preview

The Role Of The Civil Rights Movement In The 1960s

Decent Essays
Open Document

It is contextually vital to distinguish between the pre and post war era in relation to the 1960s. The post-war era was that of a hearty economy, with the middle and working class generally advancing and a low level of social upheavals. The sixties were a period of heightened social struggles, women struggles, the Cold War, Vietnam, and a rising tide of conservatism despite the liberal counter culture and immense racism. People organizing and actively working for change both in the social order and in government, this included the student movement the women's movement movements for gay rights and a push by the courts to expand rights in general Progression of civil rights had key moments in what took place at Greensboro North Carolina University. …show more content…

Television brought the reality of the Jim Crow south into people's homes as images of Bull Connor's police dogs and water cannons being turned on peaceful marchers, many of them children, horrified viewers and eventually led Kennedy to endorse the movement in what he envisioned as a “New Frontier”, "civil rights, poverty, education, medical care, housing, consumer safeguards, and environmental protection" (Roarke, 766-767). The forward momentum of his and King’s unjust jailing led to King giving his famous speech, “I have a dream.” King and the other organizers called for a civil rights bill and help for the poor demanding Public Works a higher minimum wage and an end to discrimination in employment. It can be postured that the Civil Rights Act served in part as a direct response to these grievances. John F. Kennedy was initially cooled to civil rights, yet understandably so given the time period as the Cold War was heating up. Between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs, the demonstrations of 1963 pushed John F. Kennedy to support civil rights more actively, and unfortunately led to his premature …show more content…

More remarkable was passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination and employment, education, and public accommodations illegal” (Roark, 768). The law prohibited discrimination in employment, schools, hospitals and privately owned public places like restaurants and hotels and theaters. It also banned discrimination on the basis of sex the Civil Rights Act was a major moment in American legislative history but it hardly made the united states a haven of equality so civil rights leaders continued to push for the enfranchisement of African Americans "Johnson's commitments made him the nation's foremost champion of civil rights reform…black Americans continued to push for their rights to be truly equal with involvement at every level of government (Mackenzie-Weisbrot, 364.) Lyndon Johnson's domestic initiatives from 1965 through 1967 are known as the Great Society and its possible that if he hadn't been responsible for America escalating the war in Vietnam he might have been remembered at least by liberals as one of America's greatest presidents because the Great Society expanded a lot of the promises of the New Deal. The creation of health insurance programs like Medicare for the elderly, and

Get Access