The Civil Rights Movement

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The first massive direct action in the civil rights movement came in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Under SCLC leadership, the black community boycotted the city’s bus system, which required them to ride at the back of the buses. After many months of boycotting, the U.S Supreme court declared that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional, and the boycott was bought to an end. This was a very significant event for the civil rights movement. It caught the attention of the entire nation. People around the country were made aware of the event because it was launched on such a massive scale and lasted for more than a year. It also set the tone for the civil rights movement, which led to more struggles and protest.
There was the school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, where nine black students were admitted to Little Rock’s Central High School. President Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce desegregation.
There were public accommodation sit-ins in North Carolina and Georgia in 1960, when four black college students began protesting racial segregation in restaurants by sitting at “white only” lunch counters and waiting to be served.
There were the freedom riders who traveled around the South in buses to test the effectiveness of the 1960 Supreme Court decision of illegal segregation in bus stations.
There was also education and voter registration drives in Mississippi in 1961, which organized voter registration campaigns in black counties. Many of these protests where organized by the student affiliate of SCLC, many northern white liberal supporters, and the SNCC which stands for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The SNCC was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960 to help organize and direct the student sit-in movement. They also concentrated on voter registration, believing that voting was a way to empower blacks so that they could change racist policies in the South.
Southern whites counter mobilized by reviving the infamous Ku Klux Klan who used violence or threats against anyone suspected of favoring desegregation or black civil rights. There was also the start of a new organization called White Citizens Councils. There goal was to maintain segregation.
One of the last meetings between civil rights demonstrators and southern whites came in Montgomery, Alabama in 1963.

Analysis of the Documentary: The Freedom Riders
1006 Words | 3 Pages
... throughout the South and the free schools for African Americans movement. The freedom rides also inspired black people in the south that were kept in isolation and fear due to political and economic bondage. Additionally, these freedom rides forced the media to uncover the true depths of southern racism to America at a time when the American government was busy testing its Nuclear Weapons after the Cold War. After five months of this nonviolent protest by the Freedom Riders and Nashville Student Movement, the federal government finally gave up in front of these activists. On September 22, 1961; the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ended the segregation in bus and rail stations eliminating the Jim Crow Law. The Congress of Racial Equality also became the most important active civil rights organization working for equal rights and justice for African Americans.
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How Did The Montgomery Bus Boycott Impact The Civil Rights Movement
1290 Words | 3 Pages
On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans
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The Civil Rights Movement in 1955
1720 Words | 4 Pages
The Civil Rights Movement refers to the political, social, and economic struggle of African Americans to gain full citizenship and racial equality. Although African Americans began to fight for equal rights as early as during the days of slavery, the quest for equality continues today. Historians generally agree that the Civil Rights Movement began with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Despite the 14th and 15th constitutional amendments that guarantee citizenship and voting rights regardless of race and religion, southern states, in practice, denied African Americans the right to vote by setting up literacy tests and charging a poll tax that was designed only to disqualify them as voters. In 1955, African Americans still had significantly less political power than their white counterparts.
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Selma Alabama
434 Words | 1 Pages
Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the active attempts of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register the Black voters of Alabama no significant progress was made . One such place was Selma Alabama. This small southern town of 29,000 soon became the focal point of the Civil Rights movement. Of the 15,156 blacks in Dallas County, Alabama only 156 were registered to vote. On January 2, 1965 Reverend King visited Selma and gave a fiery speech in it he stated: "Today marks the beginning of a determined organized, mobilized campaign to get the right to vote everywhere in Alabama."
