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Fight For Social Justice

Fight For Social Justice

After reading through the timeline of the Fight for Social Justice, I noticed that there is a trend that the journey for social justice in the United States of America was long and tumultuous. These tumultuous events are highlighted herein, and it is evident that they have shaped the history of the U.S. The first thing that comes to mind is the persistence of racism.

From the times of slavery in the 19th century and the beginning of the resistance against slavery to the time of the fight against the Ku Klux Klan (Marsiglia et al., 2021). The timeline has uncovered how racism is perpetuated, and how it has existed. Still, even though in different forms and within these events of racism, Black Americans have suffered the suppression of their rights and freedoms. Another thing a reader can identify after reading this timeline is the progress through struggle.

Some significant milestones achieved through these struggles are the Civil Rights Movement, the signing of the Civil Rights Act, and Court decisions like the Brown v. Board of Education (Marsiglia et al., 2021). These events show that successes were made during the struggle for social justice. Also, through the timeline, one can see the resilience of black leadership and the effectiveness of these leaders.

During this struggle for social justice, some resilient political leaders are Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama. From the timeline, one can see that these political leaders have worked effectively, and even after the 1960s, some remarkable leaders are still emerging and advocating for justice and equality (Marsiglia et al., 2021).

In other words, the push for social justice is still ongoing. Also, an assessment of the timeline reveals that during the struggle for social justice, there has been intersectionality and broader inclusion. In other words, there are revelations on how the battle for justice intersects with newer emerging forms of oppression. Finally, after sighing the emergence of movements like Black Lives Matter, it is evident that there are still persistent challenges in the struggle for social justice.

References

Marsiglia, F. F., Kulis, S. S., & Lechuga-Peña, S. (2021). Diversity, Oppression, and Change:     Culturally Grounded Social Work. United States: Oxford University Press.

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Question 


Discussion: 
  • When you look at this timeline, what comes to your mind?
 

Timeline of the Fight for Social Justice

1830 Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North and opposition to slavery’s expansion into the new western territories created fear in the south that slavery would end, along with the backbone of their economy (The Arena Group, 2022).

1860 President Abraham Lincoln is elected to the presidency, causing seven southern states to secede from the Union. The seceding states eventually included Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Missouri, and Kentucky, forming the Confederate States of America.

1861 – 1865 American Civil War began in 1861 after “decades of simmering tensions between northern and southern states over slavery, states’ rights, and westward expansion (The Arena Group, 2022).

1865 “The Confederates surrender ending the Civil War. The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much of the South left in ruin” (The Arena Group, 2022).

1865 President Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a confederate spy.

Fight For Social Justice

1865 – 1872 Formation of the first Ku Klux Klan (KKK) by white American and British settlers wanting to enact white supremacy (McVeigh, 1999) and terrorize freed slaves. “Organized in numerous chapters across the Southern United States, federal law enforcement suppressed it around 1871. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South, especially by using voter intimidation and targeted violence against African-American leaders” (McVeigh, 1999).

1912 New Mexico becomes a State.

1915 – 1944 Second era of the KKK advocating for white nationalism and vehemently opposing European immigration in the north which included Catholics, Italians, Germans, and Jews. Although by today’s standards considered part of the white class, immigrants fleeing war-torn Europe (WW I & WWII) were discriminated against because they were not the right white or religion.

The second iteration of the KKK espoused anti-immigration, anti-Catholicism, anti-Communism, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-progressivism, anti-atheism, and advocated for prohibition. The second iteration of the Klan added cross burnings and mass parades as intimidation tactics.

1950 Constitutes the area of the third Klan who used “murders and bombings from the late 1940s to the early 1960s to achieve its aims” (McVeigh, 1999). “All three movements have called for the ‘purification’ of American society and are all considered far-right extremists” (McVeigh, 1999). The third iteration of the Klan “focused on opposition to the civil rights movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists” (Anti-Defamation League, 2017).

1954 State sponsored segregation, ‘Separate but equal’ was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown V. Board of Education.

1954 – 1968 Civil Rights Movement – a nonviolent, civil disobedience campaign to abolish institutional segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement.

1963 President John F. Kennedy assassinated.

1964 Freedom Summer Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner (Mississippi Burning)

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, comprehensive U.S. Legislation to end discrimination, based on race, color, religion, or national origin.

1968 Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1957 – 1970 School integration

1976 President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in February 1976, urging all Americans to ‘seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history’” (Library of Congress, 2022).

1980 – 1990 Black contributions to American society begin to be recognized in diverse fields related to politics, science, literature, entertainment, and sports. Rev. Jesse Jackson became the second African American (after Shirley Chisholm) to mount a nationwide campaign for President of the United States (Purnick & Oreskes, 1987).

2009 Barack Obama is elected as the 44th President of the United States.

2013 Black Lives Matter (BLM), an international social movement, formed in the United States, dedicated to fighting racism and anti-Black violence, especially in the form of police brutality (BLM International, 2022).

2016 FBI Officially closes the Mississippi Burning case.

2017 42 various Klan groups were active in 22 states (Anti-Defamation League, 2017). The Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) and the Anti-Defamation League classify the KKK as a hate group.

2020 George Perry Floyd is murdered by a Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer, igniting historic protests across the country. Over 2,000 cities and towns throughout American saw some form of demonstration in the week’s following Floyd’s death (History.com, 2022).