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??? Nice way to rewrite history. Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Or because they fought for t

??? Nice way to rewrite history. Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Or because they fought for their rights, their difference, and the privileged majority had to make concessions?

jcims 6y ago
It's actually a perfect example. It's hard to imagine everyone fighting for civil rights was previously aligned on all fronts or agreed with everything that was done along the way.
- chillacy 6y ago
  In MLK's book "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community" he talks about some of the internal battles within the civil rights community and how they explicitly tried to forge alliances with other groups. That's when I learned just how brilliant MLK was in this political / social sense.
moduspol 6y ago
> Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Absolutely. Everyone involved with the movement put aside their differences to focus on the same goal. It would not have been as successful if everyone showing up for a rally was expected / coerced into supporting other political issues.
nemo44x 6y ago
Yes very much so. They found the moral high ground and were able to persuade people on our shared humanity. No one “had” to do anything. People were compelled to as they were persuaded that we had immoral systems in terms of individuals civil rights. A universal appeal to shared humanity is an approach that works. Shaming people into a type of morality will only invite pushback.
- md_ 6y ago
  For some historical context, contemporaneously, the Civil Rights movement was highly controversial and, among white Americans, fairly unpopular; it's exactly the kind of thing that would have been described as politics best left out of the workplace. "In 1964, in a poll taken nine months after the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, 74 percent of Americans said such mass demonstrations were more likely to harm than to help the movement for racial equality. In 1965, after marchers in Selma, Alabama, were beaten by state troopers, less than half of Americans said they supported the marchers." (Taken from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/the-next-reconstruction/615475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/the-nex...)
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    I think we're conflating certain actions with certain messages. The words of that speech struck a nerve with people because of its universal appeal to humanity. It's oft quoted line of "...judged by content of their character, not the color of their skin" is still universally praised because of that. Compare this to today's thoughtless and abrasive slogans or the writings of today's favored thought leaders on this and how divisive now only are the ideas but the tactics being used to coerce people into compliance. So yeah, people at the time may have had a distaste for some of the tactics but the messaging was very popular. The riots that took place later on in the decade were a disaster and led to a new, mainstream form of conservatism led by Nixon.
    - md_ 6y ago
      I don't know if I understand your point. Are you saying that the 74% unfavorable view of civil rights demonstrations suggests that Americans disfavored demonstrations but nonetheless were strongly supportive of MLK's speech at such a demonstration? That strikes me as a level of nuance that is frankly unlikely.
      - nemo44x 6y ago
        Within a year of that speech the 24th Amendment was ratified to the constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. He won the Noble Prize a little over a year later. I'd say people agreed with the message above all else because he truly appealed to a shared, universal humanity. This couldn't be done, especially in that era, without a large amount of people supporting this. An Amendment - think about that and what it takes! It almost has to be universal for that to happen. People supported these ideas. It is a myth they didn't and the evidence is the product of them. I don't think these landmark legal events occurred because people demonstrated so much what the man and his supporters were saying. I believe people miss the forest for the trees and think if they just get a group of people together they're somehow right or will get their way. But it's about what you have to say and how you say it that matters. Peacefully organizing is a great vehicle for that but you still need the goods. The violence that happened in the later 1960's set so much of it back IMO.

jcims 6y ago

It's actually a perfect example. It's hard to imagine everyone fighting for civil rights was previously aligned on all fronts or agreed with everything that was done along the way.

chillacy 6y ago
In MLK's book "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community" he talks about some of the internal battles within the civil rights community and how they explicitly tried to forge alliances with other groups. That's when I learned just how brilliant MLK was in this political / social sense.

moduspol 6y ago

> Would you say the civil rights movement was successful because it wanted to put aside differences? Absolutely. Everyone involved with the movement put aside their differences to focus on the same goal. It would not have been as successful if everyone showing up for a rally was expected / coerced into supporting other political issues.

nemo44x 6y ago

Yes very much so. They found the moral high ground and were able to persuade people on our shared humanity. No one “had” to do anything. People were compelled to as they were persuaded that we had immoral systems in terms of individuals civil rights. A universal appeal to shared humanity is an approach that works. Shaming people into a type of morality will only invite pushback.

md_ 6y ago
For some historical context, contemporaneously, the Civil Rights movement was highly controversial and, among white Americans, fairly unpopular; it's exactly the kind of thing that would have been described as politics best left out of the workplace. "In 1964, in a poll taken nine months after the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, 74 percent of Americans said such mass demonstrations were more likely to harm than to help the movement for racial equality. In 1965, after marchers in Selma, Alabama, were beaten by state troopers, less than half of Americans said they supported the marchers." (Taken from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/the-next-reconstruction/615475/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/the-nex...)
- nemo44x 6y ago
  I think we're conflating certain actions with certain messages. The words of that speech struck a nerve with people because of its universal appeal to humanity. It's oft quoted line of "...judged by content of their character, not the color of their skin" is still universally praised because of that. Compare this to today's thoughtless and abrasive slogans or the writings of today's favored thought leaders on this and how divisive now only are the ideas but the tactics being used to coerce people into compliance. So yeah, people at the time may have had a distaste for some of the tactics but the messaging was very popular. The riots that took place later on in the decade were a disaster and led to a new, mainstream form of conservatism led by Nixon.
  - md_ 6y ago
    I don't know if I understand your point. Are you saying that the 74% unfavorable view of civil rights demonstrations suggests that Americans disfavored demonstrations but nonetheless were strongly supportive of MLK's speech at such a demonstration? That strikes me as a level of nuance that is frankly unlikely.
    - nemo44x 6y ago
      Within a year of that speech the 24th Amendment was ratified to the constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. He won the Noble Prize a little over a year later. I'd say people agreed with the message above all else because he truly appealed to a shared, universal humanity. This couldn't be done, especially in that era, without a large amount of people supporting this. An Amendment - think about that and what it takes! It almost has to be universal for that to happen. People supported these ideas. It is a myth they didn't and the evidence is the product of them. I don't think these landmark legal events occurred because people demonstrated so much what the man and his supporters were saying. I believe people miss the forest for the trees and think if they just get a group of people together they're somehow right or will get their way. But it's about what you have to say and how you say it that matters. Peacefully organizing is a great vehicle for that but you still need the goods. The violence that happened in the later 1960's set so much of it back IMO.