Law
Topic:
Activism, History of Activism
Type of work:
Research Paper
Activism, History of Activism
Lately, ten thousands of American members have been on the streets fighting against police brutality and racism in support of black lives matter movement. The United States’ iconic history of activism began long ago in the early seventeenth century (Park, 2020). People campaigned for the right to vote, civil rights and LGTB rights in seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century. The information is gathered from (Gordon, 2016) ‘Intersectionality’, (Nesbitt, 2019) Winning Our Freedoms Together, (Park, 2020) Political activism and women’s modernism and (Soborski, 2020).
Activism is a social activity that involves making decisions without political intervention or significance. Activism is carried out in social movements headed by civil activists, which has become popular in the past decades. For instance, women’s rights movement, civil rights movement, and labor movement fight for people’s rights and freedom (Nesbitt, 2019). The activist’s primary goal is to change the government’s policies and strategies or encourage people to change a certain behavior or adopt a particular culture instead of confronting the government. The most popular types of activism include environmental activism, judicial activism, economic activism, and internet activism.
Activism began in the seventeenth-century during slavery in a slave rebellion movement headed by Toussaint Louverture and Jean Jacques. The slave rebellion was designed out of the desire for freedom and fight against the oppression of people. Additionally, the roman slave Spartacus rebellion fought against the slave trade, which was popular in the early eighteenth century. Six thousand slaves rebelled against the Roman Empire, also known as the third servile war (Park, 2020). The 1811 German coast uprising was among the biggest activism in the united states in the nineteenth century, where activism in the united states began in the seventeenth century, such as the African slave rebellion. Other practices of activism that took place include Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner in Virginia and Gabriel Prosser. In the United States, activism was allowed in 1960 and considered as an act of democracy.
For decades, protestors’ main aim has been to fight for equal rights among enslaved people of color and women. In the past, women were not allowed to own properties, vote and allowed in other professions apart from teaching. The first women activism movement was known as women’s suffrage in 1848, which took place despite the Fourteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth Act (Soborski, 2020).
The Suffragist took place in 1917, which is considered part of modern movements where ten people were arrested during the protest outside the white house. Regardless of the ratification, women were still denied most rights, especially among African American women (Nesbitt, 2019). In the late nineteenth century, civil rights were the largest of all times to stop discrimination, inequality and segregation in 1954. The civil rights movement also fought for women’s rights, enforcement of laws, and equal rights amendment. The equal rights amendment was to support employment and freedom in all genders and freedom according to (Park, 2020) Political activism and women’s modernism.
1960 is considered the era of activism, protest and change where to date, the movements are carried out under the slogan black lives matter and fight for LGBTQ rights. The LGBTQ movement protested, urging the American government to provide treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS IN 1987, drawing two hundred thousand people’s attention (Nesbitt, 2019). In 1963, two thousand and fifty thousand people joined Martin Luther King in a fight for freedom and justice supported by the popular “I have a dream” speech.
According to (Park, 2020), youths and universities consist of the most protestors since 1960, where most college students got injured. The protest was primarily conducted to end the Vietnam War, where the anti-war movement was formed. In the late nineteenth century, during the Ronald Reagan administration, people protested nuclear weapons in New York, known as the anti-nuclear march. In 1969, the LGBTQ movement protested for three days, which emphasized gay rights and law enforcement.
The LGBTQ movement spark after police officers raided a gay hotel in Manhattan. In the 1970 and mid-twentieth century, an environmental movement was formed in the United States. The movement advocates for environmental conservation and tree planting, where April 22nd is considered the earth’s day or environmental day. Still, in the late nineteenth century, the disability rights movement was formed to stop and campaign against disability discrimination (Soborski, 2020). The disability movement also advocated for policies and regulations for the disabled, especially inaccessibility of resources and opportunities.
The use of the internet in the nineteenth century encouraged activists to use various online platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to make funds and organize matches (Soborski, 2020). In the early twentieth century, the anti-immigrant activist’s movement was formed to advocate for immigrants’ rights in Chicago and other states in the United States. Economic activism was well presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, which fought for grassroots economic status and social, economic inequality. Racial equality activism began in 2011 under the famous black lives matter movement, which began seeking justice for Trayvon Martin, killed by a police officer. The black lives matter movement was conducted to end police brutality and stop racial and color discrimination among black-Americans.
Over the years, activists have used inter-sectionalism where people from a different class, race, sex and ethnic group can join and fight against oppression (Gordon, 2016). For instance, the women’s rights movement does not discriminate women’s involvement from different ethnicities, economic status, age, sexual identity, and race (Nesbitt, 2019). The women’s rights movement has been made annually to support women and ensure the government hears their voices. Today, activists from protests to advance and develop pat activists’ work and work on a better future where human rights are respected. For instance, the latest protest in Minnesota on May 30th seeks justice and fairness for Gorge Floyd killed by police officers.
References
Gordon, L. (2016). ‘Intersectionality’, Socialist Feminism and Contemporary Activism: Musings by a Second‐Wave Socialist Feminist. Gender & History, 28(2), 340-357.
Nesbitt, F. N. (2019). Winning Our Freedoms Together: African Americans and Apartheid, 1945–1960.
Park, S. (2020). Political activism and women’s modernism.
Soborski, R. (2020). From the End of History to the Populist Turn and Beyond: Ideology’s Misfortunes in Globalization Theory and Global Activism. International Critical Thought, 10(2), 296-310.
