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Civil rights movements are a worldwide series ofpolitical movements forequality before the law, that peaked in the 1960s.[citation needed] In many situations they have been characterized bynonviolent protests, or have taken the form of campaigns ofcivil resistance aimed at achieving change throughnonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations, they have been accompanied, or followed, bycivil unrest and armed rebellion. The process has been long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not, or have yet to, fully achieve their goals, although the efforts of these movements have led to improvements in the legal rights of some previously oppressed groups of people, in some places.
The main aim of the successfulcivil rights movement and other social movements for civil rights included ensuring that the rights of all people were and are equally protected by the law. These include but are not limited to therights of minorities,women's rights,disability rights andLGBT rights.
Northern Ireland is a part of theUnited Kingdom which has witnessed violence over many decades, known asthe Troubles, arising from tensions between the British (Unionist, Protestant) majority and the Irish (Nationalist, Catholic) minority following thePartition of Ireland in 1920.
The civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland can be traced to activists in Dungannon, led byAustin Currie, who were fighting for equal access to public housing for the members of the Catholic community. This domestic issue would not have led to a fight for civil rights were it not for the fact that being a registered householder was a qualification for local governmentfranchise in Northern Ireland.[citation needed]
In January 1964, theCampaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was launched in Belfast.[1] This organisation joined the struggle for better housing and committed itself to ending discrimination in employment. The CSJ promised the Catholic community that their cries would be heard. They challenged the government and promised that they would take their case to the Commission for Human Rights in Strasbourg and to the United Nations.[2]
Having started with basic domestic issues, the civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland escalated to a full-scale movement that found its embodiment in theNorthern Ireland Civil Rights Association. NICRA campaigned in the late sixties and early seventies, consciously modelling itself on the American civil rights movement and using similar methods ofcivil resistance. NICRA organised marches and protests to demand equal rights and an end to discrimination.
NICRA originally had five main demands:
All of these specific demands were aimed at an ultimate goal that had been the one of women at the very beginning: the end of discrimination.
Civil rights activists all over Northern Ireland soon launched a campaign ofcivil resistance. There was opposition from Loyalists, who were aided by theRoyal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland's police force.[citation needed] At this point, the RUC was over 90% Protestant. Violence escalated, resulting in the rise of theProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from the Catholic community, a group reminiscent of those from the War of Independence and the Civil War that occurred in the 1920s that had launched a campaign of violence to end British rule in Northern Ireland. Loyalistparamilitaries countered this with a defensive campaign of violence and theBritish government responded with a policy ofinternment without trial of suspected IRA members. For more than 300 people, the internment lasted several years. The huge majority of those interned by the British forces were Catholic. In 1978, in a case brought by the government of theRepublic of Ireland against the government of theUnited Kingdom, theEuropean Court of Human Rights ruled that theinterrogation techniques approved for use by British interrogators on internees in Northern Ireland amounted to "inhuman and degrading" treatment.
The IRA encouraged Republicans to join in the movement for civil rights but never controlled NICRA. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association fought for the end of discrimination toward Catholics and did not take a position on the legitimacy of the state.[3] Republican leaderGerry Adams explained subsequently that Catholics saw that it was possible for them to have their demands heard. He wrote that "we were able to see an example of the fact that you didn't just have to take it, you could fight back".[2] For an account and critique of the movements for civil rights in Northern Ireland, reflecting on the ambiguous link between the causes of civil rights and opposition to the union with the United Kingdom, see the work of Richard English.[4]
One of the most important events in the era of civil rights in Northern Ireland took place inDerry, which escalated the conflict from peaceful civil disobedience to armed conflict. TheBattle of the Bogside started on 12 August when an Apprentice Boys, a Protestant order, parade passed through Waterloo Place, where a large crowd was gathered at the mouth of William Street, on the edge of the Bogside. Different accounts describe the first outbreak of violence, with reports stating that it was either an attack by youth from theBogside on the RUC, or fighting broke out between Protestants and Catholics. The violence escalated and barricades were erected. Proclaiming this district to be theFree Derry, Bogsiders carried on fights with the RUC for days using stones and petrol bombs. The government finally withdrew the RUC andreplaced it with theBritish Army, which disbanded the crowds of Catholics who were barricaded in the Bogside.[5]
Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972, in Derry is seen by some as a turning point in the movement for civil rights. Fourteen unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers protesting againstinternment were shot and killed by soldiers from theParachute Regiment.
