BBC: The Civil Rights Era

Source:BBC- covering the American civil rights movement in the 1960s.

"The footage you are about to see is unforgettable, even unimaginable. Both BBC News and CBS News extensively covered the American Civil Rights movement, from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963. Rare footage includes Freedom Summer, Malcolm X and Black Power, and the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

With a far-ranging selection of powerful, often wrenching images, our footage captures the danger, drama, and bravery of the civil rights movement. Visit www.bbcmotiongallery.com for more of this dramatic footage.

From BBC

Foreign news coverage of one of the most important periods in American history. Which is the power of BBC especially BBC News which is basically the CNN of Britain as far as their reach in their own country, but also in Europe and around the world.

I believe one of the reasons why the civil rights era and movement was covered not just so heavily in America where of course it should have been covered heavily, but around the world as well, was because America has always been at least since post-World War II as the beacon and spokesperson for liberal democracy. Not just in America, but around the world as well. 

But if you were African-American, or form another non-European group, or weren't Anglo-Saxon-Protestant, America was basically an authoritarian state for you just because of your race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or all of those factors. 

America was aa country back then that was denying roughly 1-10 of its own Americans their constitutional and equal rights under law. Laws prohibiting African-Americans from even getting an education, as well as voting and even getting employment or even bank loans. 

America's government-sponsored racism, was used by Russia and Cuba, used against America during the Cold War and saying that we were hypocritical to speak out against authoritarianism around the world when we were subsidizing authoritarianism against one race of Americans in their own country.