The Individuals and Movements that Made the Civil Rights Change Possible

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The many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, little rock nine, John Brown, Linda Brown, Ruby Bridges, Frederick Douglass, Plessey Scott, JFK, and Malcolm X. All of these men and women had a great influence on the movement’s success in the United States and helped end racial segregation. It all started in 1954 in the Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. The people who were involved were John Brown and Linda Brown. This happened because of the separate but equal law created 60 years earlier in the Plessey vs. Ferguson case when Plessey lost and created separate but equal laws. Separate but equal separates black people from white people in different places such as restaurants, bathrooms, and buses but they get “equal rights”. This was one of the many things that helped to start the civil rights movement. The case was later over ruled. On December 1, 1955 Rosa parks got arrested by the police in Montgomery because people thought she violated the segregation. She sat in the middle of the bus and refused to give up her seat to a white man when the bus was starting to get full. Because of this, a boycott began in the city of Montgomery. Most people regard Rosa parks as the mother of civil rights. 75% of the bus system in Montgomery was African American so they lost lots of profit when the boycott started. Martin Luther king would come a few months later to help with the boycott. This is when the movement truly begins. The boycott lasted 381 days. In 1957 Martin Luther King Jr. became the president of the southern Christian Leadership conference. That is an organization for African American rights and to help get them. This made Martin one of the most important ... ... middle of paper ... ...ican supreme court justice to be in the court itself.Then Martin Luther King Jr. had died from being assassinated. He died on April 4 1968 in Memphis TN. James Earl Ray faced the charge of murder to Martin because James was a criminal who escaped prison. He was shot in frontof his hotel room. He died at the age of 39 on the way to the hospital. It was a very sad moment for the movement because one of its important leaders (4). When Martin died the movement slowly died and became one of the most historical and famous groups. There were many things named after martin Luther king Jr. This movementis important to the theme [rights and responsibilities] because it talks about the hard struggles African Americans had during the 1950s-1960 to gain the civil rights that they wanted so that they wouldn’t be treated badly and segregated from the rest of the United States.

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