The peace process has made significant gains in recent years. Through open dialogue from all parties, a state of ceasefire by all major paramilitary groups has lasted. A stronger economy improved Northern Ireland's standard of living. Civil rights issues have become less of a concern for many in Northern Ireland over the past 20 years as laws and policies protecting their rights, and forms of affirmative action, have been implemented for all government offices and many private businesses. Tensions still exist, but the vast majority of citizens are no longer affected by violence.
The 1960s brought intense political and social change to theCanadian province ofQuebec, with the election of Liberal PremierJean Lesage after the death ofMaurice Duplessis, whose government was widely viewed as corrupt.[6] These changes includedsecularization of the education and health care systems, which were both heavily controlled by theRoman Catholic Church, whose support for Duplessis and hisperceived corruption had angered many Québécois. Policies of the Liberal government also sought to give Quebec more economic autonomy, such as thenationalization ofHydro-Québec and the creation of public companies for the mining, forestry, iron/steel and petroleum industries of the province. Other changes included the creation of theRégie des Rentes du Québec (Quebec Pension Plan) and new labour codes that made unionizing easier and gave workers the right to strike.
The social and economic changes of the Quiet Revolution gave life to theQuebec sovereignty movement, as more and more Québécois saw themselves as a distinctly culturally different from the rest of Canada. The segregationistParti Québécois was created in 1968 and won the1976 Quebec general election. They enactedlegislation meant to enshrineFrench as the language of business in the province, while also controversially restricting the usage ofEnglish on signs and restricting the eligibility of students to be taught in English.
A radical strand ofFrench Canadian nationalism produced theFront de libération du Québec (FLQ), which since 1963 has been usingterrorism to makeQuebec a sovereign nation. In October 1970, in response to the arrest of some of its members earlier in the year, the FLQ kidnapped British diplomatJames Cross and Quebec's Minister of LabourPierre Laporte, whom they later killed. The then Canadian Prime MinisterPierre Elliott Trudeau, himself a French Canadian, invoked theWar Measures Act, declaredmartial law in Quebec, and arrested the kidnappers by the end of the year.
Movements for civil rights in the United States include noted legislation and organized efforts to abolish public and private acts ofracial discrimination againstAfrican Americans and other disadvantaged groups between 1954 and 1968, particularly in thesouthern United States. It is sometimes referred to as the Second Reconstruction era, alluding to the unresolved issues of theReconstruction Era (1863–1877).
After 1890, the system ofJim Crow, disenfranchisement, and second class citizenship degraded the citizenship rights of African Americans, especially in the South. It was thenadir of American race relations. There were three main aspects:racial segregation – upheld by theUnited States Supreme Court decision inPlessy v. Ferguson in 1896 –, legally mandated by southern governments—voter suppression ordisfranchisement in the southern states, and private acts of violence andmass racial violence aimed at African Americans, unhindered or encouraged by government authorities. Although racial discrimination was present nationwide, the combination of law, public and private acts of discrimination, marginal economic opportunity, and violence directed toward African Americans in the southern states became known asJim Crow.
Noted strategies employed prior to 1955 included litigation and lobbying attempts by theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These efforts were a hallmark of the early American Civil Rights Movement from 1896 to 1954.
By 1955, blacks became frustrated by gradual approaches to implement desegregation by federal and state governments and the "massive resistance" by whites. The black leadership adopted a combined strategy ofdirect action withnonviolence, sometimes resulting innonviolent resistance andcivil disobedience. Some of the acts ofnonviolence and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between practitioners and government authorities. The authorities of federal, state, and local governments often acted with an immediate response to end the crisis situations – sometimes in the practitioners' favor. Some of the different forms of protests and/or civil disobedience employed includedeconomic boycotts, as successfully practiced by theMontgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) in Alabama which gave the movement one of its more famous icons inRosa Parks; "sit-ins", as demonstrated by two influential events, theGreensboro sit-in (1960) in North Carolina and theNashville sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee; the influential1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, in which children were set upon by the local authorities with fire hoses and attack dogs, and longer marches, as exhibited by theSelma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama which at first was resisted and attacked by the state and local authorities, and resulted in the1965 Voting Rights Act. The evidence of changing attitudes could also be seen around the country, where small businesses sprang up supporting the Civil Rights Movement, such as New Jersey's Everybody's Luncheonette.[7]
