Consumer, Civil Rights Movements Herbert Simmons Jr
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New Directions Volume 9 | Issue 1 Article 2 10-1-1981 Consumer, Civil Rights Movements Herbert Simmons Jr. Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections Recommended Citation Simmons, Herbert Jr. (1981) "Consumer, Civil Rights Movements," New Directions: Vol. 9: Iss. 1, Article 2. Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol9/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Simmons: Consumer, Civil Rights Movements If we compress civil rights activities into movement now tries to address all issues COMMfNTARY the last three decades alone, then we relating to the purchase and use of must find some other explanation for the consumer goods and services. Naturally, efforts of Booker T. Washington, WE. B. this enormous expansion of the move- DuBois, and Marcus Garvey. We must ment's goals have caused some issues to explain away the courageous people who be addressed more vigorously than were involved in Plessy v. Ferguson, a others. landmark case in which the Supreme Scope of the Two Movements Court approved "separate but equal" fa- cilities for Black Americans. No, the civil Both movements were originally limited in rights movement is not new; it is one of the scope and breadth of their activities. America's oldest social movements. The activities of the CRM were conducted both in the South and in the North, If we employ the same genre of facts and particularly the border states. But there apply the same definition to the struggle existed a climate of repression and in- 18 Consumer, Civil Rights for consumer rights in America, we can timidation in the South which was Movements trace it back to 1784. The first consumer exacerbated by the activities of such law, a food law, was passed that year in organizations as the Ku Klux Klan. Massachusetts. The activities of the CM, on the other The first known consumer protection hand, were limited to areas with favorable movement, prior to 200 B.C., was also in federal and local legislative activity. the form of food laws, which date back to early Mosaic and Egyptian history. (These Another facet of the CRM's'scope is that laws governed the handling of meat. while the movement was in mortal and Greek and Roman laws prohibited the open conflict with the dejure inequities in By Herbert Simmons, Jr. adulteration of wine with water.) the South, it was at the same time battling the de facto inequities of the North. The In their eagerness to write "history," some With this brief history as a basis, we can North was affected by the "peel effect," historians have distorted the perception now select a period from the latter years because, as the flagrant discrimination of of the civil rights and the consumer of progress for the consumer movement the South was gradually "peeled away," it movements. They like to use such terms (CM) and the civil rights movement revealed a more sinister replication of as "era of," "the age of," "pre" this and (CRM) itself thriving in the North. "post" that. These terms are all de- The CM has found that there were also lineators and tend to restrict. Goal Definition hidden consumer inequities that were not Historians have taken two loci on a The goals of both movements were de- readily discernable. As the movement continuum of civil rights activity and termined by each movement's immediate increased its efforts to monitor the proc- labeled the space in between "the age of needs.The CRM had unrestrained free- essing and measurements of foodstuffs, it the civil rights movement." This thought dom as its goal, while the CM had pure was discovered that many other con- process confines the sum total of all civil food and honest measurements as its sumer products were equally as inferior goal. rights activities to the period between and unsafe. 1954 and the end of the turbulent 1960s. Today, one might say that the CRM is a Dynamics and Constituencies People find it easy to remember Brown v. social movement with strong economic In terms of dynamics, the two movements Board of Education and the urban disor- and political goals, while the CM might be were quite different. The CRM was ders of 1968.But such a limited perspec- considered an economic movement, with caused by the denial of a people to tive is myopic. strong social and political goals. Also, privileges indigenous to the most there is a striking difference in the goal Webster's "Unabridged New Universal rudimentary exercises of human exist- modification of both movements. The Dictionary of the English Language" de- ence. On the other hand, the CM was CRM seems to have moved from the fines movement as: A series of organized caused by a dissatisfaction with the qual- general to the specific, while the CM has activities by people working concertedly ity of foodstuffs that were being offered diversified and moved from the specific toward some goal, often called the for sale in marketplaces. In spite of this to the general. movement by those involved in it. Free- difference, both movements lacked a dom and the constitutional rights of life, Leaders of the CRM carefully selected common and essential facet to their liberty and property have been the com- goals that were specific and achievable. dynamics. That facet was leadership. mon goal of every Black person who has The chosen goals were the rights to: In 1956 when Rosa Parks refused to inhabited this land. quality education, voting, equal employ- relinquish her seat on a bus in Montgom- ment opportunities, open housing and When we apply the definition of move- ery, Alabama, her treatment by local public accommodation. ment to this goal, it becomes quite ap- authorities catalyzed the hasty resolution parent that the Black man's struggle for The CM has had a more charmed exist- of the CRM's leadership crisis. Martin civil rights began many decades ago. It ence. There have been more contrasts Luther King, Jr. was chosen to fill the was enhanced by the introduction to the than similarities during its middle years. movement's leadership void. Having U. S. Constitution of the 13th, 14th and For example, its goals have undergone been a student of the Gandhi philosophy 15th Amendments. These earliest ac- tremendous expansion. From the original of non-violent protest, he implemented for tivities initiated a continuum of activities goal of insuring - through regulation- the movement a new strategy of non- Published- activities by Digital which Howard are proceeding @ Howard University, today. pure and equitable food sales, the violent, direct action. 1 NEW DIRECTIONS OCTOBER 1981 = New Directions, Vol. 9 [], Iss. 1, Art. 2 The Montgomery bus boycott was the first There are groups, organizations and fac- demonstration to regulate the prime inter- victory achieved by this strategy. For 381 tions of every description championing est rate. days, Black people boycotted the public individual causes under the banner of The CM has been able to live with this buses. That strategy was enhanced consumerism. The net result is that there situation because, unlike the CRM which greatly by. the Black Church, which has are lots of "consumer groups" claiming to employed a huge army of the powerless always served as the source of spiritual represent everybody but few groups who and near powerless, the CM has had a power for the people. in actuality really represent anybody. small cadre of powerful and influential In the 1950s and 1960s, several churches Overall, since the 1960s, more grassroots supporters plus a modicum of rank in the South became targets for dynamit- people have become active in the move- and file. ers and fire bombers. But this did not ment than ever before. But there has deter the Black churches from serving as been no cohesion between the myriad Future of the Movements command posts throughout the South. consumer agencies and organizations While both movements have enjoyed This facilitated two important features: It that have emerged. The movement has much success in the past, their future is provided for a greater involvement of suffered due to a spate of organizational in a state of virtual limbo. One cannot 19 more people; it infused a moral fiber into cannibalism that has considerably re- omit the fact that the CRM has removed the CRM that was later to be woven into a duced the number of viable groups that most employment barriers, but its affirma- fabric of coalition and cooperation. The could serve as a nucleus for the devel- tive action initiatives are uncertain; that it cooperation was of a nature that has opment of consumer solidarity. This has restored the precious franchise, but seldom been seen before or since on could be one of the reasons why the there are still problems with reapportion- such a large scale. consumer movement has never had a ment and redistricting plans which at- national leader. Churches in the South were not the only tempt to exclude minorities; that it has ones to aid in the movement. Churches The movement's history shows a succes- extricated many oppressed people from allover the nation provided not only a sion of eminent persons who have be- dilapidated housing, but discrimination financial base, but also a dedicated come inflamed by a particular issue and still exists; that it has removed many of constituency for the movement. And, pursued it with the benefits to most the obstacles to quality education, but other national Black organizations, some consumers being mainly a by-product: there are new assaults being launched by of which had traditionally disagreed on Dr.