Where Have All The Powers Gone?

The Black Rights Movement, by 1960, had struck major blows with such cases as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas and NAACP v. Alabama. Throughout all the sit-ins, marches, protests, boycotts, and other actions, the movement had garnered a lot of support, and several groups at the forefront, namely the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). These two groups were rather distinct and liberal at the time, but by 1965 would start to look conservative in the movement. The defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement occurred in 1964, when the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party made history.

In 1964, seeing that the Mississippi Democratic Party would not allow blacks into the fold, a group of blacks from around Mississippi joined to form their own delegation to the Democratic National Convention, that summer. When Mississippi showed up with two delegations, the DNC found themselves in quite a pickle. So, in an unprecedented move, the DNC just created four extra spots in the delegation. This is where it all turned ugly for the MFDP. An argument opened up as to whether or not that was enough. One side contended that receiving four seats meant that the protesting the system works, while the other contended that four seats was a pithy amount, and that it was a government tactic to buy them out and shut them up.

After this argument, the movement began to splinter into more and more groups. It could even be said that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had a hard time coordinating. As the movement broke off into subgroups and new movements within the movement, there was less and less power. Such groups as the Black Nationalists or the Black Panthers Party started up, and diverted the attention away from one concentrated goal to several different goals, and took the party in several different directions.

In the "Black Panther Platform 'What We Want, What We Believe'", the authors make several demands. The authors, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, two black men from Oakland, California, formed the group as a sort of branch of the SNCC, but a more militant branch. Some of the first things being asked for are reasonable and justifiable, such as freedom, employment, and housing. As a matter of fact, having these topics brought up is a black eye for the American establishment. However, some of the next set of demands get a little more militant, and it can be seen in the words on the page.

As the document continues, some words appear in all capital letters, implying that it is shouted. For example, "7. We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of black people." Furthermore, the demands begin to get less and less reasonable: "8. We want freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, and city prisons and jails....because they have not received a fair and impartial trial."1 The document concludes with direct quote, for three paragraphs, of the Declaration of Independence, almost suggesting the desire for the separation of white and black communities and a formation of a separate government, in a revolutionary tone that strikes home with directly quoting one of the core documents of American history.

Events like this are what helps lead to the breakup of groups and movements. The SNCC and SCLC may have wanted some of the first few demands from the document, but not some of the later ones. This, along with the Black Nationalist Movement, and even the Women's Movement helped splinter a thriving group, that had unlimited potential. The Women's Movement collides with the Black Rights Movement at, predictably, black women. Questions were raised about women in the movement. Not only that, but the Women's Rights Movement was impacted by factionalizing and splintering between different groups, including race, income, sexual orientation, and even ferocity of demands and tactics.

There were two basic types of feminism, liberal and radical. Liberal feminism (which was actual the more conservative of the two) tended to accentuate the idea (actually, the reality) that there was a gap in social standing between men and women, and men were ahead. Many authors, including Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinem, wrote articles, essays, and books concerning women's issues.

In the 1963 work, The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Freidan, she brings to the forefront many issues that women of that time had to deal with. In the essay "The Problem That Has No Name", Freidan speaks of a problem facing women (mainly married women, with children) that is mostly mental. It has nothing to do with money, lack of love for her husband, her children, or anything that one may immediately think. This problem is from women who don't feel they are getting enough out of life. "How can any woman see the whole truth within the bounds of her own life?"2 Freidan is speaking of women who have a nice family life, but feel restless because their potential is being wasted. They are not living their lives to the fullest. This is one of the problems women faced in that time, argues Betty Freidan. The way to fix this problem could be with joining the workforce, and not getting a job, but a career. Don't become a secretary. Become a career businesswoman.

Betty Freidan's article was just one viewpoint from the Women's Movement. Freidan and the National Organization for Women (NOW, which Rush Limbaugh so affectionately refers to as the National Association of Gals, or NAG) had a more conservative approach toward equality among the sexes. Another major push were the more radical attempts at feminism. These people are popularly referred to by some as bra-burning feminazis, and are quite radical. Some of the actions from these groups include protesting against the Miss America pageant and arguing for complete separation of men and women.

Other viewpoints started coming out, like about the women who didn't have that nice home life and were poor, or were black and faced a "double jeopardy" of being both female and black. This is where the movement may have lost focus. By representing so many women, it was hard to focus and concentrate on the gender gap between men and women. Instead, there was the gap between white men and white women versus black men and black women, and the gap between middle-class white men and middle-class white women versus poor white men and poor white women. This fracturing hurt the movement. This can be seen in Debby D'Amico's piece from 1970.

In Debby D'Amico's "To My White Working-Class Sisters" she complains about the situation of working-class women, obviously. It was written in 1970, and is in the time after NOW had been formed and Ms. magazine had been published. She comments on how photographers don't take their pictures or people ask for their stories, but that they are there, and are the "silent majority"3. What she argues is that being a working-class citizen, she is passed over and is forced to watch the people with more money and privilege go ahead of her. This is both a cry for equality of the sexes and of equality of social class. This definitely contains a little bit of a critique of the middle-class feminist movement (symbolized by NOW and Ms. magazine).
The fracturing can be seen on social and racial lines. This helps lead not to dissolution of the feminist movement, but definitely to a weakening. It should not be said that these problems should not be brought up, as these are mostly very important topics. The issue of race is very important at the same time as the issue of sexual inequality. However, it could also be said that to get some of these ideas through, it may require the sacrifice of certain other issues. Trying to get too much done at one time can be taxing and may lead to the eventual result of getting nothing done. Having sections, factions, fractures, and divisions is the easiest way to failure. The Civil Rights Movement got much more accomplished when they were focused on one or two things, and had one message, than they ever did divided into many groups. This lesson goes tenfold for factions that bicker with each other, calling one "too radical" or "not progressive enough". It all goes back to the Abraham Lincoln quote: "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Works Cited:

D'Amico, Debbie, "To My White Working-Class Sisters" Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin' it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Freidan, Betty, "The Problem That Has No Name" Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin' it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Newton, Huey and Bobby Seale, "The Black Panther Platform: 'What We Want, What We Believe'". Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, Takin' it to the Streets: A Sixties Reader, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.