The Civil Rights Movement

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The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a crucial moment in America’s history. With issues pertaining to racism and discrimination, especially of African Americans, the Movement initiated protests and actions that eventually altered the status of the respective community. Even though African Americans can presently live in a racially equal society, the present situation seems to warrant further action locally and globally.

The key issues that the Civil Rights Movement addressed mostly involved racial inequality and discrimination. Through edicts such as the Jim Crow Laws, African Americans were segregated and treated as second-class citizens (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt 56). The idea of being “separate but equal” only limited the community from gaining suffrage especially in exercising their democratic rights. Additionally, African Americans were exposed to structural discrimination in organizations and public facilities.

The impact of the Civil Rights Movement can be felt by the rights that African Americans can exercise. For instance, the abolition of voter-qualification assessments, literacy tests, and poll taxes laid the foundation that African Americans would use to attain voting rights (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt 87). In addition, the passage of laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed racial discrimination hence allowing African Americans and all minorities to gain employment, housing, and function as members of the American society.

Despite the strides made due to the Movement’s impact, African Americans still face discrimination, specifically institutionalized racism. A good illustration of this is the mass imprisonment of black males in American prisons (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt 167). African Americans have also been subjected to prejudicial treatment by police organizations due to protocols such as racial profiling that have so far resulted in the deaths of numerous innocent African Americans.

Indeed, the Civil Rights Movement established a considerable impact on the treatment of African Americans. The effect has since been illustrated by the minorities’ capacity to exercise their voting privileges, attain employment, access public facilities, housing, and resources in an equal manner. However, such groups are susceptible to institutionalized racism locally and internationally as evidenced by diminished levels of progress among minorities. To this end, if civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. were present today, they would continue to push forward for absolute equality.

Works Cited

Bardes, Barbara A., Mack C. Shelley, and Steffen W. Schmidt. American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials. Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2017.