The Civil Rights Movement and Its Consequences

The one word which better than any other describes the position of Negro Americans in the South from the 1890s until the outbreak of World War II is powerless. ... Negroes were totally excluded from positions of decision making in all institutions. ... All public facilities in the region, including city parks and playgrounds, theaters, hotels, and restaurants were rigidly segregated — as was, of course, the entire school system. The disenfranchisement of Negroes was virtually complete.

— Everett Carll Ladd, Negro Political Leadership in the South, 1966

The civil rights movement in the South was considered one of America's most important periods of political and social readjustment in this century, and perhaps one of the most profound in the country's history. The movement represented the first major effort to gain greater equality for blacks since Reconstruction. Indeed, the primary assumption underlying the civil rights movement was that, once freed from overt intimidation and granted basic political rights, blacks would be able to translate those gains into political power and economic advancement. Political equality and the betterment of social and economic conditions for blacks were the foremost goals of the movement. Black political power was also seen as the fundamental precondition to advances in other aspects of life. "If Negroes could vote," claimed Martin Luther King, Jr., "there would be no more oppressive poverty directed against Negroes, our children would not be crippled by segregated schools, and the whole community might live together in harmony."

Despite this generally accepted formula for racial change, there is still widespread debate about the effects of the civil rights movement on the lives of black southerners. A longtime scholar of southern politics, William Havard, wrote in the early 1970s that "any middle-aged southerner can attest to the fact that changes have taken place in race relations in the South within the period of his adult experience that would have been inconceivable to his father, let alone his grandfather." In more specific terms, John Lewis, civil rights activist of the 1960s and later director of the Voter Education Project, contended that the black movement in the South has meant "not only the changes in the number of [black] people elected, in the breakdowns of barriers in public accommodations and desegregation, or in better jobs for blacks," but also "a new, recognized sense of black dignity and pride." These sanguine accounts suggest that a number of significant gains have taken place in the quest of black Americans for political and economic equality.

Other analysts, however, have disputed these views concerning the impact of the black movement. A dozen years after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the New York Times claimed that "the full potential of black political power in Dixie remains unrealized" owing to a lack of black political experience, organization, motivation, and economic power. Most noticeable has been the apparent lack of progress for blacks in the economic realm. Moreover, while Jim Crow may have died, subtle forms of racism continue to plague blacks. In the words of southern historian William Chafe, "inequality and discrimination still suffuse our social and economic system, buttressed by informal modes of social control even more powerful than the law." The question remains as to what effects the civil rights movement has had for southern blacks, and specifically whether or not increased black political participation has resulted in significant improvements.

The purpose of this book is to assess the impact of that movement and the role of black political participation in local communities in the South. Much has been written about the rise and development of the civil rights movement. The sit-ins and freedom rides, Martin Luther King, SCLC and CORE, Selma and Montgomery — all represent interesting symbols or tales of conflict in the struggle for change. Little attention, however, has been focused on the results of that movement in the lives of black southerners. Thus the emphasis here is on a neglected area of academic and public concern — the effects of black participation on the formation of local policies. In the process of exploring this issue, several basic questions will be addressed: What was the nature of the civil rights movement at the local level in the South? How much political, social, and economic change took place? How did these changes occur? Most importantly, why did these transformations take place, and what was the impact of various black political activities? The answers to these questions, of course, go well beyond the black movement and have important implications for political and social change more generally in the United States.

Forms of Political Participation

In both its philosophical and practical aspects, the civil rights movement in the South was concerned with increasing the extent and quality of black participation in politics. Political involvement, especially electoral participation, is considered the most fundamental element in American democracy. Through such participation all other rights theoretically are protected and each citizen is granted a potential influence in the determination of governmental policy. According to democratic theory, the political process serves as a conduit through which the needs of the people are communicated to the government, which in turn makes the key decisions as to how the benefits of society are to be distributed. Since public resources are scarce, the ability to participate in the process governing their distribution is of crucial importance. During the 1960s the black movement in the South raised anew the issue of whether political participation was an adequate instrument for alleviating serious inequities among American citizens.

