William S. Clayson's Freedom Is Not Enough

Although it did temporarily provide African Americans with de jure equality, Radical Reconstruction did not eliminate the intrinsic barriers of prejudice and neglect to African American prosperity in the South and did not keep freedmen from being once again disenfranchised to sharecropping and enslaved to debt after Northern supervision stagnated. Freedom, as defined by Garrison Frazier, a Baptist minister representing Savannah’s black community, was “placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of ourselves,” and African Americans were unable to do that despite laws that purportedly freed African Americans. In fact, most of the impacts of Radical Reconstruction—an abandoned black community, a makeshift union, and an empowered white supremacy movement overlooked by a corrupt state government system—could have been achieved by simply engaging with the normal Reconstruction. Radical Reconstruction may have actually been worse because of the widened rift between the North and the South, with resentment of the federal government’s military intervention fostering a reluctancy for the South to cooperate. Even though African Americans would have to wait decades for a semblance of justice, it is perhaps for the better that the North did not force the South the alter their worldview. For the United States government is not Orwell’s thought police, and the nation’s laws are unable to oversee every single interaction and microaggression that citizens face as a result of others’ preconceived notions and judgements. Considering that both gentle and strict approaches were tried, there is very little that officials could have done to feasibly create a perfect reconstruction, and hitting with a heavier hand would only further a stronger backlash. If they had done any one thing better, it would have

In this book, King is clearly speaking to a contemporary and mostly white audience. And the bulk of the book is devoted to answering the titular question. Time and again he steps out of the narrative to rebut various criticisms from contemporaries who said that his movement was too militant, too extreme, too impractical, too disorganized, too out-of-touch with ordinary people, too disengaged from the political process. The year 1963 marked the 100-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King asks two questions: why should we wait for emancipation? And aware of what White Americans were doing to Black Americans, "What is the Negro doing for himself?  (King p. 8) Martin Luther King concludes by pointing out the importance of expanding on the current campaign, what his hopes are for the future, why he wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, why the campaign was the right thing to do, why America was a better place in January of 1964 than it was in January of 1963, and why America can't wait any longer to be wholly free. King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks

The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s generated massive international following and controversy, which made the movement one of the most important in U.S. history. The movement’s legacy can still be felt today, with the positive aspects, such as voting rights to African Americans and wide spread desegregation of public facilities, still being felt in the United States, and in many similar models across the globe. Although there were many “battlegrounds” where civil issues were debated, many people who know of the movement today would argue that the movement’s heart was rooted in the Deep South, ironically where it could be argued that the mentality of people living in the area at the time were the most violently opposed to such civil rights. In contrast, those who championed the Civil Rights Movement chose the tactic of nonviolence, at least at first, as a tool to dismantle racial segregation, discrimination, and inequality. They followed models that Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists had commissioned, using principles of nonviolence and passive resistance. Civil rights leaders had understood that segregationists would do anything to maintain their power over blacks. So, in consequence, they believed some changes might be made if enough people outside the

Poverty has been a big issue over the past century or so and continues to be a problem to this day in the United States. Due to the Civil War, rural areas and industrial areas were affected by poverty. The poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877 was different from the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939. Even though both situations were dealing with a form of poverty, both were two completely different situations. There were several major events that happened that caused poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877. Although there were various events leading up to the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939, poverty in the year of 1877 was just as bad, if not worse, as in the year of 1939.

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore’s book Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 shows the Civil Rights movement in the same light as those writers like Jacquelyn Dowd Hall who believed in “The Long Movement.” Gilmore sets out to prove that much more time and aspects went into the Civil Rights Era and that it did not just start at the time of Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights acts of the nineteen sixties. The book adhered to the ideology of “The Long movement” aspects of the civil rights era during its earlier times. However it also differs by displaying the more unorthodox, often unseen origins of the movement in Communism, labor, and fascism. She also shows that Black civil rights is not a problem faced by many

Despite nearly one hundred years passing since the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern States were still faced with the most distinct forms of racism. The so-called “Jim Crow” laws that were present in United States at the time, served to segregate blacks and whites from all aspects of public life, including schools, public transport and juries. Often faced with extreme right-wing terrorist groups such as the white supremacist Klu Klux Klan, many among the African American community chose to live in a society of oppression that to actively campaign for equal rights for all humans regardless of the colour of their skin. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 60’s that the people attempted to challenge the established order by engaging in influential protest movements with the help of key activist groups and their leaders. In particular, one key example of a powerful protest campaign was that which occurred in 1965 in Selma, a small town in Alabama. Here, the African American community united in an effort to ensure that all citizens were equal before the law in regards to their ability to register to vote. Their work in banding together and marching from Selma to the state capital Montgomery, was vastly important to both the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, as well as the assurance of the Black vote within the United States. Consequently, this essay seeks to emphasize just how influential this act of protest was to the movement as a whole, whilst analysing the

The Civil War and Reconstruction periods had many positive outcomes for America, such as the reunification of the Union, the expansion of the North and South’s economy, education for all, and much more. Although there were many positive results from these two periods, there was also an aftermath of much failure. The post Civil War, and Reconstruction period consisted of the formation of the Ku Klux Klan and the black code laws. Despite the fact that African American’s were no longer slaves, in many ways they were still not free. Furthermore, the creation of things such as the Ku Klux Klan and the black codes created high tension between the black and white races, a tension that can be argued is still present in modern day America. This essay will examine the aspects of how the post Civil War and Reconstruction period was a failure with regards to social, economic and political, and radical development for newly freed slaves.