Besides the Children's Crusade and theSelma to Montgomery marches, another illustrious event of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement was theMarch on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August, 1963. It is best remembered for the "I Have a Dream" speech byMartin Luther King Jr. in which the speech turned into a national text and eclipsed the troubles the organizers had to bring to march forward. It had been a fairly complicated affair to bring together various leaders of civil rights, religious and labor groups. As the name of the march implies, many compromises had to be made in order to unite the followers of so many different causes. The "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" emphasized the combined purposes of the march and the goals that each of the leaders aimed at. The 1963 March on Washington organizers and organizational leaders, informally named the "Big Six", wereA. Philip Randolph,Roy Wilkins,Martin Luther King Jr.,Whitney Young,James Farmer andJohn Lewis. Although they came from different backgrounds and political interests, these organizers and leaders were intent on the peacefulness of the march, which had its own marshal to ensure that the event would be peaceful and respectful of the law.[8] The success of the march is still being debated, but one aspect which has been raised was the misrepresentation of women. A lot of feminine civil rights groups had participated in the organization of the march, but when it came to actual activity women were denied the right to speak and were relegated to figurative roles in the back of the stage. As some female participants noticed, the March can be remembered for the "I Have a Dream" speech but for some female activists it was a new awakening, forcing black women not only to fight for civil rights but also to engage in the Feminist movement.[9]
Noted achievements of theCivil Rights Movement include the judicial victory in theBrown v. Board of Education case that nullified the legal article of "separate but equal" and made segregation legally impermissible, and the passages of the1964 Civil Rights Act, .[10] that banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations, passage of theVoting Rights Act of 1965 that restored voting rights, and passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1968 that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
By 1967 the emergence of theBlack Power movement (1966–75) began to gradually eclipse the original "integrated power" aims of the successful Civil Rights Movement that had been espoused byMartin Luther King Jr. and others. Advocates of Black Power argued for blackself-determination, and asserted that theassimilation inherent in integration robsAfricans of their common heritage and dignity. For example, the theorist and activistOmali Yeshitela argues that Africans have historically fought to protect their lands, cultures, and freedoms from Europeancolonialists, and that any integration into the society which has stolen another people and their wealth is an act oftreason.
Today, most Black Power advocates have not changed their self-sufficiency argument.Racism still exists worldwide, and some believe that blacks in the United States, on the whole, did not assimilate into U.S. "mainstream" culture. Blacks arguably became even more oppressed, this time partially by "their own" people in a new blackstratum of themiddle class and theruling class. Black Power's advocates generally argue that the reason for thisstalemate and further oppression of the vast majority of U.S. blacks is because Black Power's objectives have not had the opportunity to be fully carried through.
One of the most public manifestations of the Black Power movement took place in the 1968 Olympics, when two African-Americans,Tommie Smith andJohn Carlos, stood on the podium doing a Black Power salute. This act is still remembered today as the1968 Olympics Black Power salute.
The Chicano Movement occurred during the civil rights era that sought political empowerment and social inclusion for Mexican-Americans around a generally nationalist argument. The Chicano movement blossomed in the 1960s and was active through the late 1970s in various regions of the U.S. The movement had roots in the civil rights struggles that had preceded it, adding to it the cultural and generational politics of the era.
The early heroes of the movement—Rodolfo Gonzales inDenver andReies Tijerina in New Mexico—adopted a historical account of the preceding hundred and twenty-five years that had obscured much of Mexican-American history. Gonzales and Tijerina embraced a nationalism that identified the failure of the United States government to live up to its promises in theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In that account, Mexican Americans were a conquered people who simply needed to reclaim their birthright and cultural heritage as part of a new nation, which later became known asAztlán.
That version of the past did not, but take into account the history of those Mexicans who had immigrated to the United States. It also gave little attention to the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States in the 1960s— which is not surprising, since immigration did not have the political significance it later acquired. It was a decade later when activists, such as Bert Corona in California, embraced the rights of undocumented workers and helped broaden the movement to include their issues.
When the movement dealt with practical problems in the 1960s, most activists focused on the most immediate issues confronting Mexican Americans; unequal educational and employment opportunities, political disfranchisement, and police brutality. In the heady days of the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano movement brought about more or less spontaneous actions, such as the mass walkouts by high school students in Denver andEast Los Angeles in 1968 and theChicano Moratorium in Los Angeles in 1970.
The movement was particularly strong at the college level, where activists formed MEChA,Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, which promoted Chicano Studies programs and a generalized ethno-nationalist agenda.
At a time when peacefulsit-ins were a common protest tactic, theAmerican Indian Movement (AIM) takeovers in their early days were noticeably violent. Some appeared to be spontaneous outcomes of protest gatherings, but others included armed seizure of public facilities.
TheAlcatraz Island occupation of 1969, although commonly associated with NAM, pre-dated the organization, but was a catalyst for its formation.
