Civil Rights Movement Social Impact in 21st Century

Civil Rights Movement Social Impact in 21st Century



Civil Rights Movement Social Impact in 21st Century

Introduction

The re-emergence of the civil rights movement following World War II inspired and propelled forward all of the oppositional and liberation movements of the 1960s and '70s. After Jim Crow was defeated, the struggle for African-American freedom and self determination moved north. Here the movement faced considerable challenges confronting the myriad ways in which institutionalized racism is embedded in the country's economic and social institutions. Some militants faced surveillance and state repression. Others were drawn into the Democratic Party, which systematically demobilized the mass movement responsible for winning significant concessions in the first place (Opel, Andy, and Donnalyn Pompper, 2003).

Discussion

As we explored and examined some of the actions of social movements in San Francisco, some parts of the site of the city bring me to feel like observing some actual life-size works from the Adbusters magazine. This EL Summer trip enabled me to see the actions and practices through which people make choices, shape action, and crate social movement in San Francisco. Once we step into one of the street sides, we could find some social active messages or event announcements, such as AIDS Walk, Asian Heritage Street Celebration, Union Street Festival, Fiesta Filipina, and San Francisco Gay Pride Parade as well. This most diverse city have gone through in the history throughout from increasing the wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America to America's counterculture of Beat Generation, Hippies in Haight-Ashbury, and the gay rights movement, and experienced many various progressive social activism. At the same time, social movement in San Francisco reflect the general trend to the inclusiveness and acceptance of general world trends to integration of social movements.

The onslaught of neoliberalism was also particularly damaging to African-American communities in urban centers, as industry departed for the suburbs or the right-to-work states in the South. “Good” jobs declined. Poorer Blacks, unable or unwilling to leave cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta or New Orleans, were faced with deteriorating parks, libraries, schools and housing. Racism was the wedge whereby social programs won in the 1930s and '60s were cut, with the urban poor blamed for their deepening poverty. By the time Hurricane Katrina hit, lack of governmental assistance, both beforehand and afterward, perfectly symbolized the political marginalization of urban African Americans trapped in poverty. Even in the face of these tremendous difficulties, the political legacy of the Black freedom movement lives on through ideas and organization. Formations such as the Black Radical Congress, Million Worker March, and the recent Black Left Unity indicate a desire to regroup and renew a Black liberation agenda nationally (Brooks, David, and Jonathan Fox, 2002).

For draft-age youth in the 1960s opposition to the Vietnam War was a pivotal experience. The antiwar movement, like other movements, began as a minority but “infected” the general population, including U.S. soldiers at home and ...