The first source Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society by John A. Andrew III will be used to analyze the extent of Johnson’s actions during the Civil Right Movement. The origin of this source is valuable because Andrew wrote this novel in 1998, the Johnson’s presidency occurred in the 60’s. Second hand sources provide the clarity that comes with hindsight. Also, since the distance from the civil rights movement and this Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society is thirty five years apart thus, the civil rights movement can be more objectively written and referenced. Andrew was a history professor at Franklin and Marshall College. In the acknowledgments Andrew says his interest in “Johnson has grown steadily, both from teaching these years and finding a dearth of good classroom materials and from my own research into the period.” This indicates Andrew’s vast

This joy for African Americans soon ended when they realized that the leeway for their rights got smaller each day, as the North began focusing on other issues and Southern Democrats began slowly rising back to political power. A former slave woman in Texas recounts the violence and reality of being a freed person. She states her master made her work months after she was legally freed, and that she could see lots of former slaves hanging from trees. Her point of view, as an African American woman, is significant because she gives us insight on the price that came with being freed in the South(Document 5). Southern states learned ways to work around federal racial protection laws just to oppress and make African Americans feel like second class citizens again.

Civil Rights-the freedoms and rights that a person with-holds as a member of a community, state, or nation. Ever since the beginning of involvement between white and black people there has been social disagreement; mainly with the superiority of the white man over the black man. African Americans make up the largest minority group in the United States and because of this they have been denied their civil rights more than any other minority group(source 12). During the Civil Rights Movement, it was said to be a time full of violence and brutality; however, many African-Americans pulled through in their time of struggle. By records, known history, and personal accounts, this paper will show how many people fought for equality and how the

A debate in civil rights history appeared in the decades following the well-publicized struggles of the early 1960s and continues today. This debate is of whether the movement was finished with its goals when it attained equal treatment under the law, or whether it had changed to a new goal of fighting all forms of discrimination, not just the formal version found in Jim Crow.

In 1865, the United States government implemented what was known as Reconstruction. Its’ purpose was to remove slavery from the south, and give African-American’s the freedom in which they deserved. However, the freedom that they deserved was not the freedom that they received. With documents like The Black Codes restricting them from numerous privileges that white people had and the terroristic organization known as the Klu Klux Klan attacking and killing them, African-American’s were still being oppressed by their government as well as their fellow man. Slavery may have been abolished, but African-American’s were not yet given the freedom and rights that their white counterparts took for granted.

John Lewis begins his remarks by revealing his attitude that civil rights leaders should not congratulate themselves yet and that there is still a long road before Africans Americans have true freedom. To immediately complicate the notion of being satisfied with the progress of the civil rights movement that other speakers proclaimed, he announces, “We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of” (para 1). The essence of Lewis’ argument is that the leaders of the civil rights movement are marching for workplace fairness and equality for African Americans, but they should not stop and congratulate themselves. Significantly, this opening statement reveals the difference of beliefs that Lewis had compared to some of the older leaders in the movement who wanted to discuss how far civil rights have progressed. To further demonstrate this idea, Lewis states, “While we stand here, there are sharecroppers in... Mississippi...working for less than three dollars a day, twelve hours a day. While we stand here there are students in jail on trumped-up charges” (para 1). In this illustration, Lewis highlights the dissimilarities between those at home who are experiencing low wages and unfair hours or are imprisoned on false charges to those who are standing there in

When it comes to the topic of racial politics very few would agree that Howard fast did a great job of covering the main points of the Reconstruction period and Civil rights movement. The advancement of liberated slaves in the reconstruction period covered in Howard Fast’s Novel, Freedom Road, are more vulnerable over the gains made in civil rights over the course of the past 35 years. In actuality things were much more difficult in the reconstruction period than that of what happened in just the short novel. Also the gains made by minorities in the U.S since 1964 are more significant than the accomplishments of Gideon Jackson and his contemporaries, although the characters did a good job at proposing the issue, the events that took place in this period of history are much more than what was portrayed.

It is widely acknowledged that the African-American freedom struggle and their relentless works to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation have accomplished further than the eradication of racial and national barriers. The mass militancy not only knocked over the system introduced by Jim Crow but completely transformed the nature of traditional social relationships and civilizing medians. Moreover, the freedom struggle not only changed the legal status of black Americans but also helped in achieving the significant changes in ethnic awareness (Carson, 1993, p. 3). In simple words, the civil rights movement was not simply an attempt for the achievement of national civil rights reform. It carried within it much more than that. It facilitated the generation of embryonic norms and ethics just like any other civil movement. These reforms helped in the removal of barriers to the liberty of