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The Civil Rights Movement started in the 1950s and took off in the 60s. Although events such as the Virginia High School Walkout where Barbara Johns demanded equal treatment as white students, the Brown v. Board of Education decision where the Supreme Court declared that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, and the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat all happened in the 1950s, these were events that sparked the initial Civil Rights movement. Most of the key events in the Civil Rights Movement occurred in the 1960s. It was in the sixties that actual legislative change happened. The fact that President John F. Kennedy made open his support for the civil rights movement contributed largely to the impact of the movement. JFK noted in 1963, “The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities; whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” Nonetheless, even though JFK proposed the Civil Rights Act in 1963, it was highly controversial and he did not live to see the Act be approved by Congress.
Civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. also wrote his famous open letter“Letter from Birmingham Jail” in 1963. J.H. Patton writes, “King's ‘Letter’ was an essential response for civil rights to continue as a mass movement in Birmingham and beyond. The ‘Letter transformed the idea of reasonableness from the province of moderation alone and united it with justifications for direct civil disobedience. Consequently, the ‘Letter’ as a rhetorical response opened a new public frame for pragmatic, value-based identification with civil rights for historical and contemporary audiences. (Patton 1)” By creative use of kairos and pathos, the letter rebutted the claims of the moderate white clergy in Birmingham and changed King's rhetorical persona and presence.
The letter seemed like a symbolic and spontaneous enactment of King’s determination and drive to promote civil rights. However, in reality, writing a letter to speak to the people from jail had been on the agenda as a strategy. The strategy worked; the letter greatly encouraged and strengthened people in a period of hopelessness and pessimism. Dr. King’s passion can be felt throughout the entire letter. He ends the letter with a call for ‘creative extremists’:
So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. (Letter From Birmingham Jail)
King explains the reason behind the Civil Rights Movement’s direct action in a portion of his letter as well. For Americans who may not understand why there has to be a mass movement for equal rights in the first place, rather than a negotiation to achieve those rights, King notes,
You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. (Letter From Birmingham Jail, emphasis added)
The strong verbs, words, and phrases he chooses to use are charged with passion.
King further explains that this passionate and unique call stems from African-American experiences that are difficult to even imagine as he also illustrates in his letter as well. He notes “vicious mobs” that “lynch mothers and fathers” that “drown [siblings] on a whim.” He mentions “hate-filled policemen” who “curse, kick and even kill” your black friends and family, and “the vast majority” of twenty million African-Americans living “in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.” He outlines an emotional and moving scene between African children and parents in conversation as well:
… when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?” (Letter From Birmingham Jail)
Indeed, the publication of King’s letter in 1963, quoted in large portions in this paper, fanned the fire for the Civil Rights Movement even throughout the nation mourning JFK’s assassination in November of the same year.
In 1964, the following year the Civil Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson after the House approved the bill. The Act was a historic turning point since it was the first government interference on a legal level in the face of segregation. The Civil Rights Act was designed to end segregation in public spaces and concerning employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Thus, the Civil Rights Act is deemed one of the “crowning legislative achievements” of the civil rights movement (“The Civil Rights Act of 1964”).
The law prohibited the enactment and enforcement, of segregation. However, the passing of the Civil Rights Act did not change long-established societal norms at the snap of a finger. There was still a stigma around treating African-Americans the same as whites although the law prohibited discrimination.
Aside from the Civil Rights Movement, throughout the sixties, another major issue that united and ignited Americans across the country was the Cold War. The Cold War was a passionate clash of ideologies on a global scale between the United States and the Soviet Union. A direct physical confrontation between the two superpowers never occurred, but wars such as the Vietnam War and the Korean War were a result of these ideological clashes. Moreover, the threat of another great world war accompanying nuclear annihilation loomed at this time.
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