Literature review.doc

Literature reviewA literature review is a text written by someone to consider the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic. Literature reviews are secondary sources, and as such, do not report any new or original experimental work. Also, a literature review can be interpreted as a review of an abstract accomplishment.Most often associated with academic-oriented literature, such as a thesis or peer-reviewed article, a literature review usually precedes a research proposal and results section. Its main goals are to situate the current study within the body of literature and to provide context for the particular reader. Literature reviews are a staple for research in nearly every academic field.1A systematic review is a literature review focused on a research question, trying to identify, appraise, select and synthesize all high quality research evidence relevant to that question. A meta analysis is typically a systematic review using statistical methods to effectively combine the data used on all selected studies to produce a more reliable result.African-American Civil Rights Movement 19541968TheAfrican-American Civil Rights Movementencompassessocial movementsin theUnited Stateswhose goal was to endracial segregation and discriminationagainstblack Americansand enforceconstitutional voting rightsto them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1954 and 1968, particularly in the South.The movement was characterized by major campaigns ofcivil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts ofnonviolentprotest andcivil disobedienceproduced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience includedboycottssuch as the successfulMontgomery Bus Boycott(195556) in Alabama; sit-ins such as the influentialGreensboro sit-ins(1960) in North Carolina;marches, such as theSelma to Montgomery marches(1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement were passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964,1that banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in employment practices and public accommodations; theVoting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; theImmigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and theFair Housing Act of 1968, that 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.A wave of inner city riots in black communities from 1964 through 1970 undercut support from the white community. The emergence of theBlack Power Movement, which lasted from about 1966 to 1975, challenged the established black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its nonviolence, and instead demanded political and economic self-sufficiency.While most popular representations of the movement are centered around the leadership and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., many scholars note that the movement was far too diverse to be credited to one person, organization, or strategy.2SociologistDoug McAdamhas stated that, in Kings case, it would be inaccurate to say that he was the leader of the modern civil rights movement.but more importantly, there was no singular civil rights movement. The movement was, in fact, a coalition of thousands of local efforts nationwide, spanning several decades, hundreds of discrete groups, and all manner of strategies and tacticslegal, illegal, institutional, non-institutional, violent, non-violent. Without discounting Kings importance, it would be sheer fiction to call him the leader of what was fundamentally an amorphous, fluid, dispersed movement.3BackgroundFollowing theAmerican Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed, including the13th Amendmentthat ended slavery; the14th Amendmentthat gave African Americans citizenship, adding their total population of four million to the official population of southern states for Congressional apportionment; and the15th Amendmentthat gave African-American males the right to vote (only males could vote in the US at the time). From 1865 to 1877, the United States underwent a turbulentReconstruction Eratrying to establish free labor and civil rights of freedmen in the South after the end of slavery. Many whites resisted the social changes, leading to insurgent movements such as theKu Klux Klan, whose members attacked black and white Republicans to maintainwhite supremacy. In 1871, PresidentUlysses S. Grant, the U.S. Army, and