The Hope That Stremmed For The Fight

For Equality Essay, Research Paper

1963: The Hope that Stemmed from the Fight for Equality There is a desire in every person’s inner being to strive for equality. The fight for equalization has existed throughout time. Jews, Negroes, women, and homosexuals are examples of those who have been inspired to fight for equal rights, for justice, and for freedom. The struggle for black equality was the event that turned the United States of America upside down. For over two centuries, Negroes have struggled to work their way up the ladder to ultimate parity. Methods for obtaining this equality differed over the years. Escaping slaves, underground railroads, court cases, demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches all played into the ever-complicating history of this struggle. The intense hatred of whites for Negroes grew out of the Civil War. One of the reasons for the war was the issue of slavery. When the Confederates lost the war, their position in the political world was taken away. Any position held by someone connected with the Confederacy was given to a northern man. In many cases, the new man was a Negro. The Negroes did not have the opportunity for equality long. After a few years relations between the north and the south were restored, and the position was taken away from the Negroes and given back to white men. In the time that the Negroes occupied these positions, southern whites developed a deep hatred and animosity for Negroes. From that day forward the strain between blacks and whites grew. Racial discrimination appeared to be eternally present. Hope looked slim as the years wore on, and little progress was made toward freedom. Tension came to a head in 1963 as Negroes grew tired of silent acceptance of racial discrimination. Demonstrations, sit-ins, peace talks, and marches graced the front pages of the newspapers in major cities in the south and in the north. The hope of a future for African-American people in America was greatly affected by the struggles and persecution they endured during the year 1963. The struggles started in the hearts of every black person alive. The feelings began with children as they were called “niggers”, and as they were beat up upon by white children. The opportunity to fight back wasn’t given, nor was it taught in Negro homes. As jobs were gained in the white world, discrimination grew. Striving for excellence and higher knowledge of the trade was forbidden and punishable by the loss of the job. Anger and bitterness grew in hearts until they knew it was time to act as a people. In order to properly view the hope that resulted from 1963’s events, the events themselves must be looked at. As the actions of the Negroes became more prominent, the white hatred for them increased steadily. Harrison and Salsbury portrayed it well. “Every channel of communication, every medium of mutual interest, every reasoned approach, every inch of middle ground has been fragmented by the emotional dynamite of racism reinforced by the whip, the razor, the gun, the bomb, the torch, the club, the knife, the mob, the police, and many branches of the state’s apparatus.” (275) The southern city in the greatest spotlight was Birmingham, Alabama. It provided a graphic view of the conditions common in cities all over the country. Staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters started off as the main form of demonstration. The police rushed in and tried to take control, but with the reoccurrence of this act came the withdrawal of the police forces on the scene. Lunch counters simply closed down. The next form of battle was mass demonstration. In these mass demonstration marches thousands of people gathered in the churches where they were given instructions by prominent Negro leaders. From there they flooded the main streets of Birmingham singing, “We shall overcome” (”Tension Growing Over Race Issues” 37). Thousands were jailed, including men, women, teenagers, and children. This did not stop the Negroes. As the demonstration marches continued, police took to more drastic measures. The reports in the Life magazine read like this: “With vicious guard dogs the police attacked the marchers — and thus rewarded them with an outrage that would win support all over the world for Birmingham Negroes. If the Negroes themselves had written the script, they could hardly have asked for greater help for their cause than City Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor freely gave. Ordering his men to let white spectators come near, he said: “I want ‘em to see the dogs work. Look at those niggers run.” This extraordinary sequence — Brutal as it is as a Negro gets his trousers ripped off by Conner’s dogs — is the attention-getting jack pot of the Negroes’ provocation” (30). The pictures taken during this time are grotesque. Violence was out of hand. The Negroes persevered through it all. Of a similar march in Washington it was stated, “More significant than the immediate effect the Washington civil rights march would have on the Congress of the U.S., more remarkable than the spectacle itself, was the Negroes’ orderly demonstration of their potential as a moral force” (”They come marching up Conscience Road”). Things in the city of Birmingham started looking up. Then, just as suddenly as peace was coming in, violence broke out again as black residences and hotels were bombed and rioted. There was a mass of people rioting in the streets. President Kennedy sent in federal troops against the governor’s wishe