The Civil Rights Movement: Past and Present
Riches (1997) defines the civil rights movement historically as an effort, lead primarily by African-Americans, to establish the civil rights of individual Black citizens. In this regard, Riches lists several milestones including: the 1954 Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools (Brown v. Board of Education), the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955), the desegregation at Little Rock (1957), sit-in campaigns (1960), freedom rides (1961), the Mississippi riot (1962), the March on Washington (1963) and Selma (1965). It is RichesÆ argument that the ôcivil rights movementö is not over but rather it must be expanded beyond its focus on Black folksÆ rights to the rights of other minority groups, e.g., equal rights for women, Native Americans, and homosexuals. Many other African-Americans hold similar views. For example, Cabell (1998) reports that Jesse Jackson Jr., Julian Bond, Kweisi Mfume, and other well known African-Americans have made precisely the same argument.
However, what needs to be noted here is that this argument is political and, as such, it remains focused on the restoration of constitutional protections and rights with a broadening of the object of said rights to other minority groups. It is the thesis of this paper that the Civil Rights Movement in todayÆs world must move away from the political in the sense discussed by people like Riches (1997). Yes, African-Americans have a right to live in a non-discriminatory America as do any other minority groups; but a good deal of this battle has been fought and won on many fronts, except one. Empowerment of African-Americans today is not so much political as it is economic.
If one considers the upbringing, education and misconceptions held by the public generally about Black African Americans today, it can quickly be seen that the focus MUST be upon the notion of oneÆs right to economic self-sufficiency, that it is not ...