Comparison and Contrast: Civil Rights Movement in Different Parts of the Country
Introduction
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States began in the mid-20th century when Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders throughout the country organized and achieved substantial progressive gains. While American society has come a long way since this time period, few would argue that it has achieved true racial equality. Indeed, in recent years a Civil Rights Movement of a new character has taken hold, partially driven by the Black Lives Matter protests that organized to address questionable police shootings of African Americans and other pertinent issues facing the black community. Although this new Civil Rights Movement has had similar intentions throughout the nation, it has assumed different characteristics, and found different levels of support and resistance depending on the location. The present research compares and contrasts different Civil Rights movement currently happening in the country, to other civil rights movements which occurred in response to Black America.
Perhaps the most significant comparative element of the Civil Rights Movement in the entirety of the United States is its leadership. While the mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement largely relied on charismatic leadership, the contemporary civil rights movement has been characterized by the abandonment of such a leadership model for a more grass-roots form of organization. This form of leadership is instead a group-based leadership that is modeled on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) that in the 1960s helped African Americans gain a substantial amount of progressive gains in civil rights (Harris, 2016). The similar elements of leadership that have characterized this movement have also characterized its forms of organization. In this respect, social media through Twitter and Facebook have contributed substantially to organizing similar forms of protests in major regions in America. While in past decades, civil rights protests were forced to take on a more local character because of the necessary fragmentation in organization, social media has resulted in targeted protests from places as far apart as Florida, California, and New York, all under the same form of bottom-up, democratic leadership (Harris, 2016).
Another similar element of the current civil rights movement is in terms of government response, which – particularly recently – has been in the form of substantial forms of law enforcement intervention. This week in, ‘New York, 9 Black Lives Matter’, protestors were arrested in mid-town Manhattan. The protestors were not just ordinary citizens but included Ramsey Orta, the individual who filled the Eric Garner choke-hold video that resulted in a substantial amount of controversy (Arrested at Black Lives Matter protest in midtown, 2016). Direct parallels between law enforcement resistances in New York can be seen in North Carolina to an even greater extreme. In North Carolina, the state’s governor recently declared a state of emergency and even called the National Guard after violent protests broke out (McCrory, 2016). While it would be difficult to argue that simultaneous occurrence of law enforcement intervention of the protests in both of these states constituted a form of ideological bias on the parts of these governments, these events do attest to the civil rights movement entering a stage of increasing hostility throughout the country in recent weeks.
Still, among the prominent elements that have distinguished the Civil Rights Movement in different areas, there are no police reforms which have been made. In areas such as Chicago, local activists have been successful in achieving successful forms of social change. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement in collaboration with other groups such as We Charge Genocide and the Black Youth Project 100 implemented organized protests that called for the termination of Aislinn Sol, the police officer who was responsible for killing Rekia Boyd. Following these protests, the Chicago Police Department announced that they would be terminating this individual. Conversely, in other parts of the country civil rights protests have not had the same level of success as in Chicago. Laughland (2016) explored the substantial amounts of protests that occurred after New York Police Department, cop Daniel Panteleo implemented a chokehold that killed Eric Garner. While in Chicago such protests resulted in the termination of the police officer responsible for the killing, Panteleo’s salary was actually increased after this incident. In Seminole County, Florida, where the Black Lives Matter Movement started, similar outcomes were experienced. Despite substantial protests surrounding George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin, no governmental changes have been instituted in the area, thus making no tangible difference towards advancing progressive change in the community. The disparities in political outcomes in these regions would not seem to speak so much to differences in the types of outcomes that were occurring, but rather to the government and institutional leadership currently entrenched in these locations.
Another contrasting element of civil rights protests throughout the country has been through its forms of political engagement with leading politicians. This distinction was particularly evident in recent months in Seattle where controversy arose within the Black Lives Matter Movement after protestors took the stage at a Bernie Sanders rally interrupted a speech and made derisive statements about the event (Mak, 2016). This incident created controversy within the Black Lives Matter movement partly because the organizer of the Seattle chapter was a significant Bernie Sanders supporter. However, on a larger-scale, this event, and the disparate reactions it caused in relation to different people, attested to different perspectives that are held throughout the country on the best way to use the democratic process to achieve social progress.
Conclusion
This research has consequently compared and contrasted the current civil rights movements being experienced in the country, to other civil rights movements which had occurred previously in relation to African Americans. Within this spectrum of investigation, the research has argued that the civil rights movements based on a democratic and group-based leadership model, its use of social media, and recent law enforcement resistance have been the most prominent similar elements. Conversely, the movement has been distinguished by different forms of political outcomes it has achieved, as well as different perspectives on the best ways to encounter governmental leadership. Ultimately, future changes will be intriguing in regards to the extent the movement continues to remain somewhat cohesive or otherwise begins to splinter and falter. Moreover, the research has also provided differences between the current social movements and the previous social movements of the 20th century. The research has clearly pointed out, how effective the previous civil movements were as compared to the present civil rights movements, which have not been able to achieve and air their grievances clearly. This consequently shows that the US has a long way to go in order to maintain democracy and equality for all.
Reference
Arrested at Black Lives Matter protest in midtown: NYPD. (2016). NBC New York. Retrieved
4 November 2016, from http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYC-9-Arrested-at-
Black-Lives-Matter-Protest-in-Midtown-NYPD-394390861.html
Gov. McCrory declares state of emergency after violent protests in Charlotte.
(2016). myfox8.com. Retrieved 4 November 2016, from
http://myfox8.com/2016/09/21/gov-mccrory-declares-state-of-emergency-after-violent-
protests-in-charlotte/
Harris, F. (2016). The next civil rights movement? Retrieved 4 November 2016, from
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/black-lives-matter-new-civil-rights-movement-
fredrick-harris
Laughland, O. (2016). Eric Garner protests continue in cities across America through second night. The Guardian. Retrieved 4 November 2016, from
