Progress under Duress (African-Americans' fight for equality)

Great Debates
1

I guess with the resurgance of race and slavery and the Civil War as being hot topics on the board, I guess it was providence that lead me to the article on Salon.com this morning.

I’ve always wondered that why after the Civil War, progress for African-American’s have been slow between the end of reconstruction (the 1890s) to the time when everything broke down (the 1960s). Apparantly, Philip A. Klinkner did too.

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He wrote in Salon.com today that unless the nation is under duress, progress on racial matters either stagnates or retrogress. From all surface appearances, this seems to hold true.

O.K. the standard lesson given during the Black History Month is that progress on such matters is slow, but continuous (with the exception of retrogression before the Civil War and just after Reconstruction when Jim Crow was established, any blacks in legislature were removed, and the emirgance of the KKK and such groups).Blacks slowly thrive, but improve their station in life. And whites, slowly but steadly began to support them, with the exception of a vocal decreasing minority.

But I can’t think of any important advances in civil rights before WWII.

However, Klinkner argues that whites rarely vote directly (referendum, initiatives) to improve the lots of blacks (and one could possible extend/qualify that to mean the majority won’t vote to improve the lote of the minority) during times of tranquility. Usually, they fail or if they pass, it is due to a coalition of all the minorities, and less than a majority of whites.

However during times of unrest, Klinker argues, does measures to advance blacks tend to pass. Specifically, when

There is a lot of whats above, but no whys? We’ll probably be quibbling over the whats for a while. The articles don’t seem to answer why, but I have my half baked simplistic high-school level theory why.(it’s 2:00am and I should be posting.) If you have more power, you’re going to be very reluctant in ceding power to those beneath you. The powerful see the balance as fair and will argue that any change will make things unfair. Also, in general it is difficult for people to empathize with other. And also, the ongoing troubles of tribalism.

But the thing is we do realize (or the ones with the most power) do realize the immorality of it all, so whenever we, the U.S. has to enter the world stage, we need to tidy our things up. Anyway, the article explains things better than I can right now. I’d like to hear your opinions, additions, rebuttals, your Why’s etc.

Thank you, and good night.
SterlingNorth

2

Call me naive, but I just think thatt these matters are cyclical. Would things have been different had Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat a decade before it actually happened? A decade after?

I think that a movement such as any civil rights reform attempts can be traced down to, not an overwhelming sudden swing of opinions, but a few people who are able to create awareness, and eventually, this awareness MAKES people react in some way to something they might not have cared or even been privvy to.

We as a species tend to be somewhat selfish (If it doesn’t affect me, why should I care?), somewhat apathetic (If it doesn’t affect me, why should I do anything about it?) and somewhat territorial (If it affects you, then you do something about it!).

Only when a few people and/or events MAKE something enter the public conscience and MAKE peole think about it (and this usually coincides with issues suddenly affecting them personally or at least seeing the ramifications of these changes personally) do we get off our fences of ambivilence and/or ignorance and try and do something about it - no matter what side they wind up being on.

Yer pal,
Satan

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3

This is of course not true. I aways thought schools tought things like this to simpilify the subject for children, and to make it easier for teachers, and because school history courses are designed to produce patriotic americans.

The history of any peoples rights movements (blacks right, workers rights, womens rights) is two steps forward and one step back.

As to why this occurs, I would assume its because of the massive amounts of resources that a peoples rights movement consumes. We are talking about regular people. They have to live their lives and can agitate 24-7.