AFRICAN AMERICANS

African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement

African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

The 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed in July 2, 1964, represents the most comprehensive federal legislation protecting the rights of individuals from discrimination since the post-Civil War period. This entry reviews the purpose and scope of the Act; the historical backdrop leading to its enactment. Civil Rights Act in its entirety can best be understood in historical context. It represents one in a long line of federal actions, some official and others judicial in origin, intended to secure the civil rights of African Americans. These measures flow in part from the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which the Court found African Americans to be without constitutional protections, as they had not been considered citizens at the time of the Constitution's adoption (Douglass, 2005).

For some readers, looking at racism as a product of white supremacy may seem limiting. For others, the idea that racism is framed not simply by our individual prejudices but by systems of oppression that extend beyond the American geographic context may appear absurd and strangely foreign. Both of these reactions, however, stem from the inability of many Americans to think about racism outside the relationships among Blacks and whites in the United States. To truly understand racism and the relationship colonialism shares with racial domination in America, individuals must be truly interested in social and conceptual change and must understand the historical relationship between America's economic and social exploitation of Blacks and other racial groups and America's imperial inclinations, the most recent of which is our current “antiterrorist” campaign against people of color the world over.

Discussion

In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Martin Luther King Jr. announced that “racism is no mere American phenomenon. Its vicious grasp knows no geographical boundaries. In fact, racism and its perennial ally—economic exploitation—provide the key to understanding most of the international complications of this generation” (p. 173). While this statement may come as a surprise to many readers who define Dr. King solely by his “I have a dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. was an adamant advocate of understanding racism as the historic convergence of white supremacy, economic exploitation, and militarism. King understood that racism, while an undeniable reality of American geography, extends beyond the continental clashes among Blacks and whites, or whites and other people of color. For King, racism has to be conceptualized both historically and materially—as the justification Western countries continually utilize to rationalize military intervention and the economic exploitation of non-whites.

This line of questioning is not predetermined. As a method of analysis, engaging racism through the lens of white supremacy demands that the scholar, the student, and the activist ask viable historicized questions of the status quo. Such analyses are unlike the current discourse—analyses of racism that call only for thinking proleptically, ideologically proclaiming the insignificance of race in America, and holding our conceptions of racism hostage to ...