A Deeper Look into the Civil Rights Movement

           When Aram Goudsouzian spoke to us after we read his book, “Down to the Crossroads,” I had a better idea of what the Civil Rights Movement actually looked like. It was not the like the “master narrative” we learn about when we are growing up taking history classes. Obviously, we learn that it’s for the betterment of black lives. But did we ever learn about the critiques of different aspects of the movement? Black Americans had many aspirations they fought for, but they were not alone in this process. So what did the Civil Rights Movement actually look like?

The master narrative that had most likely been explained to us stated that the movement took place in the South after the court case Brown v. Board of Education, which turned out to be a legal triumph. Blacks participated in nonviolent protests, while the government was considered an ally to them. If someone asked you who the main figurehead of this movement was, they would most likely say Martin Luther King Jr. Lastly, black power arose due to the end of the movement. While this understanding of Civil Rights history is not necessarily wrong because these things are true, it is not exactly how it happened. This movement was a lot more complicated than that.

While we may have learned to see the Civil Rights Movement in the ways mentioned above, it was not that straightforward in actuality. Tons of people participated in the march. Both blacks and whites served either as protestors in the physical movement, as hosts where they offered their houses or land for the marchers to sleep, or as providers where any food and water they could give was handed to them. For another thing, not all black people had the same strategies, but they did work toward the same general outcome. There were groups like SNCC, SCLC, and CORE that each had their own strategies and goals, but their main goal together was to be seen as humans given full rights as the Americans they are. They wanted the government to enforce and uphold the laws that pertained to black rights. In this case, the government was not necessarily an ally, but it was not completely against black rights either. Lyndon B. Johnson had allowed acts to pass, yet he did not enforce them. Black power arose as an affirmative voice. Black Americans questioned why they had to live a more moral life if the majority of white people were not, so black power allowed them to defend pride in their culture and history and aspire for black institutions, etc. 1

The Civil Rights Movement spanned the nation. Many black philosophies came together for the success of this movement. Unfortunately, if James Meredith had not been shot, I do not believe such great things would have come out of this event. It all begins with one person trying to make a difference, trying to protest for his/her rights. This is what the Civil Rights Movement looked like: a complexity of philosophies with all groups of people marching toward a particular goal.2

WC: 514

Kendall Gasner

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1Goudsouzian, Aram. "Down to the Crossroads." Lecture, Rhodes College, Memphis, November 10, 2017.

2 Goudsouzian, Aram. Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.