American History

Legal changes, such as the end of slavery by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, the 14th Amendment declaring all Americans equal and the 15th Amendment on the right to vote did not automatically result in the desired change. As Kennedy said, people remained slaves to poverty and injustice. They were still victimized by racist discrimination. Neither did equal treatment or equal opportunity automatically happen. Nor did the right to vote me mean that blacks were allowed to vote. In the American South, Jim Crow laws in the form of local ordinances, enforced segregation. On buses, in schools, in public building, segregation was enforced. Blacks could not drink from a White-only water fountain or sit on a Whit-only bench in a public park. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference set out to end segregation in the South. Arguably, in the South, Kings limited and specific objectives were achieved. When he took his campaign to the North, he failed. By then, his leadership of the movement was under challenge. Less realistic or realizable goals failed to win public opinion, which had happened in the South. Finally, what lessons are there for more recent events may have been better dealt with, or avoided.
King, a Baptist minister and theologian with a doctorate from Boston University (Katz 46) was recruited to civil rights activism following an incident in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man, so was arrested. King was invited to organize and lead a bus boycott. A year later, segregation on buses in Birmingham ended when the Supreme Court ruled that, the city ordinance mandating racial segregation was unconstitutional (45). This built on an earlier verdict, the famous Brown v Board of Education ruling of 1954, when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People presented the this care before the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that segregation in schools contravened the 14th Amendment. After this historic ruling, the culmination of much work and many legal cases by the NAACP, little or no action followed. No national plan was proposed. Desegregation proceeded school board by school board. Southern courts permitted delays. The KKK marched. Governors spoke about States rights verses the federal. Evoking memory of the Confederacys secession from the Union they threatened to defy the law. King and those with whom he formed the SCLP, after success in Montgomery, realized that achieving legal change alone was not enough. The NAACP believed that lobbying and legal challenges would work. King decided that direct action, such as boycotts and marches to disrupt the smooth running of cities, would force de-segregation, now ruled illegal, to actually happen. His commitment to non-violence was un-conditional, in part inspired by Mahatma Gandhi (48-9) but it was also rooted in his theology. He wanted to get white public opinion on his side. He believed in common human values, that when people saw the iniquity of segregation, they would make the right moral choice and end it. He believed, argued in his doctoral thesis, the men and women have the power to choose good over evil (46).
His Conference was a loose coalition of like-minded Christians, involving mainly ministers. It was tightly organized or national, unlike the NAACP (43). The goals were the same but King would take pre-emptive action on the street, not take legal cases to court. Even when courts ruled against segregation, it continued. Kings tactic in the South aimed to create conditions that would compel local government to end segregation. He would hit where it metaphorically hurt, in the pocket. The Montgomery campaign ended segregation because, with black passengers refusing to travel, running the bus service was too costly. Ending segregated restrooms, park benches, drinking fountains and other petty discriminations, could be achieved by shutting down cities. Boycotts, marches, civil disobedience, convinced authorities to end these practices. Freedom Riders went out to test whether integration was working on public transport (55). King went to where racism was rampant, initiating the confrontation in Birmingham, Alabama. He calculated that police chief, Eugene Bull Connor, would over-react. He did. Clash after clash took place. Activists, including King, (not for the first time) were jailed. King knew from Montgomery that non-violent protest could win public sympathy and generate political support (54-5). When moderate white clergy called his intervention unwise and untimely, he replied, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere (57). People who said, wait had never experienced the stinging dart of segregation.  When Kennedy saw a police dog bite a teenagers stomach on the news, he was sickened and pledged to support civil rights legislation (59). The heart of the matter, he said, is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights (14). He slowed pace when he saw that public opinion was mixed. However, his successor telephoned King the night of Kennedys funeral, promising he would push the legislation through as a tribute to Kennedy his memory. Johnson did pass important legislation but also slowed down due to opposition in the South, where he needed votes.
