A brief overview of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement in America

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a decades-long struggle with the goal of enforcing constitutional and legal rights for African Americans that other Americans already enjoyed. With roots that date back to the late 19th century, the movement achieved its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s, after years of direct actions and grassroots protests that were organized from the mid-1950s until 1968, and the fight for equity for African Americans still continues today. Encompassing strategies, various groups, and organized social movements to accomplish the goals of ending legalized racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and discrimination in the United States, the movement, using both nonviolent and justified violent (self-defense) campaigns, eventually secured new recognition in federal law and federal protection for all Americans.

After the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the 1860s (which began with the Thirteenth Amendment – “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime…….”), the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship to all African Americans. However, it must be noted that rights written on paper do not automatically translate in to actuality, and African Americans had to continue, and still continue, to fight for access to those rights and true equity.

For a period, African Americans voted and held political office, but they were increasingly deprived of civil rights, often under Jim Crow laws, and subjected to systemic discrimination and they often experienced brutality and violence by whites in the South. Over the following century, various efforts were made by African Americans to secure their legal rights. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and government authorities.

Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations (riots, sit-ins, occupations etc.), which highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans across the country. The torture and murder of Chicago teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi, and the outrage generated by seeing how he had been abused and mutilated when his mother decided to have an open-casket funeral, mobilized the African-American community nationwide. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts, such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina and successful Nashville sit-ins in Tennessee; marches, such as the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other activities.

Moderates in the movement worked with Congress to achieve the passage of several significant pieces of federal legislation that overturned discriminatory practices and authorized oversight and enforcement by the federal government. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressly banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in employment practices; ended unequal application of voter registration requirements; and prohibited racial segregation in schools, at the workplace, and in public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored and protected voting rights for minorities by authorizing federal oversight of registration and elections in areas with historic under-representation of minorities as voters.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to take action. From the mid 1960’s, a wave of inner-city riots in black communities undercut support from the white middle class, but increased support from private foundations. The emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from about 1965 to 1975, challenged the established black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its practice of nonviolence. Instead, its leaders demanded that, in addition to the new laws gained through the nonviolent movement, political and economic self-sufficiency had to be developed in the black community. Notably, the Black Panthers were a key group within that movement, establishing in the wake of the assassination of Black Nationalist Leader Malcolm X. They functioned as local militia, protecting and defending their communities through armed patrol. They provided community services to help strengthen resilience and self-sustainability including free breakfast programs for school children and free health clinics in 13 African American communities across the United States.

A brief overview of civil disobedience in Australia

Including a brief overview of the Civil Rights movement and Black Power movement in Australia

1938, January 26th - First Aboriginal day of Mourning and Protest held in Sydney.

1946, May 1st - Pilbara Aboriginal pastoral workers strike started. Pastoral workers walked out on strike against very poor conditions and salary.

There were a range of actions against the Vietnam war through the 1960’s and 1970’s. In July 1968, hundreds of anti-Vietnam protestors and police had a violent clash at the US Consulate in Melbourne. Mounted police trampled protestors, which mainly included students, and many protestors and officers were left injured.  

Anti-uranium, anti-nuclear and anti-fracking movements have existed in Australia since the 1970’s and continue today in 2019.

1979 - Noonkanbah Protests.

The early 1980’s NVDA campaign against the Franklin Dam in Tasmania was successful after ending up in the High Court of Australia and is perceived to be “…the most famous and influential environmental law. case in Australian history. It was also a landmark in Australian constitutional law.” – Environmental Law Australia

In the early 1980’s, community members in Western Australia came together to stop the extension of Farrington Road in North Lake. This grassroots campaign stretched across decades with action on all levels; academic, political, community and mass civil disobedience.

January 26th 1988 - 40,000 Aboriginal people march in Sydney to mark the 200th anniversary of the European invasion.

In the late 1990’s, activists and campaigners in Western Australia fought a year’s long battle for the legal right to seek an abortion. Before then, people seeking an abortion had to travel across the country, out of country or risk their health and their life undergoing backyard abortions. The fight for safe access zones, to protect patients and staff from harassment from anti-choice protestors, continues in Western Australia and the fight to decriminalise abortion continues is NSW.

