Historian Clayborne Carson (Stanford) interviewed about the NYT 1619 Project and what is called the "Civil Rights Movement"

Here; an excerpt:

Q.  100 years after the Civil War this mass movement of very oppressed people takes place in the American South and then, as you said, it also grips the big cities. Why does it happen when it happens? Why in the 1960s?

A. ...Among the most important changes leading to the articulation of rights was the spread of literacy. As people became more literate it became harder to dominate them. Literacy in the African American tradition, from Frederick Douglass learning to read to Malcolm X being in jail and learning to read the dictionary—literacy is itself a freedom. One of the commonalities of oppressed people is that they get all of their information through people who dominate them.

For most of human history people never got more than 20 miles from where they were born. They knew very little of the world. There was no way of overcoming that until you could get to the point where you could read. That was often purposeful. Dominant people wanted to control information. You don’t want people working for you to know that they can walk 20 miles and find better conditions. Of course, you can also mystify them by religion and say, there’s this sacred book. You can’t read it, but I can interpret if for you, and tell you what your role in society is. So, literacy is huge.

So is mobility. Just think of the impact on the whole notion of labor when workers in Europe began to move from place to place building the cathedrals. They learned by moving to a new place that conditions could be better. That’s why there was a huge movement to put up gates at the outskirts of Paris and other cities, because they knew that once you got in the city you could negotiate with whoever wants your labor. So, literacy, mobility. But the commonality of it is just being able to not be enslaved by ignorance.

I remember doing an interview with one of the young people who launched the sit-ins, I think it was David Richmond [TM: Richmond, 1941-1990 was one of the “Greensboro Four,” who staged a sit-in at Woolworth’s “Whites Only” lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960.] And he said to me one of the important experiences were just visiting the North. He came back to the South and asked himself, why am I putting up with this? The whole world is not like this. So, mobility, literacy, being able to expand your frame of reference.