by Herminne Tonita -

Abolishing slavery in the USA started a new period in American life: a solution to the problem of black-white co-existence within the country had to be found. It’s interesting to see how the attitude of the blacks towards the situation and social status has been changing throughout the twentieth century.

At the turn of the century Charles W. Chesnutt, one of the major representatives of the Black literary stage, voiced the theory of amalgamation of races. A mulatto himself, Chesnutt used to say that if the white and black races mixed, the problem would vanish entirely. He advocated mutual acceptance of the white and black races mostly by means of Negro assimilation, in reality, his theory was condemned to fail on the white-dominated anti-Negro policy world.

As similationist attitudes of the fist decade of the twentieth century were replaced by the Marcus Garvey back to Africa movement, which initiated the emigration of American Negroes to Africa and the colonization of Liberia. However, under the existing circumstances this venture also proved inadequate.

The 1920s developed the concept of the New Negro. It can be traced back to Booker T. Washington, who stressed the need for self-help and self-improvement. The more radical view rejected an inferior position in favor of self- respect and ambition. Bruce insisted upon organized resistance in Negro fights for equal rights. The New Negro was to be race-proud, independent, economically advancing and politically advanced.

The victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s liberalism in the 1940s meant more progressive social-which was, however, curbed under Eisenhower administration.

It was only in 1955, after the successful anti-segregation city buses boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that Martin Luther King summed up the objectives for the civil rights movement. He stressed that Negroes in America should stick together and believe in themselves; that they should not be afraid of threats and should oppose violence with a new and powerful weapon they had just discovered: non violent resistance. His mass movement of non-violence and passive resistance by means of demonstrations, boycotts, economic pressures-was aimed at integration and assimilation of the Blacks into American society. King’s assassination in 1969 closed this chapter of the Negroes’ long and tiresome fight for acknowledgement of their civil rights.
The Black Movement in the USA written by Herminne Tonita for FamousWhy.com
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Tags: black movement, usa, american life, new period, attitude, twentieth century

Category: Entertainment  - ( Entertainment Archive)

Date Added: 25 August '09

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