Hoover’s influence on the American public allowed more segregation and discrimination towards the black citizens, which caused more paranoia and accusations These accusations were supported by the actions of the HUAC, the House of Un-American Activities Committee, during the 1930s when the committee created a blacklist of people, mostly in Hollywood, for supposedly showing Communist beliefs and ideas in movies and TV shows, which ultimately destroyed their lives. Although no blacks were blacklisted in Hollywood, these actions show the growing fear of communism and how easily Americans subdue to these accusations. However, with Hoover and his suspicions, the HUAC began to look into civil rights movement in 1954.
Under Hoover’s leadership, the FBI used subversion methods to obtain evidence of suspected Communists. However, Hoover’s investigations on black organizations to exploit the Communist party did not occur until 1946, the beginning of WWII when segregation had dwindled down in labor factories to help the economy. Hoover associated himself with the NAACP to reveal any suspected Communists because the NAACP clearly labeled itself as anti-communist, which proves that Hoover possibly accused blacks through his racist beliefs. Hoover’s actions and motives only strengthened the civil rights movement and its leaders by moving to end segregation to spite Hoover and others against racial equality.
2. Jim Crow Laws and Civil Rights Movement
During the Reconstruction period, Americans took steps toward civil rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Nevertheless, the Jim Crow Laws were soon passed; the anti-Black laws promoted racism and segregation lasted until the end of the civil rights movement. Under these laws, whites were seen as superior to blacks, and whites and blacks were to have separate facilities. The decision in Plessy v. Ferguson also supported the Jim Crow Laws by saying segregation was legal, which set back civil rights gains made.
With ongoing segregation from the laws in the South, the civil rights movement began picking up momentum once the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place and a new leader emerged to obtain the rights they deserved, Martin Luther King Jr., who launched the first action to acquire civil rights. King created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with its main goal to end segregation without violence and seek justice. The creation of the organization put together all other black organizations, which caused King and Hoover to soon become associated with one another on the ideas of communism and civil rights, especially when King planned for marches across the South to express the desires for equal rights and until black citizens are able to obtain those rights.
3. Soviet Support for Civil Rights
During the Cold War, the U.S. instilled the Red Scare propaganda that fueled fear towards communism infiltration and unlawful suspicion on black citizens in the U.S and the USSR. In contrast, the Soviet Union used American racism as propaganda to persuade countries, to side with the Soviets during the war, backed up by their communism beliefs. Because the U.S. never wants to be seen insulted by its enemy, the civil rights movement picked up through the U.S. case of Brown v. Board of Education, and helped King with his marches and rallies against segregation. The movement’s success began once the government passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights of 1965.
C: Evaluation of Sources
Ted Morgan’s Reds was published in 2003. The purpose of this book is to prove McCarthyism, the practice of accusing and arresting suspected communists under illegal or no evidence, existed before Senator Joe McCarthy coined the term, starting with the Bolshevik Revolution up until present-day. Morgan is a Pulitzer-prize winning author who’s written books on 18th-20th century American history. As a professional historian who graduated from Yale University, Morgan’s narrative contains useful information on Hoover’s interactions with King and the civil rights movement, aside from his thesis on the existence of McCarthyism.
The narrative presents McCarthyism and the civil rights movement through the use of primary sources, especially government documents, which is useful in this investigation. However, Morgan used the sources as evidence to prove his theory that gives this informative book a limitation, and only presents one side of his argument. Morgan also lived through the era of the second Red Scare which allowed his opinions to influence his proof on the existence of McCarthyism.
The HUAC released the report “The American Negro in the Communist Party” December 22, 1954. The report is a primary source that provides two perspectives on black Communists: one is Hoover’s idea that blacks are communists, but the other says the Communist party did not successfully infiltrate communism in black organizations; however, the entire report exposes the paranoia of communism infiltration. The report was written after the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, which could have been influenced more racism towards blacks. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate Communist efforts and failures through black organizations, and that blacks have tried to resist the Communist party offers and promises for equality.
