Shared struggles: Civil rights, decolonization, and gender

If you live in the United States, you’ve probably heard about the Civil Rights Movement. The movement included struggles for racial equality, desegregation, and voting rights. You’ve probably encountered Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Selma, and the Million-Man March. These people and organizations were part of a wider global network.

Many American activists connected their struggle at home to decolonization movements around the world. That’s because in some ways, the Civil Rights Movement was also a decolonization movement. Colonialism is when one country takes control over another place. The colonizer then takes advantage of its people and resources.

Twin victories: Racial equality and World War II

During World War II (1939-1945), the Allies made promises about racial equality and self-determination for their citizens and people in their colonies. The Allies refers to Great Britain, the U.S., and Russia who had joined together to fight in World War II.

Both the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteed racial equality as a human right. Many Black Americans distrusted these promises. Like people in the colonies, Black Americans had been deceived after the First World War. Despite fighting for the U.S., they had come home to discrimination and violence. So why, asked many, should they fight Hitler and save democracy? During World War II, Black American newspapers launched the Double-V Campaign: victory against Nazi racism abroad and victory against racism in America.

During the war, the American government tried to present itself internationally as the champion of democracy and human rights, but racial segregation contradicted this image. During the 1930s, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, said: “Nothing will be easier than to produce a bloody revolution in North America… no other country has so many social and racial tensions. We shall be able to play on many strings there.” Propaganda is information or rumors that are often not accurate that are used to influence people’s opinions.

Hitler hoped to feed these tensions. He wanted to bring American fascists to power. Fascism is a political ideology that puts a country or race above the individual. Hitler sent Nazi agents to cooperate with the Ku Klux Klan. They are a white supremacist group. They believe that white people are better than people of other races.

By the end of the 1930s, the U.S. Congress was investigating over 100 fascist groups in America. When Western leaders condemned the 1935 Nazi Nuremberg laws, the Nazi regime argued they were no different than the discriminatory Jim Crow laws in the U.S. Jim Crow laws were enacted in the southern U.S. states to legally continue racial segregation.

It wasn’t just America’s enemies who saw this weakness. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was a leader of the Indian independence and women’s rights movements. She worked with Mohandas Gandhi. She traveled across the American South in the 1940s, witnessing American racism first-hand. Gandhi said, “I do not regard England, or for that matter America, as free countries. They are free after their own fashion, free to hold in bondage the coloured races of the earth.” After the war, other foreign officials and dignitaries visited the United States and returned to their homes on the African and Asian continents with stories of racism.

Global connections

Civil rights leaders in America were influenced by anti-colonial leaders. The Indian independence movement led by Gandhi strongly influenced leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance was based on the concept of Ahimsa. This is a principle from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism that means “non- injury.” Gandhi and his followers used non-violent resistance to end British colonialism in India after World War II. The American civil rights activist, Bayard Rustin, traveled to India in 1948 after Gandhi’s assassination. When he returned home, Rustin taught King about Gandhi’s methods. In 1959, King traveled to India. This trip strengthened his belief that non-violent resistance could bring down imperialism abroad and racism in America. Imperialism is the idea of gaining control and power by expanding into other countries.

The fight against racism in America was entangled with anti-colonial struggles abroad. This can be seen through the connections forged by women. Historian Keisha Blaine has highlighted the international connections and activism of Black women in the twentieth century. Women like Amy Jacques Garvey and Mittie Maude Lena Gordon connected their activism in America to international struggles for racial and gender equality. Blain writes:

Perhaps the most important aspect of black nationalist women’s political life was their interest in and commitment to black internationalism. . . These women understood that the struggle for black rights in the United States. . . could not be divorced from the global struggles for freedom in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and other parts of the globe. Using a variety of avenues, including journalism, print media, and overseas travel, black nationalist women articulated and disseminated global visions of freedom and sought to build transnational and transracial alliances with other people of color in order to secure civil and human rights.

Women of color in the United States and in the colonized world were fighting, together, against two oppressions: one struggle against colonialism and racism, and the other a struggle against gender discrimination.

Civil rights and decolonization in the Cold War

The Cold War (1947-1989) started, and so did decolonization. American leaders watched as their French and British allies lost colony after colony. Suddenly, the Cold War and decolonization had transformed civil rights into a national security issue.

New nations on the African and Asian continents emerged from decolonization and joined the United Nations. Americans and Soviets wanted these countries as allies. American leaders tried to negotiate new trade deals and alliances. In the 1960s, many African and Asian leaders petitioned to move the UN headquarters from New York to a country where they would be treated as equals. Many leaders cited America’s racial inequality as a reason to ally with the Soviet Union or stay neutral.

The Soviets pointed out the hypocrisy of American democracy. They made films and posters that denounced racial inequality in America. President Harry Truman tried to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to desegregate schools because Soviet propaganda harmed American interests abroad. His Secretary of State, Dean Acheson wrote, “the undeniable existence of racial discrimination gives unfriendly governments the most effective kind of ammunition for their propaganda warfare.” America’s ability to gain allies in the Cold War rested in its ability to win over leaders and nations of color.

Civil rights leaders in the U.S. and decolonization leaders around the world understood that their futures were connected. They collaborated. King opposed the Vietnam War, believing it was racist and imperialist. He called for an end to nuclear weapons, observing: “What will be the ultimate value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and White, are merely free to face destruction by Strontium-90¹ or atomic war?” After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, King demanded that the government transfer funding from nuclear weapons to education.

In 1960, a group of Black American students in North Carolina formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC connected civil rights to decolonization. Members of SNCC started campaigns against Apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid is a system of racial segregation and discrimination. In 1967, SNCC declared itself a human rights organization. It wanted to end “colonialism, racism, and economic exploitation wherever these conditions exist.”

Conclusion

The civil rights movement was actively linked with decolonization movements on the African and Asian continents. This influence flowed both ways. As civil rights leaders traveled abroad and anti-colonial leaders traveled to the United States, they shared ideas and strategies.

1 Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope produced by nuclear fission. Its long half-life of 30 years was one of the factors that helped make the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster so deadly.