There are many reasons why these laws were passed to end segregation, and in this essay I will explore these reasons and see how TV relates to it all.
I believe that one of the main reasons these laws were passed was due to pressure groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the Nation of Islam.
The opinions of the NAACP were voiced through Dr Martin Luthur King. He advocated peaceful, non – violent protest; such as speeches, marches and boycotts. Two examples of these were the “I have a Dream” speech and the bus boycott. The bus boycott in particular was so successful that as well as alerting people to the cause, after a year the bus company found it so damaging that they decided to abolish segregation on the busses. They spearheaded many protests such as this that lead to changes in public opinion as well as to the law. Perhaps the reluctance to give in to oppression scared the government into changing the laws.
The opinions of the NOI were voiced through Malcolm X. X was in favour of violent protest; he believed that they should only be non – violent when the enemy were non – violent also. Groups such as the Black Panthers even carried guns as a means to defend themselves. This frightened white people, as they were worried that they would be attacked for being white the way they had attacked black people for being black. As a result, riots broke out in many major cities over the mid 1960s. These may have influenced some of the changes in law too, as the government would have seen the Civil Rights Act as a way to pacify the NOI so an end could be put to the violence.
Another of the main reasons for the end of segregation was the Vietnam War. Much like the Second World War, black soldiers felt disillusioned by the fact they were fighting for a freedom abroad that they didn’t experience at home. Some even likened their treatment at home to the ways the Jews were treated under Nazi rule. However, unlike the Second World War, they had undergone several years of protests to counter this - and so better knew the injustice of the situation. Black men were drafted into the army for the Vietnam War, to fight for freedom for white people. They found this hypocritical and unfair, as it was the white person denying them their own freedom at home. At the end of the war, America had spent $141 billion on the war for the Vietnamese, whilst their own peoples’ welfare had been sacrificed, with cut backs to schools, health care and public housing. The people of America, black and white, were outraged. This may have influenced the end to segregation, as the black response to the war was increased support to the Black Panther group.
I do not think that TV was one of the main reasons for the ending of segregation in the US but I do think it was an important factor. TV enabled the world to see what was going on. It was America’s favourite household item, and nearly every home had one. All of the important issues could be brought into people’s homes for them to see and understand. Propaganda and other biased material could also be broadcast to change viewers’ opinions and to sway public sympathy. One such piece of propaganda was Martin Luthur King’s “I have a dream” speech. It reached more than 300,000 civil rights organisations and was also aired around the world. TV had the ability to inform people of the current affairs as the events un-folded, and gave them enough information to make up their own minds either way. People from around the world saw what was going on in America and even joined in with protests to make changes to the laws. It may not have been the main reason that segregation was ended but TV made it come about quicker. The protests may have gone on for months, even years longer, without television to spread the messages of the oppressed black communities.
