Two
issues are involved in the article: racial and sexual
discriminations. While many Americans are now condemning
racial discrimination against the blacks, not many are
really ready to admit that there is still prejudice against
women. The twentieth century is still a man’s world. Indeed,
no country can boast that its women enjoy full equality
with men. In many so-called “free and democratic countries”,
the equality is largely nominal.
Sexual discrimination has a longer history than racial
discrimination, and is therefore more deep-rooted in the
minds of millions of people. It has now been accepted
as axiomatic that equal rights to vote and to be elected
to national office are fundamental to women’s status.
Equality of franchise with men was fought for ardently
and for a long time by a dedicated minority against heavy
resistance on the part of the “established”. By 1971,
of the 129 countries that were members of the UN or the
specialized agencies or were parties to the status of
the international Court of Justice, all but eight allowed
women to vote in all elections and to be eligible for
election on the same basis with men.
Equal voting rights for women came to the United States
as late as 1920. The right to vote is an essential means
of influencing the distribution of political power, but
the percentage of women elected as members of Congress
is only about 2% in the United States House of Representatives.
After more than half a century of women’s suffrage, the
number of women in high positions of political power and
influence in the U.S. is still small enough for them to
be known by name.
The author, Shirley Chisholm, being black and female at
the same time, had to face up to the double prejudice
against her. So she says, “Being the first black woman
elected to Congress has made me some kind of phenomenon.”
The
Civil Rights Movement:
For
a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, there was
little improvement in the black condition in the United
States. In the South, segregation remained legal; blacks
were still deprived of the vote. Even in the North, blacks
were still looked down upon as “second class citizens.”
The Civil Rights Movement refers to the black people’s
protests against racial discrimination and their demands
for really equal rights with the whites. The movement
emerged at the end of the WW II, and in the 1960s it became
known as “the civil rights revolution” or “the black power
movement”.
Boycott:
black leaders felt that the people
themselves would have to take action to end discrimination
and denial of civil rights. One opportunity for action
was presented by the arrest of a black woman named Rosa
Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, for
refusing to give her seat to a white person on a city
bus. The news spread quickly. The NAACP (National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People) planned a course
of action to end segregation on buses. They decided
to ask Montgomery’s blacks to boycott—not to use the
city’s buses. Led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a
26-year-old black clergyman, the blacks organized what
has since become known as the Montgomery bus boycott.
Over 95 percent of the black riders stayed off the buses.
The boycott lasted over a year and cost the city more
and more money each day. Finally, on November 13, 1956,
the Supreme Court decided that segregation on buses
was unconstitutional. The boycott showed that nonviolent
direct action could produce result.
Sit-in: started
on February 1, 1960, four black students were refused
to have coffee in a store in North Carolina. They stayed
in silence until closing time, and the next day they
came again with more black friends. They called it a
sit-in. Their ranks grew with each passing day. They
behaved well and remained nonviolent even when provoked
by whites. But they were no less determined to stay
until they got their coffee. The movement spread to
other cities and other forms like sleep-ins in motel
lobbies, play-ins in parks, read-ins in libraries, etc.
Six months after it had started, their success came
with the striking down of the color bar at the stores.
American blacks were stirring and becoming visible at
last.
Freedom ride: on
May 4, 1961, CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) sent
out both black and white volunteers known as “freedom
riders” to challenge segregation in interstate highway
travel from Washington, D. C. in two buses. They were
attacked and their buses were burnt, but more joined
in. By the end of 1961, the color bar was struck down
in interstate travel across the United States.
Achievements
of the movement: the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public facilities
and voter registration and allowed the government to
withhold federal funds from institutions that practiced
discrimination. The Voting Rights of 1965 outlawed literacy
tests. Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1964. (assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis,
Tennessee.)
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