Compare And Contrast The Civil Rights And South African Anti-Apartheid Movement

The U.S. Civil Rights and South African anti-apartheid movements both played major roles in beginning to dismantle the institutional racism that continued to plague most of the world throughout the 20th century. In the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) worked to combat the segregation and discrimination imposed by the Jim Crow laws, that created “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. Similarly, in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) waged war against the apartheid regime put in place by a white government descended from European colonists. Although both groups had similar goals in sight, the methods they used slightly differed. While
Mandela and his peers believed that the current ANC leaders were too soft-spoken and did not take a hard enough stance against the oppression that the African people were facing. Throughout Part Three of Long Walk to Freedom Mandela frequently mentions the need for a strong political body that could bring about liberty for Africans. As mentioned previously, Mandela believed that the time for diplomatic negotiation was over, and that it was now necessary to engage in large-scale activism and protest. As Mandela’s role in the ANC increased, the organization began calling for “the pursuit of political rights through the use of boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and noncooperation” (Mandela 115). Although Mandela and his constituents originally believed the struggle against apartheid should be a black-only movement, the ANC’s policy towards a mixed-race movement shifted through the 1950s, and by 1955, whites and Indians had become fully involved in the struggle with the creation of the Freedom Charter, which called for free and equal rights for all Africans in a language similar to that of the American
For this movement, King stressed the importance of following a “Jail not Bail” policy – “choosing imprisonment over paying fines if convicted” (Kirk 46). This action signified the resolve of the SCLC and proved they were willing to go to jail to support their cause. The sit-in movement would also lead to the birth of the Freedom Riders, civil rights protestors who rode Greyhound buses throughout the South in order to bring an end to segregation in the bus system. During the Freedom Ride, many of the riders were frequently harassed and even assaulted by Jim Crow supporters who were trying to end the movement – local police would often allow the Ku Klux Klan a 15-minute period to beat up the Freedom Riders without any punishment (Kirk 50). Although they faced frequent violence from police and other opposition, the SCLC and its allies remained committed to a strictly nonviolent form of protest. This typically led to great success due to the hostile reaction of racist bystanders who witnessed the SCLC’s demonstrations. To attempt to combat the success brought about by nonviolent activism, police began to quell their own use of force – instead of unleashing dogs on protestors, they would instead arrest them on charges that had nothing to do with segregation, eventually filling up the