The American Black Women’s Awareness Of Identity During And After The Civil Rights Movement

This paper is intended to explore the reasons and process of the American black women’s awareness of their self-identity from the1960s to the1980s. The subject in this paper focuses on the American black women under the influence of the Civil Rights Movement and the second-wave Feminist Movement. The1960s will be regarded as a time period when the American black women began to realize their rights and identity and then demanded their freedom from the whites and males. As a minority group in the United States, the black women suffer from the racial discrimination from the white people, and at the same time, similar to the white women, they are oppressed by the males both black and white in the patriarchal society. Because of the Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement, the American black women awaken to racial and gender oppression imposed on them. Besides, they come to be aware that they are different from the white women and the differences between them are not only caused by race but also by class. So a multi-identity of black women in terms of race, gender and class will be studied in this paper by comparing the differences before and after the1960s and analyzing the activities taken by the American black women in these three areas in order to show their awareness of their identity.