civil rights persuasive essay

Public Opinion on Civil Rights: Reflections on the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Likely the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ushered in a new era in American civil rights as discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin was outlawed. By signing the law into effect on July 2, 1964, President Johnson also paved the way for additional school desegregation and the prohibition of discrimination in public places and within federal agencies.  Public opinion polls held in the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research archives reveal changing attitudes about race in the U.S., exposing how divisive racial issues were at the time, how much improvement there has been since the Act – and how very far the country still has to go.

Civil Rights Today

The effects of the Civil Rights Act, and improvements in race relations more generally, are apparent in a March 2014  CBS  poll, which finds that 8 in 10 Americans think the act has had a positive effect on the country and only 1% thinking it has been negative. Additionally, the poll also found that 60% of whites and 55% of blacks think that the state of race relations in America is good.

However, these fairly positive assessments are relatively new. The U.S. public has been asked o give their overall assessment of race relations in the U.S. regularly since 1990. A low of 24% of whites and 21% of blacks said race relations were generally good in 1992, the year of the Rodney King riots. Not until the year 2000 did a majority of either whites or blacks say race relations were generally good. Public opinion toward minority civil rights was even more unfavorable in the past. According to Paul Herrnson, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, “Issues related to race relations and civil rights challenged Americans prior to and during the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, throughout the Civil War period and the sixties, and they continue today. Despite the progress that has been made, many have yet to fully embrace the notion that all Americans are entitled to the same civil rights and liberties.”

Source: CBS News Poll March 2014: “Overall, do you think passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 was mostly good for the country, or mostly bad for the country, or don’t you think it made much difference?”

1960s Climate for the Passage of the Civil Rights Act

Race relations in the first half of the 1960s were toxic in many parts of the country. These years saw numerous sit-ins, marches, protests, and riots in the deep south from Greensboro, North Carolina to Birmingham, Alabama as well as forced integration at the University of Mississippi and racial violence by white supremacist leagues in Neshoba County, Mississippi. In 1963, the March on Washington saw the now famous “I Have a Dream” speech be given by Martin Luther King Jr. and in the following year, the poll tax was abolished through the 24th Amendment. A sign of the times, in 1963, a  Gallup  poll found that 78% of white people would leave their neighborhood if many black families moved in. When it comes to MLK’s march on Washington, 60% had an unfavorable view of the march, stating that they felt it would cause violence and would not accomplish anything.

Source: Harris Survey August 1964: “Looking back on it now, would you say that you approve or disapprove of the civil rights bill that was passed by Congress last month?”

In the months leading up to the bill being signed on July 2, there was support for the act, but still a third opposed the bill. One month after its passage, when the implementation phase began, support was just more than 50%, with nearly 1 in five voicing uncertainty about the bill.  The civil rights movement itself was viewed with suspicion by many Americans. In 1965, in the midst of the Cold War, a plurality of Americans believed that civil rights organizations had been infiltrated by communists, with almost a fifth of the country unsure as to whether or not they had been compromised.

Source: Institute for International Social Research and the Gallup Organization,  Hopes and Fears  September 1964: “Most of the organizations pushing for civil rights have been infiltrated by the communists and are now dominated by communist trouble-makers. Do you agree with the statement or not?”

The legacy of the Civil Rights Act:  1980s and 1900s

An examination of the legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 indicates that it has taken several decades for the Act’s effects to be fully felt. The 1980s saw that new generations of Americans believed that the Civil Rights Act had indeed worked. Ninety-two percent of respondents in a 1984 Attitudes and Opinions of Black Americans Poll stated that the civil rights movement had improved the lives of the black community.

However, this is not to say that this period was without some controversy in civil rights.  The drumbeat for school integration through busing began in the 1970s and the issue persisted through the 1990s.  While support increased nationally from 19% in 1972 to 35% in 1996, the issue reflects a fragile state of race relations at the time as well as a significant divide between the races, something that a quarter of a century did not solve. Eight-six percent of whites were opposed to busing in the early 1970s and by 1996 that had shifted to two-thirds opposed.  Among black respondents a majority in nearly every year favored busing and only 39% opposed in 1996.

