Did the Civil Rights Movement fail the black community? Again, that’s a complicated question, but the truth is it was never designed to succeed in such a monumental task. By contrast, the gospel never fails, and should be central to our believing, our living.
Some have questioned if evangelicals—especially white evangelicals—did anything to aid the cause of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Most ardent in this question has been someone like Curtis J. Evans, who has charged, “Although they explicitly condemned racism in many of their public writings, [Evangelicals] did not support the tactics employed by civil rights leaders to end discrimination against black Americans. Evangelicals constantly criticized civil rights marches and legislation.”[1]
By Evans’s estimation, evangelicals did not do anything to help the Black community during the Civil Rights Movement, and as a result, there remains a rift in the American church. Truly, that discussion is worth having, but it stands on an underlying assumption—namely, that the Civil Rights Movement is what gave the Black Church, and by extension the Black community, all they were looking to gain. But is that so? It’s a question worth considering.
In what follows, I want to challenge this assumption and leave an open-ended question about the enduring impact of the Civil Rights Movement.
To Move Forward, We Must Look Back
The journey to equality for blacks in America has a long and treacherous history. Today, some argue that blacks are nowhere near the end of that journey and much more needs to be done. For them, a new wave of promise comes through “social justice,” a justice brought about by the allure of new governmental laws, economic justice, and racial equity. Still, others embrace the progress made, holding the belief that there’s nothing more to be done.
An honest look at the history of the Civil Rights Movement can be helpful in assessing where it has come from and what’s needed to move forward.
In North America, the disconnect between “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence sharply contrasted with the regular practice of slavery. This tension would ultimately culminate in the American Civil War: then the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment (which ended slavery), the 14th Amendment (which gave citizens rights), and the 15th Amendment (which gave all men the right to vote)—and this was just the beginning.
Still, there were several impediments to equal treatment. Long after the Constitutional Amendments, many southern states subjected their black citizens to segregation and racial discrimination. Southern states passed laws that marginalized black people. This treatment would come in many forms, such as peonage, black codes, and Jim Crow laws. As a result, a new front had to be set up on the road to equality.
The Civil Rights Movement
Along the journey, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, during an act of civil disobedience, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, for violating a draconian Jim Crow law. Ms. Parks sat on the front row of the “colored section” of the bus, which was established to separate black and white commuters. Ms. Park refused to give up her seat to a white passenger when ordered to do so, and the result was the flame that ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955.
This flame was the result of the coordinated effort of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The MIA consisted of black ministers and community leaders committed to bringing national attention to racial segregation in the South.
Seventy percent of the Montgomery Bus System’s patrons were black. During the boycott, blacks refused to get on a bus until the buses were desegregated. The city of Montgomery lost between 30 and 40 thousand bus fares each day during the boycott. Financial records suggest the city lost $3,000 daily (which equates to $31,326 per day in 2022).
Rather than paying fares to the city, consumers paid for a one-of-a-kind mode of transportation within their own community. Black commuters needing to get to work found a lift from someone else in the neighborhood and paid the fare to another black community member. The effect on the black economy was huge because the money spent on transportation was either saved or spent in the community.
The United States Supreme Court decision in Browder v. Gayle would end discrimination on public buses. After a 382-day boycott, black patrons received what they fought for: a desegregated bus. It was a victory in one sense, but ironically it led to the first of many miscarriages of justice caused by a movement committed to seeking justice. Although the movement gained an equal seat on the bus—this “victory” would witness black people abandoning the first-of-its-kind Uber car service and returning to the buses that despised their patronage.
The “success” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott would catapult Martin Luther King, Jr., onto the national stage while simultaneously cementing white superiority—through dependence on a white bus system—in the minds of blacks.
The message sent and received by the civil rights leaders was that equality meant sitting on the same bus, using the same bathroom, and eating at the same lunch counter as whites. More neglected was economic empowerment brought about by being self-sufficient. So, the message of self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship was lacking from the movement. The result of this failure would invite the need for greater political power. Yet again, the voices who spoke most loudly among black leaders also handed over the black community to any political party that would validate them through proximity to whites.
The Civil Rights Movement and its leaders successfully tied the advancement of the black community to the shifting political winds by largely abandoning economic self-sufficiency and embracing political power as the path forward. While this reality may not have been apparent to civil rights leaders initially, certain politicians saw it clearly and used political favors to obtain the power they needed from the black community.