The Study On The Relations Between American Jews And The Civil Right Movement

As an ethnic minority in American society, Jews have long been isolated fromthe mainstream Christian-White cultural system, the Anti-Semitism tide which rose inthe1920s deeply impact the Jewish group. As the largest population during theAmerican ethnic minorities, the Blacks suffered racial discrimination and segregationin a long period of time, their social status was extremely low. After the1950s, inorder to strive for the equality for the ethnic minorities, the Civil Rights Movementwhich led by the Blacks was raging like a storm. The Jews was actively involved inthis movement and fight together with the black leaders. They played an essential rolein promoting judicial reformation and social justice. The Civil Rights Movement wasbrought to climax by these two groups. This era is also known as the “Golden Age” ofthese two ethnic groups. After achieved a series of judicial results, the contradictionbetween the two groups began to sharpen, their relations become deteriorated, and thecollaboration was finally collapsed, the reason was very thought provoking. Thisthesis follows the time venation, analyzes the development process of the Jews-Blacks relations around the Civil Rights Movement era. The main body of the thesisis made of four parts:The first chapter reviews the communicative action between Jews and Blacksbefore the rising of Civil Rights Movement, they do not have too much contact in thenew continent before the20th century, and fragments compose its majorcommunicative feature. The development of urbanization strengthened the connectionbetween them, their common experience of being discriminated lead the preliminarycooperation of the two groups. High-level cooperation was set out after the rise ofCivil Rights Movement. The second chapter narrated the further development of theJews-Blacks alliance, The Civil Rights Movement achieved a series of judicial resultswith the help of the Jews, their collaboration reached the peak in the1960s. Thischapter also analyzes the attitude of the southern Jews toward the Civil RightMovement. The third chapter introduces the process of the collapse and thebreakdown of the Jews-Black alliance, division gradually emerged within the two groups due to their different struggle goals and interests of the demands, evenemerged so-called “Black anti-Semitism.” Some radical Blacks accused of the Jewsstealing the victory fruits of Civil Rights Movement. Since their misunderstandingand prejudice deepens, rifts become unavoidable. The fourth chapter explores themotivation of the Jews who passionate intervene at the Civil Rights Movement, aswell as the influence of the cooperation activities. The motivation of the Jews is moreof a realistic factor, they try to extend their own rights and interests and upgrade theirsocial status by attending the Civil Rights Movement, and their egocentric motivationis also a crucial factor which led the political confrontation.It concluded as follows: the group leaders were short of long-range plans,self-interest behavior and ubiquitous prejudice was widely exists in normal people’slife, all these factors led the insufficiency of ethnical fusion, weakened the basis ofthe collaboration. The judicial results of the Civil Rights Movement benefit the Jewsmore than the Blacks, the Blacks did not changed their poor social status, theradicalization of the Blacks bred the “Black Anti-Semitism” which totally destroyedthe collaboration Platform. The fundamental cause for the end of cooperation is theloss of the common interest, which made the two ethnic groups lost the pushing forceof the collaboration.