This report contains information that addresses mostly the failures of the Communist party association with blacks and its plan to recruit to have blacks advocate the beliefs of the Communist party, and fight for them, which justifies the idea that blacks cannot be associated with the party due to their dismissal of the plan. Although this report supports this investigation, it has a limitation because while it provides numerous perspectives, it dismisses the addressing of civil rights, only that blacks are not a part of the communist party.
D: Analysis
This investigation is important in its historical context because Hoover’s and America’s actions against communism increased the popularity of the Civil Rights movement and success with King as leader in the 1960s. Tensions between the U.S. and Soviets increased during WWII that led to the Cold War and their use of racism as propaganda to make the U.S. look weak, creating more advocacies for the civil rights by Americans. Support from the Soviets created a fearful atmosphere and paranoia with communism in the U.S. government and that blacks were amongst them. This fear helped civil rights leaders progress in their movement because of the suspicion of a Communist program in black organizations like the NAACP which made Hoover follow their moves. However, King’s new organization, SCLC, began marches and rallies to gather support of the people around the world that led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the 1960s.
The Soviets sought to undermine the U.S., using its number one propaganda theme of American racism. However, this idea of equality brought Hoover to come up with the suspicion that the Soviets are using the idea of civil rights to implement communism when the NAACP marched to Washington to force the government to take a stand on civil rights. Hoover’s growing suspicion got him to begin spying on black organizations, but then put back by HUAC’s report on the theory that black citizens were trying to resist the Communist Party’s offers, so blacks cannot be accused of communism. Hoover, unchanged, set forth and spied on Martin Luther King and the SCLC, but his efforts were soon relinquished once King was growing influentially. Still, the FBI fed information to the White House on civil rights motives.
The invention of the television allowed the civil rights movement to be broadcast nationally and internationally, first with the Montgomery Bus Boycott to sit-ins after schools were desegregated for racial equality. In 1957, to prove supremacy, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act but did not enforce it. This idea supports the notion that anticommunism helped the civil rights movement, but not enough, which led to marches to Washington multiple times to fight for suffrage, jobs, and end to segregation. In 1963, the SCLC marched into Birmingham to show, internationally, the unequal treatment of blacks. It became a televised event once city officials came in with police dogs and fire hoses to discourage the campaign. This campaign led to international support of the civil rights movement, especially from the USSR, paying subsidies to media forms that advocated civil rights. These images also opened the eyes of Americans and President Kennedy, who supported Congress’s notion to pass the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Hoover saw this action as a part of the Communist plan, which set his anger and paranoia even higher. Later in 1963, King and his supporters marched to the Lincoln memorial where he gave his famous speech “I Have a Dream,” which Hoover identified as Communist association. But Hoover’s anger towards King comes from racism and King’s comments in 1962 on criticizing the FBI in the South.
When Johnson was president, the civil rights movement found its first success with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning discrimination in public and workplace. However, brutality still occurred once blacks tried to vote in Alabama, called “Bloody Sunday,” causing Johnson to press Congress to pass the next success in the movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Hoover, still paranoid, and despite other reports, believed King was associated with Communist party and intensified his surveillance on King and his organization. Nonetheless, international and national support for civil rights increased further when King was assassinated in 1968, ending the movement’s passive resistance and beginning the era of violence and black radicalism. This new violence, combined with the beginning of the Vietnam War, caused liberal activists to be in anti-war protests and support the Civil Rights movement that still led on until the 1990s.
E: Conclusion
Hoover’s growing paranoia and international support against discrimination brought success of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Hoover’s inadequacy in proving King’s and his followers’ communist affiliations provided more reinforcement for King’s nonviolent actions and the USSR’s ability to undermine the U.S. through supporting the movement. Through America’s fear of communism and support from the Soviets, the Civil Rights movement brought confidence to blacks as they demanded for full rights. Although the movement did not completely bring equality, blacks were determined to obtain those rights and sought to live equally in the face of opposition.
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