Persuasive essay: Essays on civil rights movement.
In June 1963, President John Kennedy asked Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill, induced by massive resistance to desegregation and the murder of Medgar Evers. After Kennedy's assassination in November, President Lyndon Johnson pressed hard, with the support of Roy Wilkins and Clarence Mitchell, to secure the bill's passage the following year. In 1964, Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. It also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has brought arrest warrants for past crimes in Darfur, and the ICC prosecutor announced in July that current crimes in Darfur are in his remit. However, the Sudanese authorities have repeatedly obstructed ICC efforts, and the United Nations Security Council has done nearly nothing to tackle the government’s intransigence. The resulting impunity – save for one trial of a militia leader at the ICC – has fueled repeated cycles of violence in Sudan, including the current conflict. In 2023, when African countries on the Security Council included Gabon, Ghana, and Mozambique, the UN closed its political mission in Sudan at the insistence of the Sudanese government, ending what little remained of the UN’s capacity in the country to protect civilians and publicly report on the rights situation. With the participation of many individuals and organizations, the Civil Rights Movement stands as a symbol of the U.S.'s undying hope for equality and justice for all citizens. Baldwin was a close friend of the singer, pianist, and civil rights activist . , , and Baldwin helped Simone learn about the Civil Rights Movement. Baldwin also provided her with literary references influential on her later work. , along with and and others in an attempt to persuade Kennedy of the importance of civil rights legislation. Tradeoffs on human rights in the name of politics are clear when many governments fail to speak out about the Chinese government’s intensifying repression, the arbitrary detention of human rights defenders, and its tightening control over civil society, media, and the internet, especially in Xinjiang and Tibet. Chinese authorities’ cultural persecution and arbitrary detention of a million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims amount to crimes against humanity, yet many governments, including in predominantly Muslim countries, stay silent. Later support came from , whom Baldwin called "the greatest black writer in the world". Wright and Baldwin became friends, and Wright helped Baldwin to secure the Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Foundation $500 fellowship. Baldwin's essay "Notes of a Native Son" and his collection allude to Wright's 1940 novel . In Baldwin's 1949 essay "Everybody's Protest Novel", however, he indicated that , like 's (1852), lacked credible characters and psychological complexity, and the friendship between the two authors ended. Interviewed by , however, Baldwin explained: "I knew Richard and I loved him. I was not attacking him; I was trying to clarify something for myself." Nonetheless, he rejected the label "civil rights activist", or that he had participated in a , instead agreeing with 's assertion that if one is a citizen, one should not have to fight for one's civil rights. In a 1964 interview with for the book , Baldwin rejected the idea that the civil rights movement was an outright revolution, instead calling it "a very peculiar revolution because it has to... have its aims the establishment of a union, and a... radical shift in the American mores, the American way of life... not only as it applies to the Negro obviously, but as it applies to every citizen of the country." In a 1979 speech at UC Berkeley, Baldwin called it, instead, "the latest ".
Interesting Civil Rights Essay Topics
The 1954 to 1968 civil rights movement contributed strong cultural threads to American and international theater, song, film, television, and art.
Civil Rights Movement Essay Questions
King was becoming more estranged from the Johnson administration. In 1965 he broke with it by calling for peace negotiations and a halt to the . He moved further in the following years, speaking about the need for economic justice and thoroughgoing changes in American society. He believed that change was needed beyond the civil rights which had been gained by the movement.
Essays On Civil Rights Movement Essays On Civil Rights Movement
Baldwin returned to the United States in the summer of 1957, while the of that year was being debated in Congress. He had been powerfully moved by the image of a young girl, , braving a mob in an attempt to desegregate schools in , , and editor had suggested he report on what was happening in the American South. Baldwin was nervous about the trip but he made it, interviewing people in Charlotte (where he met ), and Montgomery, Alabama. The result was two essays, one published in magazine ("The Hard Kind of Courage"), the other in ("Nobody Knows My Name"). Subsequent Baldwin articles on the movement appeared in , , , and where in 1962 he published the essay that he called "Down at the Cross", and the called "Letter from a Region of My Mind". Along with a shorter essay from , the essay became .
American Civil Rights Movement - Essay
We only have to look at the human rights challenges of 2023 to tell us what we need to do differently in 2024. It was a formidable year not only for human rights suppression and wartime atrocities but also for selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy that carried profound costs for the rights of those not in on the deal. Yet amid the gloom, we saw signs of hope showing the possibility of a different path.
Renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas and in Sudan caused tremendous suffering, as did ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and the Sahel. Governments struggled to deal with the hottest year on record and the onslaught of wildfires, drought, and storms that wreaked havoc on millions of people in Bangladesh, Libya, and Canada. Economic inequality rose around the world, as did anger about the policy decisions that have left many people struggling to survive. The rights of women and girls and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people faced harsh backlashes in many places, exemplified by the Taliban’s gender persecution in Afghanistan.
The drivers of these human rights crises and their consequences often transcend borders and cannot be solved by governments acting alone. Understanding and responding to these threats needs to be rooted in universal principles of international human rights and the rule of law. These ideas built on shared human histories agreed upon by nations across all regions 75 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the basis for all contemporary human rights conventions and treaties.
This foundation is needed now more than ever. But this very system we rely on to protect the human rights of people everywhere is under threat. Every time a government overlooks or rejects these universal and globally accepted principles, someone pays a price – in freedoms and liberties, in their health or livelihood, and at times their lives.