Civil rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Civil rights - Essay Example Not until the 1960s did a considerable significant number of youth of America join and add their efforts to the movement. The scholarly works of Lawson and Payne have led them to contradictory opinions of the riotous years from 1945 to 1968. However both provide a gleaming, deviously nuance summary of the period. Charles Payne has thoroughly worked on the definitive study of the civil rights movement in the Delta. Payne divulges the bravery, infatuation, absurdity, and perseverance of thousands of black women and men who worked, against irresistible odds, to take charge of their destiny through his outstanding use of verbal interviews of past. This is the most ample and enlightening study of organizing on the grass-roots echelon that we have, and will be of importance to scholars, students, and activists alike. Lawson captures what is said "the view from the nation," in conflict that "it was the federal government ... that played an indispensable role in shaping the fortunes of the civil rights revolution. It is impossible to understand how Blacks achieved first-class citizenship ... in the South without concentrating on what national leaders ... did to influence the course of events" (p. 3). Explanation of Lawson argues that still after Birmingham and the March on Washington the nation had not been stimulated to crack the "legislative logjam" (p. 29) over an all-inclusive bill of civil rights. Lyndon B. Johnson's congressional wizardry and ethical dedication made it happened. It was as functional as the Selma demonstrations were in getting passage of Voting Rights Act 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson had inculcated the Justice Department to set up the bill "even before the Selma campaign had begun" (p. 32). "Throughout the history of the civil rights struggle, the national state played a key role in determining its outcome" (p. 40). Payne is piercingly critical of the "top-down" (p. 109) theory, asserting that top down approach falls short to value and understand the function ordinary people performed in changing the state, spotlights approximately exclusively on large-scale spectacular events to the disadvantage of "the real and authentic social infrastructure that continued the struggle on daily basis," and highlights only legislative modifications at the cost of perceiving the civil rights movement "as a changing experience for persons" (p. 110). Above all, conceivably, in Payne's opinion, the top-down elucidation promotes a triumphalism that marks off black fundamentals as a fringe anthology of ingrates, overlooking that by the end of their lives, "the gap between Martin Luther King's thoughts" and that of Malcolm X was "less than one might imagine" (p. 133). Payne's logical admiration for great organizers like Ella Baker guides him to view with evident commiseration their diverse feelings about "relatively short-term public events" (p. 125) like Birmingham and Selma that were highly influential in the civil rights revolution. Steven F. Lawson and Charles Payne scrutinize the persons who made the movement an achievement, both at the uppermost level of government and in the grassroots channels. Designed exclusively for college and university courses in American history, this is the best elucidation about the glory and agony of these