Most Prominent Black Leaders in the United States during the 20th Century.”Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”Martin Luther King, Jr.From 1954 to 1968, the United States Civil Rights Movement was the most significant social movement in the 20th century.
The civil rights movement eliminated all the anti-black laws that existed during the Jim Crow Era. Due to the heavy pressure that the US Civil Rights Movement had, four civil rights acts were passed between 1964 and 1968 that improved the liberty and justice for all African Americans.To put that into another context, the movement opened many doors for African American people which in turn introduced them to the same rights that ‘White Americans’ had. Everything considered the revolutionary movement was largely led by three notable black leaders that predominantly contributed to the success of the US Civil Rights. Leading the course, W.
E.B. Du Bois set the stage for the pursuit of equality, followed by A. Philip Randolph, who unified all of the African Americans together, and lastly Martin Luther King Jr, who became the representational active voice for all blacks. These three African American black nationalist leaders played their own part “in a common cause of freedom, justice, and equality” for all African Americans. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois significantly paved the path that ignited the early start of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The pioneering activist for African Americans Civil Rights, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusett on February 23, 1868. Du Bois was recognized as a “distinguished scholar” after becoming the very first African American to receive a Doctoral Degree in Philosophy (1895) at Harvard University.
In addition to his studies, Du Bois went on to publish his very first book in 1896 called the Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States. In the book, Du Bois incorporated studies of congressional documents, and personal narratives, to delve deeper into the undertaking of slavery laws in the early colonies in North America.W.E.B. Du Bois rose to power after challenging another black accommodationist leader from the south, Booker T. Washington.
In 1903, Du Bois went against Booker T. Washington’s ‘Atlanta Compromise’, an accord that insisted African Americans in the south to work and submit to white bureaucratic rule in exchange for basic economic and educational opportunities.However, W.
E.B. Du Bois found the Atlanta Compromise very counterproductive, seeing that it did nothing but continued to confine African Americans to a little box that hindered success.
On top of that, Du Bois argued that it shouldn’t be mandatory for African Americans to work underneath white Americans in order to receive a low-level education. Instead, Du Bois insisted that there should be an increase in black political representation to fight for full equal rights. For this reason, W.E.B.
Du Bois created the Talented Tenth, a widely known essay that helped advocate many defenseless African Americans. In the Talented Tenth, W.E.
B. Du Bois expressed the idea of emphasizing advance education to establish leadership skill in the black community. His revolt and indisputable criticism towards Booker T. Washington’s ideologies gained him plenty of supporters.In 1909, Du Bois also became the founder of the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The NAACP was focused on fighting the “prevailing pattern of American segregation”. Under the Jim Crow Law, school segregation between the blacks and white students was at large up until 1964, only .001% of black children went to the same elementary and secondary schools as whites in the South. Also even then, when it came to going to restaurants, bathrooms, and other public places, African Americans were forced to separate from the whites. As a result, W.E.
B. Du Bois and the NAACP decided to fight legal battles in the Supreme Court against the unjust laws of segregation. A well-known case that advanced the movement of NAACP’s was in 1954 when the NAACP represented the Brown v.
the Board of Education case. After the court’s ruling, it was declared that segregated schools were “inherently unequal”. Going into the 1950s, legal victories such as the Brown v. Board of Education became a pivotal step in influencing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to desegregate black and whites at all schools.
Altogether, through the works of W.E.B. Du Bois and NAACP, they established the birth of the civil rights revolution that opened the way for many African Americans to follow the quest for equality.The charismatic civil rights leader, A. Philip Randolph was born on April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida and later moved to New York City. A. Philip Randolph worked as an editor for the magazine, The Messenger, a radical socialist newsletter during World War 1.
In 1925, Randolph started and led the first ever labor organization in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids (BSCP). Randolph also was elected to become the very first president of the National Negro Congress created by black intellectuals to fight for black liberation under poor work conditions. Known for being a mediator, A. Philip Randolph made a huge contribution towards the unionization of African Americans.The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and A. Philip Randolph led 12,000 African Americans that worked for the Pullman Company to try and achieve better labor conditions and higher wages. In 1925, the Pullman Company had the largest amount of black employees working for a single company in the United States.
More than that, the wages for black workers, especially in the south, was 50 percent less than the average earnings of white workers Randolph coherently expressed the aspirations, demands for higher wages of the porter’s and served as a solution to their struggles. In 1941 Randolph earned the support of many black working class. In 1941, Randolph organized a nonviolent march of 10,000 African Americans to Washington to protest for improved working conditions and equal opportunities. The pressure from the preparation of the march alone resulted in establishing the Fair Labour Standard Act and the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Over 8000 black employees benefited from the Fair Labor Standards Act, as it resulted to raise the total salary to $1,152,000.Moreover, the Fair Employment Practices Committee also essentially banned any further discrimination and segregation for black employees at work. All things considered, A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized labor unions that helped protect the rights of workers.
On top of that, the work of Randolph and BCSP created the sense of security and belonging among African American workers that also brought new hope to the emancipation of the African American working class in America. Martin Luther King Jr. became one of the most famous civil rights leaders of all time. Named Time Magazine “Man of the Year”, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King became the representational face of the black community. With the help of W.E.
B. Du Bois’s, and A. Philip Randolph’s achievements before him, Martin Luther King Jr. worked to end racial segregation and discrimination in which resulted in passing Four Civil Rights Act in the United States.
Before Martin Luther King Jr. rose into the national spotlight, was the head of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. King preached his progressive and nonviolent views towards the black community and also applied Gandhi’s doctrine of passive resistance towards white Americans in Montgomery. King took part in leading the Montgomery bus boycott from 1955 to 1956 after discovering that Rosa Park, a black woman, was arrested.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Park refused to give up her frontside seat to a white American, in spite the demands of the bus driver. The Montgomery bus boycott became the start of the Civil Rights Movement that influenced many other black folks to also join and boycott buses around southern cities. The boycott lasted for 381 days until 1956, when the government banned racial segregation in public transportations. On that day, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was considered to be large victory considering that King attracted support from both the blacks and white Americans through his nonviolent approach. After experiencing success in Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. did not stop there, he continued to pursue full citizenship rights for African Americans. In 1957, King started a group called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to achieve the passing of the Civil rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. The SCLC led campaigns like the Birmingham campaign (1963), the Selma march(1965), and the large-scale March on Washington in 1963.
The March on Washington became the most important campaign SCLC had ever organized, over 250,000 people came to stand up against political and social injustices for jobs and freedom. The March on Washington became one of the pivotal events that contributed to the most important Act that was ever passed by the government. Furthermore, It was on this same march to the nation’s capital, that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
In his dream, King described to “one day live in a nation where they (his four children) would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” While only a dream, Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech brought attention to the Civil Rights Movement which resulted in President John F. Kennedy signing The Civil Rights Act of 1964. This legislation indicated that any racial discrimination in public, supported and funded by the government was prohibited. Unfortunately, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr.
‘s dream turned into a nightmare, King was assassinated in Memphis while inside his motel room. However, in his limited effort to stop inequality, Martin Luther King Jr. helped contribute to the change of American culture during the Civil Rights Movement.