Source: National Opinion Research Center, General Social Survey 1972-1996: “In general, do you favor or oppose the busing of Negro and white school children from one school district to another?”

Race Relations over Time

The 1990s saw the issue of civil rights once again bubble to the surface of American society as race riots erupted in Los Angeles over the Rodney King incident in which white police officers were acquitted after being videotaped beating a black man. President Bush signed a new civil rights act into effect in 1991 which shored up measures to prevent discrimination in the workplace. This act coincided with a Gallup Poll in June 1991 finding that 58% believed the black community had been helped by civil rights legislation. As the thirty year anniversary approached of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a Gallup/ CNN / USA Today  Poll in 1993 found that 65% believed the civil rights movement had had a significant impact on American society. By 2008, the  Pew Research Center  found 53% of whites and 59% of Black Americans saying that “the civil rights movement is still having a major impact on American society.”

Source: CBS News/New York Times, May 1990-March 2014: “Do you think race relations in the United States are generally good or generally bad?”

Polls on the state of race relations in the country, as a whole, suggest that things have been improving since the general question was first asked in May 1990, albeit not a steady incline. Those who claim relations are bad have declined substantially since a high point in 1992 at 68%, during the Rodney King riots.  Looking at these surveys by race, the trend indicates that whites and blacks alike believe race relations have been improving over the last twenty years. However, there still exists a gap between the races with whites believing there to be a better state of race relations than blacks. In 2011 there was a 30 point gap between the two groups, but by 2014 the margin had narrowed to its closest point since 1992. As of March 2014, 60% of whites and 55% of blacks believe race relations to be good. According to Herrnson, “Although things have been trending in a positive direction, the evidence suggests that change comes slowly and public opinion is sensitive to politics and other events.”

Employment Opportunities

Polls measuring opinion on employment opportunities for whites and blacks over time document the different views of the races. The Gallup Organization has periodically asked a question comparing the opportunities that blacks have at attaining jobs compared to whites.  The results over time show an even greater gap than exists on the general view of race relations in the country—since 1978 blacks have consistently been much more likely to say they do not have the same opportunities as whites than the general public.

Source: Gallup Organization, 1978-2011: “In general, do you think blacks have as good a chance as white people in your community to get any kind of job for which they are qualified, or don’t you think they have as good a chance?”

In the latter part of the 2000s, America once again questioned whether it was ready for a black president. With Barack Obama running on behalf of the Democratic Party, the time appeared to be right, and public opinion data backed up this sentiment. Support for voting for a black candidate had been steadily rising for several decades and in 2008, history was made. With public opinion surveys conducted since 1996 reporting 9 in 10 Americans would vote for a black candidate if they were qualified, Barack Obama won the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections in what many have considered a significant step forward in race relations.  An outcome that would have been simply impossible in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was first passed had now become a reality.

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the act, surveys conducted in March 2014 by  CBS News  found that 52% of America believes that we can totally eliminate racial prejudice and discrimination in the long run and that 78% think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is an important historical event. But perhaps most tellingly, CBS News found that 84% of whites and 83% of blacks believed that the act had made life better for blacks in the United States, while only 2% thought it had made life worse. These statistics serve to reaffirm the legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Far from forgotten or relegated to the history books, the act is remembered for the hope and change it brought to a country gripped by racial tensions.

• Roper Center  iPOLL Databank  Surveys including polling data from CBS News, CNN, Gallup Organization, Pew Research Center, New York Times, Institute for International Social Research, USA Today
• Civil Rights Act of 1964:  http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act/

Date Published: July 2, 2014

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Persuader-in-Chief: JFK's June 11, 1963 Address on Civil Rights

About this resource.

Download this lesson plan , including handouts, as a PDF.

