Black Civil Rights

– Supported By The Government. Essay, Research Paper

Was

the struggle for African American civil rights won with or without the

help of the US federal government.The

Federal government of the United States has at different times taken different

attitudes towards the African-American community and the campaign for civil

rights.. Furthermore, different branches

of the Federal government have often reacted differently to demands for civil

rights.. At times, the Supreme Court has

taken a very reactionary stance, Plessy vs. Ferguson being just one

example.. At other times, it has been

very supportive of civil rights, as in the seminal decision in Brown vs.

Board of Education.. Likewise, the

executive has varied in its approach..

Roosevelt appeared sympathetic but did little.. Eisenhower was essentially reactionary.. Kennedy and Johnson actively supported civil rights

campaigners.. In the legislature,

Congress was sometimes reactionary, and yet it was Congress which ultimately

passed civil rights legislation.. However,

despite this variation in Federal policy, it is my intention in this essay to

show that the civil rights movement was ultimately dependent on the Federal

government for success, and that without the Federal government there would

have been no abolition of segregation..

I intend to show this by looking at the actions of the three branches of

the Federal government in turn, and then finally at the citizens movements in

order to show their inability to bring about reform without the aid of the

Federal government.The

Federal judiciary is generally considered to have been instrumental in the

struggle for civil rights, quite often at the expense of the other branches of

government.. For example, Charles

Hamilton in his essay Federal Law and the Courts. in the Civil Rights Movement states that .because the other

branches of government were not responsive to often-perceived legitimate

demands of the civil rights advocates, the courts had thrust upon them the task

of preserving systemic legitimacy...

Hamilton argues that the courts were the only place where the civil

rights movement could make any progress, because of the dismissive attitude of

the executive and legislature to the civil rights movement.Although

it is certainly the case that the judiciary played a very important role in

ending de jure segregation, Hamilton does seem to have forgotten that

very often the Federal courts, and even the Supreme Court (which was after Brown

seen as the main ally of civil rights in the government), had often given decisions

which were in fact harmful to the advance of civil rights in the United

States.. One need not go back so far as Plessy

vs. Ferguson to discover these sorts of verdicts being delivered.. Walker vs. Birmingham in 1963 was

decided against the civil rights groups, albeit by a 5-4 decision with Chief

Justice Warren in dissent.. Furthermore,

many individual Federal judges were blatantly racist in the decisions they

made, as even Hamilton admits, citing the examples of Cox and Clayton.The

federal judiciary, then, showed a mixed reaction to the civil rights movement,

sometimes appearing to act in favour of it and sometimes appearing to support

the segregationist opponents of civil rights..

However, seminal decisions like Brown show that the Supreme

Court, at least, was generally sympathetic..

One further thing needs to be said regarding the role of the judiciary,

which is that it is impossible for the judiciary alone to change anything.. After the Supreme Court ruling in Brown,

some states, notably Alabama and Mississippi, refused to acknowledge the

decision, claiming that it was unconstitutional.. The Courts were entirely dependent on the legislature to enact

laws to support civil rights, and on the executive to take action to enforce

the laws, by force if necessary.The

situation in Congress was inevitably more complicated than that in the Supreme

Court.. Naturally, many Congressmen were

from the South and were in favour of segregation.. Congress was therefore much less likely to be supportive of the

civil rights movement, even if many of the Representatives and Senators were

sympathetic to its cause.. However, the

support of Congress was vital if decisions like Brown were to take

effect and be implemented in the South..

As Woodward points out in The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by 1955

.there were as yet no .teeth. in the Court.s decision against segregated

schools... This was because of a lack of

Federal legislation to enforce the Court.s decision.. In the absence of such legislation, individual States were keen

to pass legislation of their own to effectively void the decision in the Brown

case.. Although individual cases against

this State law could be brought before the Courts, Federal leg

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