Cold war/Civil Rights

Does anyone have any ideas (either fact or pure conjecture) on how the cold war influenced the civil rights movement in the USA in the 50s/60s? Any thoughts welcome!

Reply 1

JohnStuartMill

Led to a push for greater civil rights - how can America fight totalitarianism abroad and decry the treatment of the citizens of communist countries by their leaders when it didn't grant its own people full rights. Basically, it helped the push for civil rights.

If you are allowed to look at Vietnam as well then you can talk about how it detracted from it as it diverted a great deal of attention away from the civil rights both with LBJ and Congress which slashed funds for social programmes to send to Vietnam.

Reply 2

liamb

One way the Cold War did help Civil Rights was that the Soviets used lack of rights for Afro-Africans as a counter to US attacks on its treatment of political prisoners etc. This meant that the US's image suffered in non-aligned or communist countries as not being 'the land of the free.'

Secondly, Martin Luther King was accused during his lifetime of spending too much time on Vietnam and not enough on Civil Rights. Yet history is on his side. I would agree with him and say the two were linked because if Blacks were good enough to do full military service - then the US could hardly claim they shouldn't have full civil rights. (Vietnam was the first war where the US forces were completely desegragated. In fact they were desegragated in the middle of the Korean War - so you could argue that a Cold War conflict led a Federal Body to lift the Colour Bar and so create a precedent that other parts of the federal Government would follow.)

Reply 3

TheThief

A way in which the Cold War negatively influenced the civil rights movement was that Eisenhower, in particular, did not want to antagonise America's white majority by forcing the civil rights issue, partly because of votes but also because of the need for national unity during the war.

The alliance between trade unions and civil rights organisations also were weakened as a result of the Cold War. When civil rights activists were found to harbour communist sympathies, the trade unions were very reluctant to continue their support as they were struggling to prove their patriotism to the government, and therefore did not want to be linked with Communist sympathisers.

Hope this helped. :smile:

Reply 4

Jasundie

The Cold War led groups, such as the Black Panthers, who were Marxist, or at least have delved into it, viewed with high suspicion.

Reply 5

liamb

Also IKE boosted the CIA and FBI. Being able to label anything 'Red' was a big help to avoid dealing with it. JFK also dodged the Civil Rights issue. LBJ - for all his faults - did grasp the nettle and saw the Dixiecrats rip into his party's strongholds in the south. Ironically, the Republicans came out of the mess looking good. (Which is why a certain Condi Rice jioned the G.O.P.)

Reply 6

Marmaduke

The Second World War was billed as the 'war for democracy' and so, as mentioned above, the American government was seen as hypocritical to deny their own citizens suffrage. Also, with the threat of Soviet expansion increasingly becoming a reality, America could not risk alienating large parts of their population or tarnishing the world's opinion of them. anti-Communism was become the most common form of racism in America after WWII