The civil rights movement within this country has a very long, and very tortured history. One could say that to a degree there has always been a movement for civil rights in America because there have always been poor people in this country who have been denied rights, civil or otherwise.
To some people, the beginning of the 1960s was the start of the modern-day civil rights movement within this country. Especially because of the student sit-ins and all that was accomplished by them.
The some others, it started in 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the historic and landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of schools is unconstitutional.
Others say that it was in 1955 when the Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama boycotted the city buses because of segregation.
The bottom line is that it did start, and the rest as they say, is history. When the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), just to name a few of the civil rights organizations that went on a quest to change America and fight for civil rights.
In doing so, they did accomplish a great deal, despite the laws of the land and the mood of the country. Things from interstate travel on buses, to the civil rights act, to the voting rights act, to the fair housing act which were signed by then President Johnson, just to name a few of the hard-won gains that were made.
Sadly, these same civil rights organizations left off their agendas two of the most historically important issues that touched the lives of Black people in this country, then and now.
To my knowledge, no where can it be found that the above named organizations spoke out about the health care system in this country, or ending the death penalty within this country. While some may argue that these two important issues have to do with human rights and not civil rights, we must be reminded of what Malcolm X stated about the difference between the two. Malcolm X stated that, “before there can be any other type of right, there must first be human rights!”
So you could say that human rights and civil rights are one and the same. The historical truth about these issues is this. From mental health care, to regular health care, Black people and poor people have always been at the bottom of the list when it comes to having great, good, or even any health care at all. When it comes to the death penalty, Black people have always been at or near the top of the list, as have poor people as a whole. The difference being that Black people, who are a minority, have been at the top of the list despite the limited size of their population.
There is also something else that needs to be remembered in all of this. Pre-civil rights movement there was the death penalty. During the civil rights movement there was the death penalty. Post-civil rights movement there still is the death penalty.
Yet we are constantly told that times have changed!
In one of my earlier essays, I brought up the historical fact that during segregation the one and only seat in the South that wasn’t segregated was the electric chair. Where poor white men and poor Black men were equal, if only for the first time in their lives.
Equal when it came to being killed by the system, but unequal when it came to living in that system. The same was said about the poor Black and white soldiers who fought and died together in Vietnam. They could fight and die and live together in another peoples’ land, but within their own land, they could not.
So, when asked if things and times have truly changed, to a degree we can say yes. After all, there is now a Black man living in the White house. But on the other hand, President Obama is the exception, not the rule.
There are now more segregated schools in this country than there were before 1954. There are more poor people than ever, and you still have bad health care, and the death penalty and war and everything else.
My point is this, with every example any person gives concerning times or things having changed in this country, another example can be given for how things within this country have either not changed or have gotten worse!
It seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same. Racism, classism, homophobia, sexism, and all the rest of this country’s historical ills have not gone away. They have just taken on a different look.
The civil rights movement still has some unfinished business to do!