Monday, February 9, 2009
Andrew Albrecht Third Post
No matter what kind of perspective you use when approaching the subject of the Cold War years and the Civil Rights Movement it is not a simple subject. However, attempting to analyze the years from an african american diaspora perspective is different from the usual ways one looks at those years. A "diaspora" is defined as a removal and scattering of people from their home to a different place. So when you look at the Civil Rights Movement keeping this in mind you can see how the reforms that took place were a long time coming and general progress.
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My intention in introducing the term "African Diaspora" is to remind us of the international context in which these domestic social and political changes are taking place. We want to understand the civil rights movement not only as a significant event in U.S. history, but also as a global event. These mass protests--the boycotts, the sit-ins, the marches and speeches, but also the creation of various organizations, and the involvement of ordinary people as leaders of these movements, as THE MOVEMENT themselves, symbolized the possibilities of change for other oppressed people around the world. Within the Diaspora itself, civil rights activists in the US communicated directly with black national leaders in the Caribbean, and on the African continent, as they sought to create new government for themselves, independent of European colonial powers. The activists of the civil rights movement inspired protesters in South Africa, for example, to engage its apartheid government over the issue of pass laws, and to question the whole maintenance of the colonial system. The forms of racism we are concerned with are not simply about the individual or the daily insults, but also about the ways in which the leading institutions of American society and government operated then (and still operate today) on a segregated basis. Certainly, these protesters do deserve our recognition of their heroic sacrifices; my question is, do we honor them today by the way we interact in our society now?
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