To what extent did the African Civil Rights movement benefit Native Americans and Hispanics?
Native Americans and Hispanics were also victims of racism and also had their campaigns to combat this. However, the movement focusing more on the civil rights of black people may also have benefited them in a number of ways.
Firstly, the civil rights campaigns and movements conducted by African Americans had also benefited Native Americans and Hispanics in their fight for equality, many of the clauses including them in new laws. The fourteenth constitutional amendment gave US citizenship to everyone living in the United States, and the fifteenth amendment gave the right to vote to everyone man in the United States. Since the NAACP built on these amendments in their campaigns and used them to fight for equal rights, Native Americans and Hispanics could also build on this. The fact the NAACP used this it also automatically included Native Americans and Hispanics, meaning if they were successful in drawing attention to and enforcing these laws they would benefit from the outcomes.
There were also several court cases which contributed not only to the African American civil rights movement but to the civil rights of the Hispanics and Native Americans. They contributed in two different ways, when they were directly included in new laws and when they were inspired and learned from other civil rights movements. For example, the Greensboro Sit-ins showed that non-violent direct action could draw media attention and achieve quick and widespread change. The Hispanics also saw inspiration in the Black Panthers, a radical civil rights organisation. They copied their style of radical protest by acting as a sort of local police force, with a uniform. They were called the Brown Berets, similar to the Black Panthers because they also wore uniforms with berets. The Brown Berets worked on community projects to improve housing, education, employment and health care. After the Brown vs...