U.S. Attorney GeneralAmos T. Akerman, initiated a campaign to repress the KKK under theEnforcement Acts.4Some states were reluctant to enforce the federal measures of the act; by the early 1870s, other white supremacist groups arose that violently opposed African-American legal equality and suffrage.5After thedisputed electionof 1876 resulted in the end ofReconstructionand federal troops were withdrawn, whites in the South regained political control of the regions state legislatures by the end of the century, after having intimidated and violently attacked blacks during elections, and lost power during a biracial fusionist coalition of Populists and Republicans in the late century.From 1890 to 1908, southern states passed new constitutions and laws todisfranchiseAfrican Americans by creating barriers to voter registration; voting rolls were dramatically reduced as blacks were forced out of electoral politics. While progress was made in some areas, this status lasted in most southern states until national civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s to provide federal enforcement of constitutional voting rights. For more than 60 years, blacks in the South were not able to elect anyone to represent their interests in Congress or local government.6Since they could not vote, they could not serve on local juries.During this period, the white-dominatedDemocratic Partymaintained political control of the South. Because whites controlled all the seats representing the total population of the South, they had a powerful voting block in Congress. TheRepublican Partythe party of Lincolnwhich had been the party that most blacks belonged to, shrank to insignificance as black voter registration was suppressed. Until 1965, the solid South was a one-party system under the Democrats. Outside a few areas (usually in remote Appalachia), the Democratic Party nomination was tantamount to election for state and local office.7In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invitedBooker T. Washingtonto dine at the White House, making him the first African American to attend an official dinner there. The invitation was roundly criticized by southern politicians and newspapers. Washington persuaded the president to appoint more blacks to federal posts in the South and to try to boost African American leadership in state Republican organizations. However, this was resisted by both white Democrats and white Republicans as an unwanted federal intrusion into state politics.8During the same time as African Americans were being disfranchised, white Democrats imposed racialsegregationby law. Violence against blacks increased, with numerouslynchingsthrough the turn of the century. The system ofde jurestate-sanctioned racial discrimination and oppression that emerged from the post-Reconstruction South became known as the Jim Crow system. TheUnited States Supreme Courtupheld the constitutionality of those state laws that required racial segregation in public facilities in its 1896 decisionPlessy v. Fergusonmakingsegregationthe law of the land.Segregationremained intact into the mid-1950s, when many states began to gradually integrate their schools following the Supreme Court decision inBrown v. Board of Educationthat overturnedPlessy v. Ferguson. The early 20th century is a period often referred to as the nadir of American race relations. While problems andcivil rightsviolations were most intense in the South, social discrimination and tensions affected African Americans in other regions, as well.9At the national level, the Southern bloc controlled important committees in Congress, defeated passage of laws against lynching, and exercised considerable power beyond the number of whites in the South.Characteristics of the post-Reconstruction period: Racial segregation. By law,10public facilities and government services such as education were divided into separate white and colored domains. Characteristically, those for colored were underfunded and of inferior quality. Disfranchisement. When white Democrats regained power, they passed laws that made voter registration more restrictive, essentially forcing black voters off the voting rolls. The number of African-American voters dropped dramatically, and they no longer were able to elect representatives. From 1890 to 1908, Southern states of the former Confederacy created constitutions