Goals/Rationale The president of the United States holds many roles in our nation, including Chief of State and Commander-in-Chief. In fulfilling these roles, a president's ability to reach out to the nation at a time of crisis is unmatched by any other governmental office. Through the years, presidents have used the "bully pulpit" (a term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt) to advocate for particular actions by the American people. In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, leading to significant turning points in our nation's history. In 1963, the Birmingham Campaign made front-page news and increased the urgency of the Kennedy administration to propose significant civil rights legislation. President Kennedy used the historic moment of the integration of the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963 to call civil rights a "moral issue" and present his civil rights agenda to the American people. In this lesson plan, students analyze the persuasiveness of this important speech.

Essential Question: Why is the president sometimes called the "Persuader-in-Chief"? What rhetorical methods enhance a persuasive speech?

Preparation

Students will:

• identify rhetorical methods.
• examine the persuasive techniques in President Kennedy's June 11, 1963 Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights .
• discuss the content of the speech.
• evaluate the effectiveness of the speech.

Materials (included in downloadable PDF )

• Reading: "Persuasive Power in President Kennedy's June 11, 1963 Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights " (included with downloadable lesson plan)
• President Kennedy's June 11, 1963 Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights (Time: 13:27)
• "Modes of Persuasion" handout (included with downloadable lesson plan)
• "Modes of Persuasion" handout with answers (included with downloadable lesson plan)

Historical Background and Context

Although the election of 1960 between Kennedy and Nixon was very close, across the nation, more than 70 percent of African Americans voted for Kennedy. These votes provided the winning edge in several key states. When President Kennedy took office in January 1961, African Americans had high expectations for the new administration.

But Kennedy's narrow election victory in 1960 and the power of southern segregationist Democrats in Congress left him cautious about civil rights. Instead of pushing hard for civil rights legislation, he appointed unprecedented numbers of African Americans to high-level positions and signed Executive Orders that established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and prohibited discrimination in federally funded housing. On February 28, 1963, Kennedy submitted a Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights in which he asked Congress to enact legislation that included limited civil rights measures such as strengthening voting rights laws and providing assistance for schools that were voluntarily desegregating.

By the spring of 1963, Kennedy's attention became increasingly focused on civil rights. His evolution to a greater involvement in civil rights was spurred, in large measure, by the growing number and size of civil rights demonstrations, and the violent backlash from segregationists. The 1963 Birmingham Campaign in Alabama made national news with images of children attacked by dogs and blasted with high pressure fire hoses. The Kennedy administration understood that strong civil rights legislation was necessary.　

When it became clear that Governor George Wallace would stand at the doorway of the University of Alabama's registration building on June 11th to prevent the registration of two African-American college students, President Kennedy realized that, with the nation focused on civil rights, the timing was right to speak to the nation about the need for legislation.

The decision to make a speech that evening was a sudden one. Although civil rights legislation had been in the works for several weeks, it was still in process. Theodore Sorensen, President Kennedy's Special Counsel and primary speechwriter, did not start a first draft of the speech until that afternoon. An hour before the speech, President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall and Sorensen were assembling and rewriting parts of the speech, and President Kennedy did not have a completed version when he sat down in front of the television camera at 8:00 p.m. He extemporized the concluding paragraphs of the speech.

In his speech, the president responded to the threats of violence and obstruction of justice on the University of Alabama campus following desegregation attempts, explaining that the United States was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and thus, all American students are entitled to attend public educational institutions, regardless of race. He also discussed how discrimination affects education, public safety, and international relations, noting that the country could not preach freedom internationally while ignoring it domestically. The president asked Congress to enact legislation protecting all Americans’ voting rights, legal standing, educational opportunities, and access to public facilities, but recognized that legislation alone could not solve the country's problems concerning race relations. 　

In this lesson, students will consider the modes of persuasion used by President Kennedy in this historic speech and evaluate how the speech might have been strengthened.　