The Reconciliation movement involved over one million Australians during the Sorry Day marches in the year 2000.

Australia saw an anti-Iraq war movement rise in the early 2000’s.

From 2010, the campaign to protect James Price Point began and eventually achieved success when Woodside Petroleum announced it would pull out of the planned development. This campaign included protests, blockades, lock-on’s and hundreds of arrests were made. The Stop Adani campaign, which is proclaimed as being the biggest people-powered environmental campaign in Australian history, began around this time, too. Hundreds of arrests and ongoing, relentless actions have won many battles so far, and the fight continues today to put an end to the Adani coal mine.

In late 2016/early 2017, work commenced on the Roe 8 highway extension and a four month-long nonviolent direct action campaign kept most of the destruction at bay and ultimately won protection for the area. Hundreds of arrests were made.

In very recent years Australia has seen the rise of environmental movements like School Strike 4 Climate and Extinction Rebellion with groups across the nation.

Australia’s Civil Rights Movement

First Nations peoples have been fighting for land rights and human rights since this land was stolen and colonised. Groups such as Stop Black Deaths in Custody, Close the Gap, Sisters Inside and many others have been fighting, and continue to fight, for equity.

January 26th, 1938 - First Aboriginal day of Mourning and Protest held in Sydney. It was the first national Aboriginal civil rights gathering and represents the identifiable beginning of the contemporary Aboriginal political movement. About 100 Aboriginal men, women and children gathered in a hall at 150–152 Elizabeth Street in Sydney, known as the Australian Hall. The protesters' intention was to bring awareness of their plight to non-Indigenous Australians, in order to gain support for their proposal to dismantle the Protection Boards then operating, and extend full citizen rights to Aboriginal people. The Day of Mourning was attended by Aboriginal activists who came from all over Australia. The Australian Hall, by association, became extremely significant to Indigenous heritage, and is now listed on the National Register of heritage places.

The first recorded strike by Aboriginal people began on May 1st, of 1946 in the Pilbara. An estimated 800 pastoral workers walked off the job, from 1946 to 1949, at stations in protest of poor conditions & pay and unfair treatment. Many workers were not paid at all, and instead were compensated in rations of tea, sugar and tobacco. Furthermore, government policies that were enforced by station owners and police restricted pastoral workers from leaving their employment and from travelling around the area. Eventually, some people were forced to return to work, but others became self-sufficient through community run mining operations.

In August of 1966 another strike, known as the Wave Hill walk-off, began in Gurindji (Wave Hill), Northern Territory. Protesting for equal wages Aboriginal stockmen walked off Wave Hill pastoral station in the NT. Little did the white station owners know that the strike would become a precursor to land rights legislation almost 10 years later.

In 1971, The Australian Black Panther party was co-founded by Denis Walker and Sam Watson. Their headquarters was in Brisbane and this Australian chapter of the Black Panther Party adapted the politics and militant style of the American Black Panther Party to address issues affecting Aboriginal people and make demands for equality of treatment in education, health and legal representation, the abolition of discriminatory legislation, an end to police harassment, and the simple right to live without racism.

Inspired by the example of the American Black Panther’s community survival programs, they developed their own free medical and legal services, housing projects and a National Black Theatre.

From 1979 - The Noonkanbah dispute in Western Australia's remote north put land rights on the national agenda and led to the foundation of the Kimberley Land Council. There were rallies, petitions and protests against drilling company – Amax, which selected a site for drilling in 1978 at Noonkanbah station. Hundreds of Aboriginals fought against Amax, with Trade Unions and Bob Hawke also joining their efforts by recommending bans on all work at the station. At 1am on 7 August, a convoy of 49 vehicles set out from Perth. Near Karratha six picketing union officials were arrested, while in Roebourne 40 Aboriginal people protested as the convoy passed. Two more union officials were arrested at Port Hedland, then just north of the town 160 people blocked a bridge and police had to push them back. Another 200 protesters greeted the convoy near Broome. At Noonkanbah the community also decided to oppose the convoy: 60 men established a blockade at Mickey's Pool where the road dipped into a sandy creek and no detours were possible. After a night-long stand-off, police and Aboriginal police aides cleared the blockade.