The 60's: Finally, equality?

 The 60’s if you were a white middle class man or woman in the US or UK bring back exciting and enjoyable memories. But if you were a black man regardless of class, the 60’s couldn’t have been more different. Racial segregation, sadly, had become something of the norm in the States before the 60’s. Segregated branches of the armed forces were current throughout World War 2 but was abolished in 1948. A step in the right direction?

But, in the 50’s white parents began to withdraw their children from public schools and started to put them in ‘all white academies’. The segregation line was then clear to see between whoever was white and whoever wasn’t. Rosa Parks in 1955, one of the faces of the famous 60’s Civil Rights Movement, was arrested for refusing to give her seat up on the bus for a white man. One step back?

Martin Luther King, as we all know, was the main face of the Civil Rights movement. Before he was assassinated Luther gave his life to fighting inequality in the South. Another important man in the US at the time was the president John F. Kennedy. He was sympathetic of the movement along with his brother and Lyndon Johnson. During the 50’s and 60’s black people across the South began to protest and hold boycotts. They planned to disturb society and wake them up to a pressing issue. Americans needed to understand that this wasn’t a physical issue it was a moral one. The United States since its creation was led by Christian values which include love for all. King used this to his advantage. He led rallies across the north and south of America expressing the need for equality. One of his most famous actions during the movement was the attempted desegregation of one of the most segregated cities in the south, Birmingham Alabama. King’s tactics here were hard-line. He instructed people to be disruptive and to a certain extent reek havoc! Illegal marches and leaflet distributing was constant throughout the town. King aimed to create so much disturbance that the town would have to negotiate with him. Kennedy in the same year (1963) was quoted in saying ‘Its time to act’.  A step forward? Later that  year he was assassinated. An immediate step back? Two years later in August 1965 the Voting Rights Act was signed by the president Lyndon B. Johnson. Is this equality at last? After this was signed the US didn’t just live happily ever after. Far right activists protested against it and racial attacks still occurred. Segregation was still trying to be implemented in many places in the south. Racism was still very much alive in the United States and can it be said that it still is today?

So can this be seen as a transition and a new birth? Yes, yes it can. African Americans finally gained the right to vote in 65. As puzzling as it it is for why it took so long it did happen. Black people in America now had a political voice. The escalation of the Cold War then began to take the US politicians eyes away from this internal ongoing problem and attentions turned to the Soviets in the  East. So the question is: Have the US, to this day, properly addressed this racial inequality problem?

Kieran Topson