• For homework, have students read “Persuasive Power in President Kennedy's June 11, 1963 Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights ” and answer the “Question to Consider.”
• In class, go over the homework and discuss the timing of the speech and its last-minute construction.
• If you have time, play the speech through once for students to watch, asking them to take notes on key points. If you do not have time, skip directly to Step 4.
• Provide students the "Modes of Persuasion" handout and review the terminology of rhetorical methods.
• Provide students with the transcript of the speech.
• Have students read through the text of Kennedy’s June 11th speech as you play the video. Ask them to mark up the transcript of the speech as they listen, noting, where they can, the methods of persuasion used.
• After they have listened to the speech, have students fill in the handout.
• Put students in groups to share their responses. Then, as a class, review the responses.
• Have students write a two-page paper answering the following questions: How does President Kennedy use Logos, Pathos and Ethos in his speech? What are the strengths of the speech? What are its weaknesses? Give specific examples.
• Have students read through some of the responses to the speech from the public, from the "Public Opinion" subchapter in the "Address to the American People on Civil Rights" section of the 1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights microsite. Have them select one letter or telegram, and write a brief essay that describes in what ways the writer was persuaded or not persuaded by President Kennedy. Which portion(s) of President Kennedy’s speech most disturbs or encourages the writer? In sum, for this writer, did President Kennedy achieve his goals for the speech? Why? Why not?

Use the 2-page paper in Step 9 and the brief essay in Step 10, noted above, as an assessment for this lesson.

Have students read the memo to Associate Press Secretary Andrew Hatcher which provides a pro/con count of incoming mail about the speech. Then have them review all the letters written in response to the June 11th speech in the "Address to the American People on Civil Rights" section of the 1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights microsite to determine if they detect any repetition in themes or patterns. Does the letter they selected (in Step 10) fit into any pattern? If so, how?

Connections to Curriculum (Standards)

National History Standards - US History, Era 9: Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

• Standard 3: Domestic policies after World War II
• Standard 4: The struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties.

Common Core Standards

• ELA College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language
• ELA – Reading Informational Texts, Writing, Speaking and Listening, Language, and Literacy in History/Social Studies for grades 9-10 and 11-12

C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

• Discipline 2 - Applying disciplinary concepts and tools (History)
• Discipline 3 - Evaluating sources and using evidence
• Discipline 4 - Communicating conclusions and taking informed action

National Council of Teachers of English : Standards 1, 3, 4, 5, 6

Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework

• USII.T4: Defending Democracy: The Cold War and civil rights at home
• USII.T5: The United States and globalization

Massachusetts English Language Arts Framework

• Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Martin Luther King — Martin Luther King Jr: Influential Figure In The Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King Jr: Influential Figure in The Civil Rights Movement

• Categories: Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King

About this sample

Words: 1959 |

10 min read

Published: Mar 18, 2021

Words: 1959 | Pages: 4 | 10 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, king's activities, king's influence.

• We are all free and equal. We are all born free. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way.
• Don’t discriminate. These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences.
• The right to life. We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety.
• No slavery – past and present. Nobody has any right to make us a slave. We cannot make anyone our slave.
• We are all protected by the law. The law is the same for everyone. It must treat us all fairly.
• Fair treatment by fair courts. We can all ask for the law to help us when we are not treated fairly.
• No unfair detainment. Nobody has the right to put us in prison without a good reason and keep us there, or to send us away from our country.
• Innocent until proven guilty. Nobody should be blamed for doing something until it is proven. When people say we did a bad thing we have the right to show it is not true.
• Freedom to move. We all have the right to go where we want in our own country and to travel as we wish.
• The right to a nationality. We all have the right to belong to a country.
• Your own things. Everyone has the right to own things or share them. Nobody should take our things from us without a good reason.
• Freedom of thought. We all have the right to believe in what we want to believe, to have a religion, or to change it if we want.
• Free to say what you want. We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.
• The right to democracy. We all have the right to take part in the government of our country. Every grown-up should be allowed to choose their own leaders.
• The right to social security. We all have the right to affordable housing, medicine, education, and child care, enough money to live on and medical help if we are ill or old.
• Workers’ rights. Every grown-up has the right to do a job, to a fair wage for their work, and to join a trade union.
• The right to education. Education is a right. Primary school should be free. We should learn about the United Nations and how to get on with others. Our parents can choose what we learn.
• A free and fair world. There must be proper order so we can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all over the world.
• Nobody can take away these rights and freedoms from us.

