By the late 1960’s there was a new generation of well-educated and ambitious middle class Catholics. They were aware of their rights and set out to defend the basic rights of all citizens. They did not want an end to partition or to overthrow the NI state. Instead, they wanted to make sure they played a full role in it.
Another aim was to inform the public of their lawful rights. This inspiration to defend themselves came from the black civil rights movement in the southern states. They saw how successful it was to stage peaceful demonstrations and protests and it gave them the belief to do it themselves.
Another demand was for freedom of speech, assembly and association (belonging to the trade union). In order to achieve this they set up a wide range of organisations including trade unions and met with members of political parties. By this, they wanted to prove that they could be independent and show that their views mattered.
Another of their demands was to protect the rights of each individual and to make sure everyone had equal opportunities.
Their last demand was to highlight all possible abuses of power and to make sure that whether or not it was a Protestant/ Unionist in power, everyone would be treated equally.
After the American civil war in 1865, laws were passed to make sure blacks were discriminated against and kept as second-class citizens. These laws said that you had to pass a test in reading and writing to be considered for employment and to be allowed to vote. This wasn’t fair as the majority of blacks didn’t receive any education and couldn’t even understand the test. This resulted in blacks remaining unemployed and not allowed to vote.
The ‘Jim Crow’ laws were introduced. These meant that blacks and whites eating in the same restaurant were separated from each other and used separate toilets. Blacks and whites also started to go to different schools and by 1954, twenty states had separate schools for blacks and whites.
The ‘Separate but equal’ ruling made by the Supreme Court in 1896 was never put in practice and as a result white schools always received the better education and therefore later job opportunities were better. Blacks never got respectable jobs in public offices e.g. town mayors and always ended up with the worst paid, unskilled jobs.
Some of the aims of the Black Americans were similar to those of the NICRA, for example, by the 1960’s blacks Americans began a campaign to end things like discrimination and segregation of blacks in employment, education and law etc. However, unlike the Irish who wanted to end discrimination of religion, the blacks wanted to expose racial discrimination.
Although both movements were originally set out as being peaceful, this didn’t always happen. In June 1968 the NICRA staged a sit-in called the Austin Currie sit-in to highlight discrimination in housing allocation. A few months later the Derry march was organised by Derry Housing Action Committee. This however turned to violence when the NI Home Affairs minister, William Craig banned it and highly publicised scenes of RUC officers beating civilians emerged.
The black civil rights movement also staged numerous protests. In 1951 Linda Brown, Topeka started a protest because she had to go to a school that was twenty blocks from where she lived instead of the school that was closest to her because she was black. Her case eventually reached the Supreme Court and the city was forced to end segregation in its schools. After this there were more attempts made to end discrimination and segregation in schools but not everyone wanted this and so Southern Senators in 1956 signed the ‘Southern Manifesto’ promising to campaign against integration by any means possible.
In December 1955 Rosa Parkes started a protest against segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama because she had been arrested for not giving her seat to a white passenger. Martin Luther King sympathised with her and took on her cause. Together they started a peaceful protest call the ‘bus boycott.’
In 1961, The Congress of Racial Euperionity (CORE) staged a series of ‘freedom rides’ on buses to protest against the segregation that there still was in buses and bus stations.
The year of 1963 saw an end to discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama. King and the Birmingham Chief of Police Bull Connor were arrested after turning water canons and dogs on black protesters that were staging Freedom marches. President Kennedy eventually demanded that the Birmingham council put an end to segregation and a week later it ended.
As a result of both movements, several aims were achieved, but some felt these were ‘too little, too late’ and as a result both the American and Irish movements later turned to more extreme aims and methods. In November 1968, the NI government was forced by the British government to pass concessions. O’Neill passed a number of laws which would hopefully bring about equality. He established councils to grant houses on a ‘needs basis’, he appointed an ombudsman to investigate complaints against local authorities and universal sufferage would also be considered. For many members of the NICRA however, this was not enough and a more extreme group with demands for total equality were demanded. In January 1969 the ‘People’s Democracy’ was formed. This led to violent clashes at these protests and saw an increase in violence and extremism against the slowness and inadequacy of the reforms. It also led to British Troops being sent to NI and increased IRA activity.
The blacks were given more equality when the Civil Rights Bill was passed in 1964 and when the Voting Rights Bill was passed in 1965. However, like the situation in Northern Ireland, it was seen as ‘too little, too late’ and was followed by violent civil rights riots in Watts County, L.A. The ‘Black Power’ movement was then later introduced. This movement believed in using violence to achieve their aims. They not only wanted integration into the white mans world, but black power and dominance.
In conclusion, there were many similarities between the two movements. They both used many of the same aims and methods. Northern Ireland wanted an end to discrimination in religion, while the US wanted to end discrimination and segregation in race. Both movements gained some success, but both felt that limited success called for more violent demands and methods later on in the history of their movements.