In 1970, AIM occupied abandoned property at theNaval Air Station nearMinneapolis. In July 1971, it assisted in a takeover of the Winter Dam, Lac Courte Oreilles, andWisconsin. When activists took over theBureau of Indian Affairs Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in November 1972, they sacked the building and 24 people were arrested. Activists occupied theCuster County Courthouse in 1973, though police routed the occupation after a riot took place.
In 1973 activists and military forces confronted each other in theWounded Knee incident. The standoff lasted 71 days, and two men died in the violence.
If the period associated withfirst-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such assuffrage (which led to women attaining the right to vote in the early part of the 20th century), the period of thesecond-wave feminism was concerned with the issues such as changing social attitudes and economic, reproductive, and educational equality (including the ability to have careers in addition to motherhood, or the right to choose not to have children) between the genders and addressed the rights of female minorities. The new feminist movement, which spanned from 1963 to 1982, explored economic equality, political power at all levels, professional equality, reproductive freedoms, issues with the family, educational equality, sexuality, and many other issues.
Since the mid-19th century inGermany, social reformers have used the language of civil rights to argue against the oppression of same-sex sexuality, same-sex emotional intimacy, andgender variance. Largely, but not exclusively, theseLGBT movements have characterized gender variant and homosexually oriented people as aminority group(s); this was the approach taken by thehomophile movement of the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. With the rise ofsecularism in the West, an increasing sexual openness, women's liberation, the 1960scounterculture, the AIDS epidemic, and a range ofnew social movements, the homophile movement underwent a rapid growth and transformation, with a focus on building community and unapologetic activism which came to be known as theGay Liberation.
The words "Gay Liberation" echoed "Women's Liberation"; theGay Liberation Front consciously took its name from the "National Liberation Fronts" ofVietnam andAlgeria, and the slogan "Gay Power", as a defiant answer to the rights-oriented homophile movement, was inspired byBlack Power andChicano Power. The GLF's statement of purpose explained:
We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature.
— GLF statement of purpose
GLF activistMartha Shelley wrote,
We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure.
— "Gay is Good",Martha Shelley, 1970
Gay Liberationists aimed at transforming fundamental concepts and institutions of society, such asgender and thefamily. In order to achieve suchliberation,consciousness raising anddirect action were employed. Specifically, the word 'gay' was preferred to previous designations such as homosexual orhomophile; some saw 'gay' as a rejection of thefalse dichotomy heterosexual/homosexual. Lesbians and gays were urged to "come out" and publicly reveal their sexuality to family, friends and colleagues as a form of activism, and to counter shame withgay pride. "Gay Lib" groups were formed in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, the UK, the US, Italy and elsewhere. The lesbian groupLavender Menace was also formed in the U.S. in response to both the male domination of other Gay Lib groups and the anti-lesbian sentiment in the Women's Movement. Lesbianism was advocated as a feminist choice for women, and the first currents oflesbian separatism began to emerge.
By the late 1970s, the radicalism of Gay Liberation was eclipsed by a return to a more formal movement that became known as theGay and Lesbian Rights Movement.
In the 1960s, the early years of theBrezhnev stagnation,dissidents in the Soviet Union increasingly turned their attention civil and eventually human rights concerns. The fight for civil and human rights focused on issues offreedom of expression,freedom of conscience,freedom to emigrate,punitive psychiatry, and the plight ofpolitical prisoners. It was characterized by a new openness of dissent, a concern for legality, the rejection of any 'underground' and violent struggle.[11] It played a significant role in providing a common language and goal for many Soviet dissidents, and became a cause for diverse social groups in the dissident millieu, ranging from activists in the youth subculture to academics such asAndrei Sakhrarov.
Significantly, Soviet dissidents of the 1960s introduced the "legalist" approach of avoiding moral and political commentary in favor of close attention to legal and procedural issues. Following several landmark trials of writers (Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, the trials ofAlexander Ginzburg andYuri Galanskov) and an associated crackdown on dissidents by theKGB, coverage of arrests and trials insamizdat (unsanctioned press) became more common. This activity eventually led to the founding of theChronicle of Current Events in April 1968. The unofficial newsletter reported violations of civil rights and judicial procedure by the Soviet government and responses to those violations by citizens across the USSR.[12]
Throughout the 1960s–1980s, dissidents in the civil and human rights movement engaged in a variety of activities: The documentation of political repression and rights violations insamizdat (unsanctioned press); individual and collective protest letters and petitions; unsanctioned demonstrations; an informal network of mutual aid for prisoners of conscience; and, most prominently, civic watch groups appealing to the international community. All of these activities came at great personal risk and with repercussions ranging from dismissal from work and studies to many years of imprisonment inlabor camps and being subjected topunitive psychiatry.