Bibliography

• https://www.thoughtco.com/civil-rights-movement-timeline-1951-to-1959-45418
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement
• http://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/writing_center/pick/backissue/volume27/assets/gibson1.pdf
• https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=97
• https://www.mother.ly/parenting/how-mlks-parents-nurtured-his-mind-faith-and-courage
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanraab/2014/01/20/10-people-who-inspired-martin-luther-king-and-he-hoped-would-inspire-us/#77f83d9f79c2
• https://tolerance.tavaana.org/en/content/martin-luther-king-jr-fighting-equal-rights-america
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.html https://tolerance.tavaana.org/en/content/martin-luther-king-jr-fighting-equal-rights-americahttp://www.southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/writing_center/pick/backissue/volume27/assets/gibson1.pdfhttps://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Have-A-Dream
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
• https://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/civil-rights-movement-timeline
• https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/nonviolent-philosophy-and-self-defense/
• https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycotthttps://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/sclc.htmhttps://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/civil-rights-movement-timeline
• https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/nonviolent-philosophy-and-self-defense/https://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-16-30.html
• https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/mlks-effect-todays-politics-n288421
• https://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/opinion-march-washington-john-conyers-martin-luther-king-095978
• https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/southern-christian-leadership-conference-sclchttp://www.ushistory.org/us/54f.asphttps://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.htmlhttps://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-1-15.html
• https://www.enotes.com/topics/have-dream-speech
• https://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/martin-luther-kings-vision-change-world.html

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Civil Rights of the Black Americans Essay

Goals of establishment, government response, method of resistance.

The primary responsibility of the police is to serve and protect the right of the citizens. Though most policemen and women carry out their functions diligently, there are some who willingly violate the rules and regulations of their work and use the powers that have been vested in them wrongly. The police take advantage of the fact that they have certain powers that allow them to carry out their work in the most appropriate manner, while attempting to apprehend persons suspected of criminal activities.

However, these powers are not absolute. The state has also established laws that protect the citizens from being mistreated by the police. However, civil rights movements and law firms have come up to champion for the rights of citizens who may be mistreated by the police. This essay compares and contrasts the civil rights activities in Ferguson and Missouri in response to police brutality, the prison industrial complex, systematic economic suppression, and discrimination against the blacks.

The various civil rights movements were formed to protect the civilians against abuses, such as excessive use of force and brutality from police, seizures and searches carried out unconstitutionally, as well as imprisonment or being arrested falsely. They also protect civilians against prosecution in an unconstitutional manner, discrimination based on gender, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or gender.

The response of the government to brutal dealings of police and discrimination against the blacks is usually slow, unsatisfactory, and defensive. They always seem to evade the issue by lengthening the process of finding justice and they only act as a reaction to the public protests.

For instance, after the public outcry following the shooting of an innocent Blackman “Michael Brown” in Fergusson, the government through its attorney general, stated that it would review and analyze all the complaints of police brutality that have been reported to the Federal Government in the past six years. Even in this act, the officials said that they only aim at establishing if there is gross misconduct among the police forces, but not to initiate fresh prosecutions against the responsible police.

It was very clear that the police demonstrated pure laxity in maintaining discipline and taking advantage of the poor and innocent. However, the move by the government was calculated in such a way that it cooled down the rights activities, yet they did not offend the police officers.

The public and the civil rights activities react to police misconduct through various ways. The most common and the most efficient ways entail the mobilization of the general public to engage in peaceful demonstration to pursue the government to take the required actions.

During the protest, the activists carry banners bearing the message they intend to pass to the government. The next form of resistance is by filing cases in court and hiring advocates on behalf of the victims. Lastly, the activist address the grievances through sensitization of the general public on their rights, thereby empowering them to stand firm against anything that goes against their rights.