with provisions that disfranchised tens of thousands of African Americans and states such as Alabama disfranchised poor whites as well. Exploitation. Increased economic oppression of blacks, Latinos, and Asians, denial of economic opportunities, and widespread employment discrimination. Violence. Individual, police, paramilitary, organizational, andmob racial violence against blacks(and Latinos in the Southwest and Asians in California).African Americans and other racial minorities rejected this regime. They resisted it in numerous ways and sought better opportunities through lawsuits, new organizations, political redress, and labor organizing (seetheAfrican-American Civil Rights Movement (18961954). TheNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) was founded in 1909. It fought to end race discrimination throughlitigation, education, andlobbyingefforts. Its crowning achievement was its legal victory in the Supreme Court decisionBrown v. Board of Education(1954); the Court rejected separate white and colored school systems and by implication overturned the separate but equal doctrine established inPlessy v. Ferguson(1896).The integration of Southern public libraries involved many of the same characteristics seen in the larger civil rights movement.11This includes sit-ins, beatings, and white resistance.11For example, in 1963 in the city ofAnniston, Alabama, two black ministers were brutally beaten for attempting to integrate the public library.11Though there was resistance and violence, the integration of libraries were generally quicker than other public institutions.12Black veterans of the military after both world wars pressed for full civil rights and often led activist movements. In 1948 they gained integration in the military under President Harry Truman, who issued an Executive Order to accomplish it. The situation for blacks outside the South was somewhat better (in most states they could vote and have their children educated, though they still facedde factodiscrimination in housing and jobs). From 1910 to 1970, African Americans sought better lives by migrating north and west out of the South. A total of nearly seven million blacks left the South in what was known as theGreat Migration. So many migrated that the demographics of some previously black-majority states changed to white majority (in combination with other developments).Invigorated by the victory ofBrownand frustrated by the lack of immediate practical effect, private citizens increasingly rejected gradualist, legalistic approaches as the primary tool to bring aboutdesegregation. They were faced with massive resistance in the South by proponents of racial segregation andvoter suppression. In defiance, African Americans adopted a combined strategy ofdirect actionwithnonviolent resistanceknown ascivil disobedience, giving rise to the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 195568.简介第二次世界大战后美国黑人反对种族隔离与歧视，争取民主权利的群众运动。（ 1955年1968年），美国民权运动的一部分，于1950年代兴起，直至1970年代，乃是经由非暴力的抗议行动，争取非裔美国人民权的群众斗争。运动背景战后头10年，美国黑人争取平等自由的运动只限于由美国全国有色人种协进会在法院进行的斗争。20世纪50年代中期至60年代中期美国黑人反对种族歧视和种族压迫，争取政治经济和社会平等权利的大规模斗争运动。美国黑人是美国人数最多的少数民族，长期受到种族歧视，处于社会最底层。第二次世界大战后亚非国家有色人种争取民族独立斗争的胜利的鼓舞以及由于工业化的进展，大批黑人流入城市，使黑人地位问题成为全国性问题，是运动兴起的重要原因。1954 年5月17日，美国最高法院为改变美国在国际上的形象，就布朗控诉托布卡教育委员会一案作出判决：公立学校所实行的种族隔离教育是不平等的，违反宪法第14条修正案。1955 年12月1日，亚拉巴马州蒙哥马利城黑人R.帕克斯夫人在公共汽车上拒绝让座给白人，被捕入狱。在青年黑人牧师M.L.金的领导下，全城5万黑人团结一致 ，罢乘公共汽车达一年之久 ，终于迫使汽车公司取消种族隔离制。1957年，金牧师及其支持者组成南方基督教领袖会议，将运动深入到南部生活的各个领域。1958年南方21个主要城市组织集会，发动黑人争取公民权利。1960年2月1日，北卡罗来纳州格林斯伯勒城 4个黑人大学生进入一餐馆，白人服务员命令他们走开，他们静坐不动。这一英勇行为立刻得到南部广大黑人学生响应，发展为大规模静坐运动 ，迫使近 200 个城市的餐馆取消隔离制。1961 年 5 月初，种族平等大会又开展自由乘客运动。不久，在学生非暴力协调委员会参与下，得到许多白人支持，逐渐发展为全国性运动，迫使南部诸州取消州际公共汽车乘坐上的种族隔离制。1968年美国黑人运动的著名领袖、推行非暴力主义理论的基督教牧师马丁路德金遇刺身亡。事件起因非洲黑人最初被引进美国，主要是在南方农场当农奴，以弥补当地劳动力短缺问题。理论上，林肯总统在1863年的解放宣言中，已经让他们获得了自由。在南北战争结束后，联邦军队占领南方期间（所谓重建时期1865年1877年），黑人曾获得解放宣言所赋予的平等权利。然而黑人因为穷困及教育程度较低，为求经济上的生存，必须再度依靠白人雇用，特别是当联邦军队撤出南方后，黑人顿失联邦法律的保护，其地位又陷入类似美国内战前的状况。1896年美国联邦最高法院作出“普莱西诉弗格森案”（Plessy v. Ferguson）判决，确立对黑人采行“隔离但平等”措施的合法性时，无异对南方黑人人权造成严重的打击，最高法院判决中有关“隔离”的部份被执行得十分彻底，但有关“平等”的部份则不然，导致南方出现更多种族隔离制度法令，甚至连在工厂、医院及军队都采取种族隔离制度。1954年联邦最高法院，在“布朗诉教育委员会”（Brown v. Board of Education）一案，判定种族隔离的学校并未提供黑人学生公平教育，因此公立学校应该要种族混合。在历经58年后，此项法律观念才被推翻，而一连串的非裔美国人民权运动才正式开始。事件过程阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利市是南北战争期间美利坚联盟国的首都，也是实施种族隔离制的代表性城市之一。马丁路德金博士于1954年到该市担任牧师工作，1955年成功带领该市黑人公民，以全面罢乘反对公共汽车上的黑