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The Civil Rights Movement In The Mississippi Delta
1404 Words | 3 Pages
The Civil Rights Movement had a remarkable success during the summer of 1964. During 1964, committees such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) recruited members to work in the efforts of the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi to what became known as Freedom Summer. The project was meant to be a nonviolent effort to integrate Mississippi’s political system but was faced with violence. college students traveled to Mississippi to help register black. The predominantly white students established "freedom schools" to educate black school children, and organized voter registration drives throughout the state. The student volunteers, most importantly, helped to establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). However, it was a Mississippi native, Amzie Moore that brought the SNCC into Mississippi. Moore met New York native, Robert Moses during the Freedom Summer of 1964. When Moses arrived in Mississippi, he saw that there was a lack of student organizations in the state and discussed the possibilities of it with Moore. Moore’s dedication to the movement inspired Moses to put the idea of voter registration into the SNCC’s agenda (Carson). Although the movement had great support, it also had even greater opposition. For instance, the Citizens Councils which was founded in Indianola, Mississippi during the 1950’s. The council was a
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Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement
1574 Words | 4 Pages
Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...
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The Civil Rights Movement
885 Words | 2 Pages
During the Civil Rights Movement a lot of the white people who wanted things segregated and didn’t want to treat blacks equal fought back against blacks. There is a page on the Internet called civilrightsphotos.com that shows how violent anti-civil rights people were. This page shows a very discouraging picture of a big police dog biting out a mans stomach while a police officer holds the man by the collar. Not only were there people literally getting their guts taken out by dogs, there were fights and people getting fire hoses turned on them. People lost their lives, both black and white.
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Illiberal Democracy
900 Words | 2 Pages
By the early 1960, another Civil Right movement began, Sit-Ins. Four college students, Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond walked in to establishments to be served but by the end of the night they were never served. They would later come back with larger group and sit once again. They did so with rules to prevent any trouble from the authorities, just by not talking to anyone, never blocking the entrances and by simply being nice. The movement picked up momentum being done by many throughout the north and south.
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The Civil Rights Movement: Freedom Rides
1216 Words | 3 Pages
During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans sought to have their Constitutional Rights permitted. One form of protesting came forth in the form of the Freedom Rides. After slavery ended, many amendments and laws were created to ensure the rights of African Americans, but because of prejudices and racism, most of these were ignored. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Fergunson established "separate but equal" on interstate transportation in 1896, but in 1947 the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. And although segregation was outlawed, Jim Crow laws still ruled the Deep South and “codified in law, sanctioned by the courts, and enforced by the ubiquitous threat of physical violence even more than legal reprisal" (Catsam 87). The Jim Crow laws drastically affected the public transportation systems of the South. The Congress of Racial Equality challenged the unfair laws with Freedom Rides, which "arose out of the need to end segregation at lunch counters, in bus terminals, as well as in other facilities essential to the intercity traveler" (Olds 17-18). The first freedom ride commenced in Washington, DC, in 1961.Because the first Freedom Riders were from the North, they didn't realize how harsh the racist South was and “violence in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama, would prove to be too much for the first group of freedom riders, who ended up flying from Birmingham to New Orleans. . ." (Catsam 94). However the movement didn't stop there because ". . .students from the Nashville Movement, led by Diane Nash, realized that to allow violence to stop the Rides would send a message that would do incalculable harm to the movement" and the progression of the African American race (94). The students choose to continue t...
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Civil Rights Now and Then
1145 Words | 3 Pages
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of the Brown v. the Board of Education. This was a very historical moment because their ruling eliminated, the "separate but equal " doctrine. Their ruling called for school integration, although most school were very slow in complying if they complied at all. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Color People, viewed this ruling as a success. The schools lack of the obedience toward this ruling, made it necessary for black activism to make the federal government implement the ruling, and possibly help close the racial gap that existed in places other than public schools. During one of the boycotts for equality, a leader emerged that would never be forgotten. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, quickly became the spokesperson for racial equality. He believed that the civil rights movement would have more success if the black people would use non violent tactics. Some say he was adopting the style of Ghandi. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, was formed by King and other activist in 1957. They were a group of black ministers and activist who agreed to try and possibly help others see the effects of a non violent movement. Also following the strategies set by the SCLC, a group known as the SNCC or the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, began a string of sit-in and campaigns as the black population continued it's fight for equality. It was the undying efforts of the two groups that paved the way for the march on Washington. This march which drew a crowd of at least 200,000, was the place that Dr. King, gave his famous "dream speech." Both the SNCC, and the SCLC were victims of lots of threats and attempted attacks, yet they continued to pursue freedom in a non violent fashion. However near the late 60's they had another problem on their hands. There was a group of activist known as the Black Panthers who were not so eager to adopt the non-violent rule. The believed that the civil rights movement pushed by Dr. King and is non-violent campaign, which was meant to give blacks the right to vote and eliminate segregation, was not solving problems faced in poor black communities. This Black Panther group, stabled the term "black power", which was used a sort of uplifting for the black self esteem.