Media Representation of Movement

The media has taken the center stage in advocating for the rights of civilians. The media is able to air events just the way they happened through television programs, radio programs, and newspapers. A big boost came through social media, where human rights have become trending issues on the social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.

In the wake of the Fergusson killing, newspapers and almost all media houses reported the issue. On Twitter, several phrases were used to communicate the displeasure following the incident. One such phrase was the hash tag #BlackLivesMatter, which trended heavily on Twitter to emphasize the need to respect the lives of black people and stop criminal activities of police against them.

Leader(s) of Movement

Most of the movements are organized and coordinated by advocates, who have specialized in human rights law. Other leaders, such as political persons and elected leaders, include volunteers who have a massive interest in promoting law and order.

Most of the protests against humanity and brutal acts by government or the police always begin off as peaceful demonstrations. However, as the demonstrations go on, some demonstrators become unruly and initiate acts of violence. They eventually engage in acts of looting and the destruction of property.

Any attempt of the police to disperse such crowds worsens the situation further. The use of force by police to calm the demonstrators down only worsens the situation, making the protesters to destroy property even further. Destruction of property may include setting buildings of innocent civilians ablaze. This was the true case in Fergusson and Missouri after the brutal killing of the black American teenager.

Community Involvement

The community takes the center stage when it comes to advocating the rights of humans, particularly through protests. In Missouri and Fergusson, for example, the community protests forced the government to address the issues raised by the community over the killing of the black American teenager.

Furthermore, improved collaboration between members of the community will reduce incidences of harming each other and foster unity in times of need. When a community speaks with one voice, their sentiments are addressed well and easily.

Gender: Concept of Black Power

Initially, women appeared more vulnerable to police brutality. However, the issue of gender disparity is now minimal due to high advocacy concerning issues affecting women. Women and men seem to be at per when it comes to the protection and advocacy of their rights.

The ascension of a black president and more black senators to power in America has changed the perception of the black people. Black people are now treated with more respect and dignity, a factor that contributed to the public outcry when a black teenager was killed by the police.

Impact of Nonviolent vs. Violent protests

Though nonviolent protests are harmless to the entire community and the state, their impact on the intended issue is always minimal and the government feels no pressure to deal with the issue at hand. The violent protests, though they have proven to be the most effective in forcing the authorities to enforce an immediate solution, have proven disastrous even to the general public.

There is looting and destruction of property, together with closure of businesses, thereby affecting the economic wellbeing of a country and resulting in financial losses. Eventually, the protesters are arrested and charged with fraud and destruction of property, leading to more negative financial impacts. There are also injuries to police officers and civilians due to fights between them and the nature of paraphernalia used to calm the protesters.

Human rights activities have increased in the recent times in Missouri and Fergusson, particularly following the killing of the black teenage boy in Fergusson in August 2014. This shows improved value to human lives by the local people and human rights activist groups.

It is also an indication of increased awareness of the people with regard to their rights and the need for the police and other law enforcers to carry out their responsibilities. On such occasions, however, the public needs to embrace peaceful demonstrations, while the government needs to act swiftly so that damage is avoided as much as possible.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, January 2). Civil Rights of the Black Americans. https://ivypanda.com/essays/civil-rights-of-the-black-americans/

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Bibliography

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David French

Don’t let our broken politics mangle our faith.

By David French

Opinion Columnist

In 2007, I had a conversation about the culture war with the evangelical pastor Tim Keller that I’ve never forgotten. Keller, who was the founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, died last year , a devastating loss.

Keller was describing a change in his church’s young adults. “I’ve long seen friendships flourish across political differences,” he told me. “Now I see that disagreement often ends friendships.” As he put it, what he was seeing was a change from a culture in which younger Americans were intolerant of cruelty and tolerant of good-faith political differences to a culture in which people were intolerant of political differences and tolerant of cruelty — so long as that cruelty was aimed at the right targets.

Keller wasn’t just describing young Christians. He was seeing the change everywhere. Your political or theological positions were becoming the primary measure of your virtue, and your conduct was a distant second. According to this ethos, being for or against abortion rights, for example, defines you far more than the way you treat other people.

