At a crucial point in the history of the United States, participants of the Civil Rights Movement endured great adversity, showing great courage in the face of the malevolent scoffs of those that wished for their oppression. Each of them sought to better the world around them by demanding racial equality and developing an enormous following of like-minded individuals in the process. [relate past to present]. Desire for change and active promotion of ideas fuel social change, which leaves others with the responsibility to fully understand their own convictions and make the important choice whether to follow the ideas of the reformer [WORDY]. Even the simplest idea can become the foundation for an entire social revolution.
[Sentence about DESIRE] King succeeded because of his desire—his dream—but he was not the only one to aspire for equality. A strong indicator of others’ longing for change is summarized in a statement made by Willie Morris, a novelist, who, when asked if he would return to America, said, “No…I want my children to grow up as human beings” (qtd in Meacham 3). This is a simple, yet illuminating statement showing the strong convictions held by many supporters and the painful reality of the Civil Rights Movement. Even more powerful than the sentiments of Morris is an assertion of individual rights.[FIND NEW, BETTER QUOTE] Members of the Black population did this when they proclaimed “[their] right to vote and raise [their] family decently” (Percy 324). Declaring that one has rights and demanding that society grant them is powerful because it shows the commitment of the individual to seek personal and social justice that fulfills his or her desire for change.
It takes courage to promote one’s convictions because of t...
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...cham. New York: Random House, 2003. 209-214. Print.
Halberstam, David. “The Second Coming of Martin Luther King.” Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. By Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2003. 370-388. Print.
Haley, Alex. "An Interview with Malcolm X." Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. By Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2003. 218-214. Print.
Meacham, Jon. Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Random House, 2003. Print.
Trillin, Calvin. "State Secrets." Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. By Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2003. 499-516. Print.
Percy, Walker. “Mississippi: The Fallen Paradise.” Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. By Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2003. 318-328. Print.
C. Vann Woodward, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was America's most Southern historian and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize, for Mary Chestnut's Civil War. He’s also a Bancroft Prize for The Origins of the New South. In honor of his long and adventurous career, Oxford is pleased to publish this special commemorative edition of Woodward's most influential work, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. The book actually helped shape that historical curve of black liberation; it’s not slowed movement; it’s more like a rollercoaster.
Currently in the United States of America, there is a wave a patriotism sweeping across this great land: a feeling of pride in being an American and in being able to call this nation home. The United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave; however, for the African-American citizens of the United States, from the inception of this country to midway through the twentieth century, there was no such thing as freedom, especially in the Deep South. Nowhere is that more evident than in Stories of Scottsboro, an account of the Scottsboro trials of 1931-1937, where nine African-American teenage boys were falsely accused of raping two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama and no matter how much proof was brought forth proving there innocence, they were always guilty. This was a period of racism and bigotry in our country that is deeply and vividly portrayed though different points of view through author James E. Goodman.
In 1955, C. Vann Woodward published the first edition of his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The book garnered immediate recognition and success with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eventually calling it, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” An endorsement like this one from such a prominent and respect figure in American history makes one wonder if they will find anything in the book to criticize or any faults to point out. However, with two subsequent editions of the book, one in August 1965 and another in October 1973—each adding new chapters as the Civil Rights movement progressed—one wonders if Dr. King’s assessment still holds up, if indeed The Strange Career of Jim Crow is still the historical bible of the civil rights movement. In addition, one questions the objectivity of the book considering that it gained endorsements from figures who were promoting a cause and because Woodward had also promoted that same cause.
The Tallahassee Democrat; "The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida," by Glenda Alice Rabby; and research by Mike Pope, former Democrat letters editor.
C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.
Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992
This historic broadcast, in which Mississippians for the first time were presented a black perspective on segregation and civil rights, has never been located. Nonetheless, recordings of irate reactions by Mississippians slurred with racist epithets, “What are you people of Mississippi going to do? Just stand by a let the nigger take over. They better get his black ass off or I am gonna come up there and take it off” (Pinkston, 2013), have been found preserved at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Some say, history is the process by which people recall, lay claim to and strive to understand. On that day in May 1963, Mississippi’s lay to claim: Racism.
“American civil rights movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2013. .
Chafe, William, Raymond Gavins, and Robert Korstad. Remembering Jim Crow. New York: The New Press, 2001.
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Eyes on the Prize characterize life for African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s as full of tension, fear, and violence. Eyes on the Prize is a documentary series that details major figures and events of the movement, while Anne Moody gives a deeply personal autobiographical account of her own experiences as an African American growing up in deeply segregated and racist Mississippi and as a civil rights activist during and after college. These two accounts are very different in their style yet contain countless connections in their events and reflect many ongoing struggles of the movement. These sources provide an excellent basis for discussion of nonviolence versus violence
Growing up in a time where we have seen the different actions by America’s first black President, Barack Obama, I think it is appropriate to look back on the civil rights movement and the role that hundreds played in documenting the events. Accurately researched and intensely condensed, The Race Beat is an extraordinary explanation of one of the most explosive periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it
“Civil Disobiedence.” The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill 2009. Print
Garrow, David J. Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. New York: New Haven and London Yale University Press. 1978
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...