The Women's Suffrage Movement And The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement is often thought to begin with a tired Rosa Parks defiantly declining to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She paid the price by going to jail. Her refusal sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which civil rights historians have in the past credited with beginning the modern civil rights movement. Others credit the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education with beginning the movement. Regardless of the event used as the starting point of the moment, everyone can agree that it is an important period in history. In the forty-five years since the modern civil rights movement, several historians have made significant contributions to the study of this era. These historians

Whereas the women’s suffrage movements focused mainly on overturning legal obstacles to equality, the feminist movements successfully addressed a broad range of other feminist issues. The first dealt primarily with voting rights and the latter dealt with inequalities such as equal pay and reproductive rights. Both movements made vast gains to the social and legal status of women. One reached its goals while the other continues to fight for women’s rights.

Did you know that women in the United States did not have the right to vote until the year 1920? Exactly 144 years after the United States was granted freedom from Great Britain. The women’s suffrage movement, however, did not actually start until 1848, and lasted up until they were granted the right to vote in 1920. Women all over the country were fighting for their right to vote in hopes of bettering their lives. The women’s suffrage movement was a long fought process by many people all over the world, over all different races, religions, even gender. (Cooney 1)

Fredrick Douglas once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” During the 1960’s in America, there were major movements the promoted change throughout the country. The Civil Rights movement, which got its start in the 1950’s, strived for racial equality for African Americans. Meanwhile, the Women’s Rights Movement, focused on battling for better pay and equal opportunities for women. While the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement differed in their initial purposes, both groups worked to promote equality in the United States and made a profound impression for the decades to come.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, one of the leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, despite being reprimanded by the driver (Schulke 166). Montgomery, Alabama was known for its terrible treatment of blacks. The buses in particular had been a source of tension between the city and black citizens for many years (Schulke, 167). As a result of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks' popularity among the black community, proved to be the spark that ignited the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (Norrell 2).

During the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King highlighted the effectiveness of peaceful resistance. When Parks refused to leave a bus seat upon demand of a white man, she was arrested for civil disobedience. Such a simple action triggered a 381-day boycott of public buses and furthered the growing movement. King later described this movement in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” where he explained the bombings that drew him to Birmingham, and how he would peacefully pursue a solution through large-scale civil disobedience. Both Parks and King peacefully revealed injustice to the public, and the violent responses from their opponents allowed the media to highlight the impacts of segregation, mainly poverty, physical threats, and verbal prejudice. Again, civil disobedience broadened social inequality, while also reducing the violence, poverty, and discrimination that African Americans experienced, increasing their involvement in modern government and the overall equality of the

As a few white passengers boarded the bus and the white sections were already full so the driver shouted back at four black people including Rosa Parks “Move y'all, I want those two seats”. As this demand was made by the driver 3 of the bus riders obeyed to what was shouted back, however Rosa Parks remained in her seat and was determined not to move. She was arrested following the bus drivers order and fined ten dollars. This, however small incited a great wave of bus boycotts which in Montgomery black people chose not to ride the bus for a period of 381 days. This still to date is known as the moment in which the civil rights movement started to gain headway. It was the will of one woman who decided it was time for black people to take a stand and from this point on Martin Luther King was assigned to take this boycott on. Although he was assigned to take this on people also felt as he was young, fresh and people had not formulated enough of an opinion of him, there was little room for him to be hated yet so he posed as the right figure to lead this. After the many days of boycotting the case of this transport issue in Alabama went to the Supreme Court. Here it was decided that segregation was declared as unconstitutional so segregation by law was no

The battle for suffrage was a long and slow process. Many women tried to initiate the fight for suffrage, like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. “These were the New Suffragists: women who were better educated, more career-oriented, younger, less apt to be married and more cosmopolitan than their previous generation.” (pg 17) Eventually, in 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified; allowing women to vote, but it was not any one person or event that achieved this great feat. It was the confluence of certain necessary factors, the picketing and parades led by Alice Paul, militaristic suffrage parties and the influence of the media that caused the suffrage amendment to be passed and ratified in 1920. But most importantly, they successfully moved both

During the 19th century, the dawn of social reform was unearthed. The Abolitionist Movement and the Women’s Suffrage Movement joined forces to advocate for social justice. Generally speaking, they sought freedom, but as you look closer into these movements you see where these movements parallel and where they diverge. With the potential promise of a more inclusive America, accepting people for who they are and not because of their gender or color, these groups worked together. While the Women’s Suffrage Movement focused on the pending promise of individual sovereignty, the abolitionist movement sought to end the precedent of buying and treating people as property and as a tangible object that can be replaced. Both movements were after the larger goal of eliminating discrimination and segregation by shredding the weight of oppression.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement of the 1920’s worked to grant women the right to vote nationally, thereby allowing women more political equality. Due to many industrial and social changes during the early 19th century, many women were involved in social advocacy efforts, which eventually led them to advocate for their own right to vote and take part in government agencies. Women have been an integral part of society, working to help those in need, which then fueled a desire to advocate for their own social and political equality. While many women worked tirelessly for the vote, many obstacles, factions, and ultimately time would pass in order for women to see the vote on the national level. The 19th Amendment, providing women the right to vote, enable women further their pursuit for full inclusion in the working of American society.

The successful parts throughout the Civil rights movement was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott allowed Busses to become unsegrigational. On December 5th 1955, the federal government passed a law that changed lives. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the public transit and was arrested solely because she did not give it up to a white woman. The whites retaliated by acts of violence towards Dr. Martin Luther King and many innocent bystanders.

World War I also provided women with the means to finally achieve suffrage. Groups such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, enthusiastically joined the war effort, thereby intertwining patriotism and women’s rights. After the House of Representatives passed the women’s suffrage amendment in January 1918, President Wilson told the nation, “We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” (James and Wells, 67-68). True political equality did not result from the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment—very few female candidates were elected in the 1920s—but, in the words of Allen, “the winning of the suffrage had its effect. It consolidated woman’s position as man’s equal” (96).

To begin with, the American suffragists of the 1900s worked very hard with a variety of strategies to bring attention to their cause. In document 2, a New York Times article from April 29, 1917, described that a publishing company run by suffragists issued fliers, leaflets, posters, and books detailing why women should be able to vote. This article also stated that the publishing company manufactured many common objects, (such as calendars, stationery, and postcards), with the phrase, “Votes for Women” printed on them. Furthermore, in documents 3a and 3b, photographs from the time depict women marching in a parade and picketing outside of buildings with large signs that displayed messages promoting voting rights for women. The propaganda and marches run by women fighting for suffrage were methods used to promote suffrage. Suffragists brought their cause to the forefront of the minds of

During the 1850’s the women’s rights movement in the United States continued to build, but lost momentum when the Civil War began. After the war ended, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were drafted and ratified; protection to all citizens - with the term “citizens” defined as male, and suffrage for black men, respectively. The drafting of the 15th Amendment caused animosity with women’s rights activists and led them to believe that this was their chance to push lawmakers for truly universal suffrage. They “allied

This investigation assesses the question: To what extent did the First World War lead to the accomplishment of the women’s suffrage movement of Britain in 1928?