I’m reminded of a recent conversation I had with a college student who said, “When I first heard you speak, I thought you were a decent conservative, and then I found out you were pro-life.” I’ve heard comments like that many times in recent years, and not just about abortion. Any disagreement about any important issue can lead to crushing disappointment and outright anger.

Hidden within comments like that is an assumption — that her point of view was so obviously correct and mine so obviously wrong — that my pro-life position created an irrebuttable presumption of bad character.

This dynamic runs both ways, often with a vengeance. On March 29, President Biden issued a proclamation declaring March 31 to be the Transgender Day of Visibility. He’s done it all three years of his presidency so far, yet this year, March 31 also happened to be Easter Sunday. And so a number of prominent Christians chose to interpret Biden’s proclamation as a direct attack on the Christian faith. The popular Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh called Biden a “ demon .” Biden, Senator Josh Hawley said , “deliberately desecrated the most sacred holy day in the Christian faith.”

One can certainly disagree with Biden’s choice to elevate the Transgender Day of Visibility, but it’s quite a stretch to say that Biden was deliberately targeting Easter when Easter doesn’t occur on a fixed date and only rarely falls on March 31. In fact, according to the Census Bureau , the next time Easter is on March 31 will be the year 2086. So Biden did exactly what one might expect when two events occur on the same day — he issued statements for both.

Does that make him a “demon”? Is there any ounce of charity in saying that a practicing Catholic “deliberately desecrated” his own holiday? Of course not, but we are watching the culmination of the trend that Keller pointed out to me nearly 20 years ago. Disagreement doesn’t just fracture friendships; it now breeds contempt.

What can be done? It’s not enough to simply decry our political and religious problem. It’s necessary to try to articulate a better way. That’s why I worked with my friends Russell Moore, editor in chief of Christianity Today, and Curtis Chang, host of the “Good Faith” podcast, to create a curriculum for church groups to articulate a profoundly different approach to politics, one that emphasizes the means of our engagement just as much as the ends we pursue.

I’ve been working on this curriculum for a while. The journalist and author Tim Alberta wrote about the genesis of the idea in his book “ The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory : American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.” I started the project well before I joined The Times, in part because I don’t think America can have a healthy culture or healthy democracy without virtuous Christian engagement. Religious dysfunction can tear this nation apart.

The curriculum is called The After Party , it’s free, and while it’s aimed at Christians, I believe its key principles can resonate with people of good will from other faith traditions as well. At its root is an obvious scriptural reality that I hadn’t fully understood until I was well into my (quite partisan) early adulthood — that scripture speaks much more to how we treat our neighbors than it speaks to the policy goals of our political engagement.

Wrong is not a synonym for evil, and right is not the equivalent of righteous. As the Apostle Paul made clear in his first letter to the Corinthian Church , I can purport to speak and act as a Christian, but if I “do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

This is a lesson I’ve had to learn and relearn, time and time again. I’m the product of something evangelicals call “worldview training.” One of the core goals of worldview training is to educate evangelical young people into a proper Christian approach to politics, and worldview training strongly emphasized issues. In the Cold War era, it taught us the virtues of capitalism versus communism and the merits of the American system over the Soviet system. In the culture war era, it emphasized promoting religious freedom, opposing abortion and confronting sexual libertinism.

I mainly received this training exactly in the way we hope to deliver The After Party, in Sunday school and church groups. But it would also take place in weekend or weeklong conventions and seminars. Worldview training was not necessarily an experience most evangelicals received, but if you were interested in politics, it was there to shape and mold your approach.

Over time, proper issue orientation became the sine qua non of evangelical political engagement and of Christian character assessment. It’s outcomes that matter. Concerns about process or relationships were secondary, at best. This is why you see so many Christians say things like , “If you vote Democrat as a Christian, you can no longer call yourself a Christian,” even though the Democratic Party contains millions upon millions of Bible-believing Christians . This is why so many Republicans believe Donald Trump is a man of faith . If he’s perceived as right on the issues — and has the right enemies — then he has to be a good man.

