The Civil Rights Movement

There is no “official” beginning or ending of the Civil Rights Movement in America, but most people feel it began with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. This decision overturned an 1896 Supreme Court decision which said the “separate but equal” treatment of black people was not unconstitutional. The 1954 decision said that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. The year 1954 is, therefore, the legal beginning of the movement.

The actual broad social beginning of the movement was in 1955 when Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested by police. This led to a boycott of public buses by black people, under the leadership of local black church pastors, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The movement is generally held to have ended in 1968 when Dr. King was assassinated and when America began paying more attention to the Vietnam War than to civil rights. In sum, the Civil Rights Movement is generally to be the period 1954-1968. 

However, I believe that is inaccurate. Discrimination was widespread and extremely violent until 1954, and the situation improved to a degree by 1968. Today discrimination against black people is not as strong among the general public. And I believe that there has been clear progress as a result of the movement.

But discrimination against black people—by employers, police, banks, real estate agents, schools, and whites people in general—unfortunately continues today. Blacks people and other “people of color” are not recognized as equal by American society in general. In that sense, the Civil Rights Movement has to continue. And all of us have to actively participate.

(287 words)

【新刊のお知らせ】

『アメリカ黒人史 ――奴隷制からBLMまで』ジェームス・M・バーダマン (著)、森本 豊富 (翻訳)
 
ちくま新書様より2020年12月9日発売です

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