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The Civil Rights Movement and the Continuing Struggle for the Redemption of America

Rod Bush examines the origins and history of the Civil Rights Movement and Black nationalism in the U.S. and globally. The article details the suppression of these movements and the continuing struggle for the redemption of America. Bush seeks to understand the Civil Rights Movement in the context of its larger role as a force for the democratization of U.S. society, internally and in its international relations. These movements provoked a society-wide debate about the nature of racism, power, poverty, and democracy, as well as vastly expanded notions of equality and social justice. In this conjuncture, as Black leaders built a coalition of radicals in the Civil Rights Movement, Black nationalists in the U.S., revolutionaries in the three continents, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and a generation of opposition leaders were assassinated.

African Americans — history; Martin Luther King; Malcolm X; Black Power; Civil Rights Movement — history; labor and laboring classes — African Americans — history; Left [the] — United States — history; social history — 1960s

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 30, No. 1 (2003): 42-66