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Nonviolent Protests: An argumentative essay
1414 Words | 3 Pages
From the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Civil Rights Movement and the Pro-Life Movement of the 1960s, to the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement of current times, “those struggling against unjust laws have engaged in acts of deliberate, open disobedience to government power to uphold higher principles regarding human rights and social justice” (DeForrest, 1998, p. 653) through nonviolent protests. Perhaps the most well-known of the non-violent protests are those associated with the Civil Rights movement. The movement was felt across the south, yet Birmingham, Alabama was known for its unequal treatment of blacks and became the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, African-Americans in Birmingham, began daily demonstrations and sit-ins to protest discrimination at lunch counters and in public facilities. These demonstrations were organized to draw attention to the injustices in the city. The demonstrations resulted in the arrest of protesters, including Martin Luther King. After King was arrested in Birmingham for taking part in a peaceful march to draw attention to the way that African-Americans were being treated there, their lack of voter rights, and the extreme injustice they faced in Alabama he wrote his now famous “Letter from Birmingham.”
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SNCC
618 Words | 2 Pages
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, was created on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh in April 1960. SNCC was created after a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service. This sparked a wave of other sit-ins in college towns across the South. SNCC coordinated these sit-ins across the nation, supported their leaders, and publicized their activities. SNCC sought to affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of their purpose. In the violently changing political climate of the 60’s, SNCC struggled to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came some of today's black leaders, such as former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. Together with hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American history.
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The Selma-Montgomery March
2478 Words | 5 Pages
The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.
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The Civil Rights Movement
916 Words | 2 Pages
Historically, the Civil Rights Movement was a time during the 1950’s and 60’s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. Looking back on all the events, and dynamic figures it produced, this description is very vague. In order to fully understand the Civil Rights Movement, you have to go back to its origin. Most people believe that Rosa Parks began the whole civil rights movement. She did in fact propel the Civil Rights Movement to unprecedented heights but, its origin began in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was the cornerstone for change in American History as a whole. Even before our nation birthed the controversial ruling on May 17, 1954 that stated separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, there was Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 that argued by declaring that state laws establish separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. Some may argue that Plessy vs. Ferguson is in fact backdrop for the Civil Rights Movement, but I disagree. Plessy vs. Ferguson was ahead of it’s time so to speak. “Separate but equal” thinking remained the body of teachings in America until it was later reputed by Brown vs. Board of Education. In 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and prompted The Montgomery Bus Boycott led by one of the most pivotal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. After the gruesome death of Emmett Till in 1955 in which the main suspects were acquitted of beating, shooting, and throwing the fourteen year old African American boy in the Tallahatchie River, for “whistling at a white woman”, this country was well overdo for change.
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The Influence of Martin Luther King Jr.
812 Words | 2 Pages
...ivil rights in America, galvanized by the landmark Brown vs. Board of Educa2tion of Topeka decision of 1954.” The Montgomery bus boycott happened on “December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks... who refused to give up her sear to a white passenger on a bus” she was arrested. Later, the Supreme Court ruled “segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956.”
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The Civil Rights Movement

Analysis of the Documentary: The Freedom Riders

How Did The Montgomery Bus Boycott Impact The Civil Rights Movement