Morris states in Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, “Perspectives determine which questions are asked and significantly shape the explanation that are thought to provide the key answers. A perspective is valuable if it provides answers to a set of core questions that enhance our basic understanding of an important phenomenon. Perspectives do not simply represent different opinions on a matter. Perspectives clash.” In order to understand how the civil rights movement worked, we need to grasp indigenous perspectives. These perspectives embody the organizations, institutions, leaders, monetary ties, communication networks, and organized crowds inside indigenous groups. To paint a clear picture of this movement we need to unpack the central pieces of rhetorical evidence that was used in theses indigenous perspectives. In the end this helped propel the fight for equality and freedom in America. From the first sit-ins, to the first African American President, the ideological perspectives have influenced the way our nation stands united and free. It is important to understand these perspectives because they were the conflicting issues that segregated a nation solely on the color of your skin. The African American Civil Rights Movement is perhaps the most controversial movement in history, but it is also holds some of the most important fundamental roots that structure our world …show more content…
The importance of these two documents signified the first instance in which African-Americans had a form representation, although it was not yet equal representation. In 1789, The Constitution was adopted delegating the governmental framework of our country. In this document slaves were counted a three-firths of a person for means of representation. “For several centuries, African Americans had been legally defined not as “citizens” but as private property through the legal institution of slavery”, according to Manning. The growth of slavery produced high rising political and social conflicts within American society, which culminated in the Civil War. In 1861, as the Civil War approached, tens of thousands of enslaved African Americans of all ages escaped from the South, to the North Union Lines for freedom. The Enlistment Act of July 1862 stated that black troops should receive half the amount of salary that whites received. Manning also states, “Despite the insult, close to 186,000 African-Americans enlisted in the Union army.” As the nation approached its third year of the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This was the most revolutionary pronouncement ever signed by an American president, breaking the