What needs to be recognized about the civil rights movement, however, is not simply that it brought about greater political mobilization and increased participation of blacks. It should also be kept in mind that the forms of participation by blacks and other groups were in many cases new or used previously to only a minimal extent. For that reason, this study examines a broad range of strategies used and assesses their relative efficacy for bringing about increased equality for blacks in the political and economic sectors.

In terms of conventional strategies, the vote was long sought by blacks as the principal goal of the movement that culminated in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as many other civil rights leaders, regarded the ballot as the most accessible and most potent weapon in the struggle for equality. Indeed the assumption was that voting rights would pave the way for all other changes, since the franchise is the normal method by which demands of citizens are fulfilled. By electing blacks and moderate whites to office, it was expected that blacks could advance themselves through the public realm. Ideally, the vote would enable blacks to obtain important gains in a variety of areas, including education, employment, housing, and public services. Beyond this instrumental value, the ballot was seen as crucial in providing previously disenfranchised blacks with a sense of full citizenship and increased self-esteem. Yet despite these strong beliefs in the efficacy of the vote, some studies have indicated that electoral strategies are often indirect and uncertain mechanisms for bringing about change.

Another orthodox political activity of blacks involved interest-group formation and action. The civil rights era marked the rise of a number of important black-led organizations, including CORE and SCLC. The NAACP, having been active in the legal realm for decades, increased its efforts and expanded its focus to include more basic economic issues. In addition, there were numerous local black groups that developed in response to particular community needs. Although the goals of these various organizations differed somewhat, most tended to stress fundamental political rights (especially voting) and economic improvements for blacks. Tactics varied as well, but the emphasis was usually on traditional forms of interest-group action, including lobbying public officials, petitioning, attending public meetings, and mobilizing the vote.

Of great importance was the solicitation of federal assistance by blacks (and sometimes by moderate whites). With the passage of the civil rights acts of 1964 and 1965 and the social legislation of the Great Society, Washington assumed the position of a valuable ally for the black movement. Federal grant monies were increasingly available to communities, and many of the funds were earmarked for programs to benefit the poor. Washington was also able to force local governments to achieve more racial equality by threatening to cut off federal funds, by sending investigators into communities, by instituting lawsuits, and by various other means. Indeed, federal district courts, the primary enforcers of national law in the South, were often called upon to protect the rights of blacks in this period. All told, the resources of the federal government were formidable, and attempts by blacks to utilize those resources as a counterforce to southern recalcitrance seems to have been crucial to the success of the movement.

In addition to these conventional strategies, the civil rights movement developed and used a variety of unconventional political approaches for which it became widely known. Protest techniques, including peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts, marches, and pickets, became a major addition to the arsenal of blacks and their leaders. Protest was not new to American politics, although the last major outbreak of demonstrations had been during the Depression days of the 1930s. The black movement, however, utilized protest extensively and, in some cases, rather ingeniously. As a result, protest emerged as a significant form of political participation in the United States during the 1960s, and this development clearly affected the goals and strategies of other social movements of the period as well.

While most Americans regard protest as an unorthodox and extreme kind of political action, they tend to consider peaceful demonstrations at least quasi-legitimate, since — theoretically — no personal injury or property damage results. In fact, peaceful demonstrations are legal under most circumstances. In any case, during the 1960s protest activity was increasingly seen as an effective technique for communicating policy preferences to those in power. Demonstrations not only exposed in dramatic fashion the injustices of society, but also imposed political or economic sanctions upon elites. In terms of the civil rights movement, protest was instrumental in desegregating public accommodations, although its usefulness appeared limited when applied to other areas of racial injustice.

Yet the movement for black equality ultimately went beyond peaceful protests to more radical, unconventional activities like rioting and interracial violence. This shifting of tactics occurred as the movement began to encompass all classes of blacks, not just the middle and upper classes, and moved from trying to guarantee basic political rights to attempting to fulfill more difficult welfare and economic goals. These new demands on behalf of the masses of blacks were sometimes viewed as attempts to reformulate, rather than simply tinker with, basic American institutions, and developed as more militant black leaders appeared on the scene to challenge the conventional approaches to change of moderate blacks.