The rights-based strategy of dissent merged with the idea of human rights. The human rights movement included figures such asValery Chalidze,Yuri Orlov, andLyudmila Alexeyeva. Special groups were founded such as theInitiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR (1969) and theCommittee on Human Rights in the USSR (1970). Though faced with the loss of many members to prisons, labor camps, psychiatric institutions and exile, they documented abuses, wrote appeals to international human rights bodies, collected signatures for petitions, and attended trials.
The signing of theHelsinki Accords (1975) containing human rights clauses provided civil rights campaigners with a new hope to use international instruments. This led to the creation of dedicatedHelsinki Watch Groups in Moscow (Moscow Helsinki Group), Kiev (Ukrainian Helsinki Group), Vilnius (Lithuanian Helsinki Group), Tbilisi, and Erevan (1976–77).[13]: 159–194
The Prague Spring (Czech:Pražské jaro,Slovak:Pražská jar,Russian: пражская весна) was a period of political liberalization inCzechoslovakia starting on January 5, 1968, and running until August 20 of that year, when theSoviet Union and itsWarsaw Pact allies (except forRomania) invaded the country.
DuringWorld War II, Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, theEastern Bloc. Since 1948 there were no parties other than theCommunist Party in the country and it was indirectly managed by the Soviet Union. Unlike other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the communist take-over in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was, although as brutal as elsewhere, a genuine popular movement. Reform in the country did not lead to the convulsions seen inHungary.
Towards the end of World War IIJoseph Stalin wanted Czechoslovakia, and signed an agreement withWinston Churchill andFranklin D. Roosevelt thatPrague would be liberated by theRed Army, despite the fact that theUnited States Army under GeneralGeorge S. Patton could have liberated the city earlier. This was important for the spread of pro-Russian (and pro-communist)propaganda that came right after the war. People still remembered what they felt as Czechoslovakia's betrayal by the West at theMunich Agreement. For these reasons, the people voted for communists in the 1948 elections, the last democratic poll to take place there for a long time.
From the middle of the 1960s, Czechs and Slovaks showed increasing signs of rejection of the existing regime. This change was reflected by reformist elements within the communist party by installingAlexander Dubček as party leader. Dubček's reforms of the political process inside Czechoslovakia, which he referred to asSocialism with a human face, did not represent a complete overthrow of the old regime, as was the case inHungary in 1956. Dubček's changes had broad support from the society, including theworking class, but was seen by the Soviet leadership as a threat to their hegemony over other states of the Eastern Bloc and to the very safety of the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia was in the middle of the defensive line of the Warsaw Pact and its possible defection to the enemy was unacceptable during theCold War.
However, a sizeable minority in the ruling party, especially at higher leadership levels, was opposed to any lessening of the party's grip on society and actively plotted with the leadership of the Soviet Union to overthrow the reformers. This group watched in horror as calls for multi-party elections and other reforms began echoing throughout the country.
Between the nights of August 20 and August 21, 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. During the invasion, Soviet tanks ranging in numbers from 5,000 to 7,000 occupied the streets. They were followed by a large number of Warsaw Pact troops ranging from 200,000 to 600,000.
The Soviets insisted that they had been invited to invade the country, stating that loyal Czechoslovak Communists had told them that they were in need of "fraternal assistance against thecounter-revolution". A letter which was found in 1989 proved an invitation to invade did indeed exist. During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 72Czechs andSlovaks were killed (19 of those inSlovakia) and hundreds were wounded (up to September 3, 1968). Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken toMoscow, along with several of his colleagues.
Australia was settled by the British without a treaty or recognition of the Indigenous population,[14] consisting ofAboriginal Australian andTorres Strait Islander peoples. There were constraints onvoting rights in some states until as late as 1965 (Queensland), andland rights were hard fought for, with the granting ofnative title in Australia only coming into force federally in 1993.Cultural assimilation byforcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families took place until late in the 20th century. Like other international civil rights movements, the push for progress has involved protests (SeeFreedom Ride (Australia) andAboriginal Tent Embassy) and seen riots in response to social injustice, such as the2004 Redfern riots andPalm Island riot.
While there has been significant progress in redressing discriminatory laws,[15] Indigenous Australians continue to be at a disadvantage compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts, on key measures such as:life expectancy; infant mortality; health;imprisonment; and levels of education and employment. An ongoing government strategy calledClosing the Gap is in place in an attempt to remedy this.[16]
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