         King subscribed to the American dream, the vision of a land of opportunity and freedom for black and white equally. King pleaded for a society in which people were not judged by their skin-color but by the content of their character. Others did not think white Americans would ever live happily with blacks, or allow black people complete equality. Blacks would remain second-class. Based on separatism, this vision rejected Kings dream of an integrated society in which men and women, black and white, would unite in brotherhood. He preached equality and non-violence. They preached black pride and power, self-defense or armed resistance. This, effectively, split the civil rights movement into pro-violence and anti-violence wings (362).  Increasingly, King believed that without improving housing, employment and ending poverty, paper freedom and equality was hollow. He decided to take his campaign to the North where he wanted to dramatize housing inequalities and discrimination. He chose Chicago. The goal was for Congress to pass a housing reform bill (363). He pushed his demonstration deep into white neighborhoods. White mobs responded by throwing stones, bottles and other missiles (366). Blacks responded. Thousands of police tried to restore peace. Many were injured. The public was less supportive. They did not understand what King wanted to achieve. In the South, they could see that de-segregating buses and allowing blacks to drink from any public fountain, were reasonable, inexpensive, achievable demands. However, building better houses, desegregating a better public housing project, not housing blacks in poor, run-down districts with failing schools, costs more and is less easy to achieve. You cannot evict people from a project because they are white, to let a black person in. In the North, segregation was illegal but happened anyway. If black people are forced to live in a black neighborhood, it may follow that the local school is badly financed, due to how school districts are funded. Kings North campaign also failed because though he practiced non-violence, others rioted. Public expressed sympathy when they saw peaceful blacks hurt by racists and police. In Chicago, blacks and racist whites appeared equally violent. Nor did the public see an easily achievable solution. Petty racist practices, supported by petty laws, can be abandoned. Racism in the North was embedded in peoples hearts, not sanctioned by laws. Johnson said that to pass a house bill would reward rioters (345).
Johnson now had competing priorities, the war in Vietnam, which diverted necessary funds from domestic social programs such as fighting poverty. King, having won the Nobel Peace Prize, had stepped onto a wider stage. He shifted to a broader poverty elimination and international peace platform. He opposed Vietnam. Civil rights at home and extricating the US from Vietnam were linked. Others wanted him to stick to his mission (350). This dissipated his energies. It also fractured the civil rights movement. Who now represented blacks, King or proponents of black separatism He opposed the war for killing blacks, as immoral and wasteful. The FBI accused King and the SCLC of communist sympathy. Now am FBI-led campaign to discredit King picked up momentum. To oppose Vietnam was to support Communism.
King was unable, before his assassination (1968), to purse his war on poverty or to bring about major changes in housing. Consequently, life for many blacks in the South and the North did not change, except in relatively petty ways such as riding on a desegregated bus that whites dont ride anyway because they have cars. Blacks dont. Discrimination in employment and in allocation of public housing is illegal but difficult to challenge. If you do not get the job you want, it is almost impossible to prove that this was caused by prejudice and not because of a more qualified candidates success. Kings campaign did not end discrimination and racism but it did end legal, often petty segregations. The campaign to end segregation in schools ended a less petty type of racism, with far reaching consequences. Ending legal obstacles to voting also represents a substantial victory. Now, many more blacks attend better schools, obtain better jobs and many have successfully contested public office.
The end of petty segregation in the South did not end segregation itself. In a city such as New Orleans, blacks occupy inferior houses, attend inferior schools and live in all-black neighborhoods. Too many blacks are in prison for crimes they did not commit. The Army Corps of Engineers failed to provide the flood protection needed. If the down-down area had been a prosperous, all-white community, they would have done so. Once Katrina hit, the relevant response services were slow to act. Whites were re-housed or compensated while blacks were neglected, due to deep-seated psychological racism that Kings tactics neither ended nor could end, North or South. Was he too confident about human nature Are more legal steps needed, or can government rely on people to choose good over evil Once again, while poverty and unemployment and lack of health care are rampant in the US, soldiers  many black  are dying in foreign wars. One important lesson of the 1960s is that united we stand, divided we perish. A partnership between all concerned is more effective than disparate, competing efforts. If communities appear to be given special treatment, regardless of the genuineness of their need, others will complain, even react violently. King and Johnson, black activist and white President, worked best when united. What is lacking is a bi-partisan coalition in Congress of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans. That is why health care reform is failing. There is no consensus, no willingness to work for the good of all, for my people and for yours. No one would be talking about racism during the post-Katrina response if King had completely succeeded.