Collective violence, especially riots, have been relatively common in American history. A number of minority groups have used violence to influence social change, and in turn the government has often resorted to the forcible repression of various groups; the use of violence by political outgroups, however, is illegal and is almost always considered outside the pale of legitimate political action. In general, Americans have tended to view mass violence as aberrant and unnecessary, contending that change occurs according to a routinized, stable process. Nonetheless, during the 1960s blacks often supported and used violence as a form of collective political expression. The number and intensity of black riots alone — more than 329 important instances in some 257 cities between 1964 and 1968 — clearly indicate their significance as a factor in the civil rights struggle. How effective these radical approaches were, however, is a relatively unexplored question.

These were the major instruments of political change used by blacks during the civil rights movement. Undoubtedly other activities were employed as well, strategies especially developed or adopted because of local circumstances and goals; but very few were as well publicized or seem to have been as important as those we have just discussed. The critical question is, How significant was each of these forms of political participation and mobilization in effecting changes for blacks in the South?

Plural and Elite Views of Black Politics

The views of scholars who have assessed the question of black Americans and political participation are rather diverse and often conflicting. On the one hand there are those social scientists, most of whom are proponents of some variation of pluralist theory, who contend that political power is widely distributed in this country and that the political system is relatively open and responsive to a variety of demands. Pluralist theory tends to emphasize the utility of conventional political participation, especially electoral and interest-group efforts, in the process of political change. Through peaceful negotiation, bargaining, and compromise, the pluralists argue, most demands of various competing groups are fulfilled, although in a rather slow, incremental manner. Electoral participation is considered the dominant feature of the political system, since it is the primary means by which most persons in power are selected and by which power is transferred from one group to another. Indeed, pluralist theory contends that the strategy of the vote has worked successfully for many groups in United States history and that blacks, too, have been able to expand their power recently through the electoral system.

Pluralism clearly suggests a system that emphasizes stability, orderly and rational means of change, and avoidance of violence. Since existing institutions and conventional political strategies are felt to be adequate for advancing the interests of minorities, the resort to unconventional activities such as protest and violence is considered unnecessary and irrational. Pluralists contend that such forceful tactics are not only destabilizing but unproductive, and rarely result in any kind of meaningful societal change.

Support for these pluralist assumptions is provided by several studies of black participation in the South. Hugh Price, for example, reported in the mid-1950s that black voting in some Florida cities seemed to have resulted in better police protection and more public services, such as paved streets, playgrounds, and civic centers, for blacks. In another study, Frederick Wirt investigated one predominantly black county in Mississippi in the late 1960s and suggested that conventional black political participation there had meant more black police, more paved roads and streetlights, less-prejudiced media attention, and some psychological benefits. Huey Perry's somewhat later study of black electoral participation in Greene County, and Birmingham, Alabama, reported similar findings, including progress in public education and in the desegregation of public accommodations.

The most systematic investigation of the benefits to be derived from black voting in the South has been William Keech's mid-1960s study entitled The Impact of Negro Voting. Looking longitudinally and in depth at two southern cities, Durham, North Carolina, and Tuskegee, Alabama, Keech compared concomitant variation in black electoral participation with public- and private-sector payoffs for blacks. He concluded that increases in black voting were responsible for progress in the public sector, especially improved streets, water and sewage, recreation, and police and fire protection. Few changes, however, were reported in the private, non-governmental sector.

Perhaps the best evidence in support of pluralist assumptions is the dramatic increase in black elected officials in the South and their impact on the political system. Gains in black voter registration and turnout in the sixties resulted in substantial numbers of black southerners being elected to office, especially at the local level. In 1965 approximately 70 blacks held elected office in the eleven ex-Confederate states, but by 1974 this number had risen to 1,314, and by 1986 the total was 3,510. Although data on the impact of these black officials are still somewhat sparse, these representatives seem to have been moderately effective in providing both material and symbolic rewards for their black constituents. The tremendous increase both in the number of black elected officials and in their influence tends to confirm the pluralist contention of an open and responsive political system.