The Black Freedom Movement

Both the black freedom movement and the women’s movement were vital to the progress of equality in the United States. These two groups of citizens have been considered inferior to the white, American male for nearly all of history. Black males slowly gained headway over women of any race with the right to vote in 1870, yet true equality of race continued to be a hope for the future. Following World War II, knowledge expanded and struggles continued to occur between white and black and male and female, sparking the evolution of rights movements. One may be inclined to believe the black freedom movement and the women’s movement were mirror images based on the goals each strived to achieve and the concentrated resistance of the South. However,
Starting as early as World War II, the black freedom movement was founded in the goal of destabilizing the racial system of the United States, and especially in the South. Even though various opinions were held as to how that goal should be achieved by the numerous different protest groups, the end to segregation and beginning of racial justice and true freedom were unifying in the black freedom movement. The women’s movement can be categorized in two ways: feminism and women’s liberation. Overall, the goals of the women’s movement are comparable to those of the black freedom movement. The first wave of feminism had the vote at the top of the priority list, but the second wave and women’s liberation had a broader spectrum of goals most notably personal freedom. The National Organization for Women (NOW) was modeled after the civil rights organization, demanding equality in jobs, education, and political rights. The black freedom movement and particularly the second wave of feminism and women’s liberation are similar in that the right to vote was written into law in earlier years, yet these minorities continued to feel the need to press for equal opportunity as the white male. A major reason for this can be seen in the prominent anti-civil rights and anti-feminism position of the South. These surface level similarities, however,
The black freedom movement saw many different philosophies for how to acquire the progress they wanted, most notably being the contrasting “civil disobedience” and Black Power. Any group involved with the black freedom movement was faced with hardships like jailing, police brutality, bombings and riots by the anti-civil rights protestors. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was the face of the civil disobedience tactic, partnered with other organizations such as the NAACP, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Dr. King explains the theory behind civil disobedience as a four-step process: collection of facts, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. This process allowed for “constructive tension” to be implemented, which Dr. King felt was necessary for change to occur. Black Power, and emerging group the Black Panther Party, took different approaches to the obstructions that were felt during the black freedom movement suggesting that “freedom could be won only through a revolutionary struggle for self-determination.” When faced with police brutality or combating poverty against the black population, the Black Panther Party fought independently with armed self-defense