To many of these Republicans, it doesn’t matter if a Democrat professes faith in Christ, believes in the inerrancy of scripture and exhibits the fruit of the spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The fact that she might also be pro-choice, support a legal right to same-sex marriage or find elements of critical race theory compelling and persuasive makes her destined for hell. I’ve seen the same dynamic in reverse, with more progressive Christians condemning as apostates those believers who don’t share their views on guns or race.

But the more I matured, and the more I recognized my own tendency toward combativeness and judgmental behavior in the face of disagreement, the more I realized that this approach profoundly misunderstands Christian moral commands. Let’s take the central verse of the After Party curriculum, Micah 6:8 — “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Christians can’t shrink from confronting injustice, and we must engage with humility and kindness.

In many ways, humility is simply a recognition of reality. We’re imperfect people with imperfect knowledge and wisdom. Even on issues on which we feel that burning moral clarity is necessary, understanding complexity should give us pause.

You may believe that the United States has a moral obligation to ameliorate the effects of hundreds of years of legalized, violent racial injustice, and yet also understand that how to do so is an extraordinary complex and difficult question, one that requires an immense willingness to listen to others and learn from our own mistakes.

You may believe that unborn children are people who deserve a chance to live outside the womb and yet also understand that there are complex questions regarding the proper role of the state, the interplay between maternal and fetal health, the actual reasons people seek out abortions and the justice of a primarily punitive response. People of good will can come to different conclusions, and it’s worth hearing their reasoning.

Our most basic human experience teaches us that kindness is indispensable in human relationships. Our cruelty can end relationships before they start. Our cruelty broadcasts arrogance. It creates the condition for conflict as our targets justifiably defend themselves against our aggression. It removes the possibility of persuasion as people dig in against unfair and malicious attacks.

I’ve spoken about these obligations in countless churches and Christian schools, and the objection is always the same. Kindness and humility are the path to surrender and defeat. They’re signs of weakness in the great struggle against the presumed enemies of the nation and the church.

It’s an odd objection coming from biblical literalists. The relevant verses that command our kindness, humility and love are not conditioned on political victory. We don’t pursue those virtues only until they don’t work to achieve the outcomes we want.

It’s also an odd objection in the American context. After all, American history contains shining examples of Christian activists who placed justice, kindness and mercy at the center of political engagement. The civil rights movement wasn’t exclusively Christian by any means. People of all faiths and no faith joined to demand liberation from Jim Crow, but the Christian faith was at center stage in Martin Luther King Jr.’s arguments and, crucially, his tactics. Christian means were married to Christian ends.

Consider the guidance contained in King’s commitment card for civil rights activists. It contains 10 pledges, including “meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus” and “Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.” It says marchers should refrain from “the violence of fist, tongue or heart.” It declares that “the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation — not victory.”

Those words would be potent at any time, but they were especially potent in 1963. There is no American political community today that faces a challenge as great as Jim Crow, yet it is difficult to find any American political movement that treats its enemies as well as the civil rights movement treated some of the most hateful politicians and law enforcement officers in modern American life.

On Tuesday, Trump sought to capitalize on Biden’s recognition of the Transgender Day of Visibility by declaring, in front of a raucous crowd, that Nov. 5 — Election Day — would be “ Christian Visibility Day ,” as legions of Christians vote for a man who has been found liable for sexual abuse and who has declared vengeance and retribution as the core objectives of his second term.

When I think of “Christian Visibility Day,” I have very different images in mind — of Christians on the Edmund Pettus Bridge marching for justice and responding to violence with peace, of Christians in Birmingham, Ala., enduring fire hoses and attack dogs in the name of justice and reconciliation. Or I can think of the ultimate Christian Visibility Day, on a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem, when the son of God faced the ultimate act of persecution, looked at the men who were murdering him and declared, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation .” You can follow him on Threads ( @davidfrenchjag ).