The Grassroots Movement: The Civil Rights Movement

There are several borders that are crossed every day. Border crossing is a hotly debated topic and immediately images of physical borders come to mind, however, nonphysical borders have been just as prevalent in the past and modern history of several nations. Nonphysical borders, such as the border between citizens and politics, have been manufacturers of social change for centuries. In the United States the border between citizens and politics has always had an active role especially when the need for political change arises. While government leaders have supreme power and are entrusted to make change, citizens need to be heard in politics and need to have the ability to make political change. The specific cases of civil rights, women’s liberation

This is one of the larger examples of grassroots functions and its ability to not only cross the border into politics but to execute the influence of legislation and political change as seen through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Average citizens in the masses sent their message over the political border that it was time for equality. Mass protests like the university students from California, Michigan and Boston that went to Mississippi to fight alongside African-Americans who experienced segregation strengthened the grassroots approach to the government. Grassroots movements were numerous and made a large impact. Ella Baker, a defendant of civil rights, women’s liberation and participatory democracy, took great part in the promotion of grassroots activism that was noteworthy to the movements’ success and was a proponent of the notion that the common people needed to seek social change. It was therefore the responsibility of the citizens to enter the world of

The need for social change arose when women’s rights were blatantly unequal to that of men’s rights. A paper published in 1968 “Towards a Female Liberation Movement” and the formation of groups such as Redstockings, a radical feminist group, in 1969 were the first vocalized and nationally recognized complaints of the serious political conflict of gender inequality. In the late 60s and early 70s women in the United States were seen as the stereotypical housewives and were not very competitive as they are now with white-collar jobs. The basis of political conflict and need to force change was that men had been controlling all political, economic and cultural institutions and used their power to keep women in an inferior