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In 1865, the American Civil War ended and the 13th Amendment abolished slavery; however, they didn’t end discrimination against black Americans, thus leading to the Black Civil Rights Movement. In England, according to the PPT, the franchise had been extended from only rich men to almost all men from 1832 to 1884; therefore, women’s exclusion from the franchise seemed increasingly silly (Clohesy 2019). As a result, the Suffragist Movement began. These two movements are two significant movements for equal rights in human history. After comparing the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Suffragist Movement in terms of aim, method, leader, media, politician, and contemporary situation, generally we consider the Black Civil Rights Movement more effective.
First of all, the aim of the Suffragist Movement is more effective than the Black Civil Rights Movement. The Black Civil Rights Movement aims to gain equal rights as white people, while the Suffragist Movement asks for women’s equal rights represented by voting rights. Black people ask for a more general and abstract aim which seems to have no specific purpose. On the contrary, the Suffragist Movement demonstrates more clearly that voting is the first step to striving so that it can pave the path for them to fight for more rights, as Purvis argues, “their agitation was not just for the parliamentary vote but a Women’s Revolution that would transform gender roles in society and bring women equality” (Purvis 2013). Therefore, the Suffragist Movement works more effectively than the Black Civil Movement in deciding the aim.
Secondly, methods used by the violent and non-violent sides in the two movements are of different effectiveness. Both of these two movements used nonviolent methods at the beginning and then developed into violent methods. Similarly, they had two different sides in the two campaigns, and caused conflicts between the two sides. On behalf of the non-violent side of the Black Civil Rights Movement, King promoted delivering speeches and organizing the Montgomery bus boycott. As for the peaceful NUWSS, the leader Mrs. Millicent Fawcett admitted that the Suffragettes had done more during the last 12 months than the suffragists had been able to achieve in 12 years (1906). In terms of the violent side, Malcolm X chose to attack white Americans and only got support from 0.2% of the black population in the US in 1960. WSPU gained more public attention and assembled most of the females to participate in it. According to Goring, WSPU adopted a new way of three-color jewelry advertising, which evoked an immediate response (2002). Thus, the Black Civil Rights Movement is more effective on the non-violent side; the Suffragette movement is more influential on the violent side.
Thirdly, compared with the Suffragist Movement, the leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement was more effective. The most vocal leader of the Black Civil Rights Movement is Martin Luther King Jr. and the Suffragists Movement Emmeline Pankhurst. Martin Luther King Jr. is so influential that his speech “I Have a Dream” is regarded as one of the world’s most influential speeches, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. However, compared with Martin Luther King, Emmeline is not so impressive in history. Emmeline set up WSPU and organized militant movements, successfully arousing people’s attention, but she caused much annoyance and hatred for destroying public facilities. Even her daughter, Sylvia Pankhurst was also unsatisfactory with her mother, saying her mother was not concerned about her family and separated from WSPU, alleging with the present male government. (Purvis, 2013). As a result, as the leader of a campaign, King worked more successfully than Emmeline.
Fourthly, the media of the Black Civil Rights Movement is also more effective.TV was invented when the Black Civil Rights Movement happened, but the suffragists only had a newspaper to spread their ideas. Because of the different periods, the development of technology brought more ways to report and spread news in the Black Civil Rights Movement. Visual videos and images were able to portray more complete events, more appealing and impressive than newspapers. Instead, newspapers need to spend a relatively long time writing, editing, and printing out, so they cannot report the suffragists’ movement on time. Therefore, in terms of media, TV in the Black Civil Rights Movement is more effective.
Fifthly, the Black Civil Rights Movement works more effectively to get politician’s support. Although politicians were against Black at the very beginning, they supported the black people’s movement President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enable the 9 students to go to school against the governor in Little Rock, Arkansas. However, the Suffragist Movement had never won politician’s support. English politicians opposed suffragettes strongly through both public speeches and policies. For this aspect, the politicians of the Black Civil Rights Movement supported the blacks, but the English politicians only showed a negative attitude towards women activists.
Finally, the temporary situations and influences after these two movements differ in effectiveness. After about 150 years since the Black Civil Rights Movement and about 100 years since the Suffragists Movement, we can see that great progress has been made: the Black and the White now have legally the same rights; Barack Obama, a black senator, was elected president in 2008; women have voting rights as same as men. However, discrimination towards black people and women still exists, and the temporary situation is complicated. The Guardian illustrates that “In the US, black people are more likely to be arrested for drug offenses and have a higher chance of getting shot by the police than white or Hispanic people” (2019). At the workplace, it’s harder for women to get a promotion, especially at higher levels. So it’s hard to tell which one influences more effectively in the modern age.
In conclusion, the Black Civil Rights Movement is more effective in aspects of its leader, media, and politicians; the suffragist Movement chose a more effective aim. In general, the Black Civil Rights Movement is more effective than the Suffragist Movement. However, the contemporary situation and influence of the two movements are still complicated in modern times. All in all, although the two movements have both advantages and weaknesses in different aspects, they are still remarkable in history, which helps black people and women to fight for their rights. At the same time, for the racism and discrimination problems, we still have a long way to go.
Reference list
- Fawcett M. (1906) in Anna’s resources
- Goring E. (2002) The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850- the Present, No.26, Omnium Gatherum- A Collection of Papers (2002), pp. 84-99
- Purvis J. (2013) Gendering the Historiography of the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian Britain: some reflections, Women’s History Review, 22:4, 576-590, DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2012.751768
- The Guardian (2019) Racism harms black people most. It’s time to recognise “anti-blackness” Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/09/black-people-racism-anti-blackness-discrimination-minorities (Accessed:1 February 2019)
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