Civil Rights Movement

Shahzeb
Introduction:
The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took
place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain
equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War officially
abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people
—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially
in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans, along with many
other Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for
equality that spanned two decades.

Driving Factors of Civil Right Movement :

1. Jim Crow Laws
 During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like
never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes
for equality and the right to vote.

 In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people

equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment
granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white
Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people
they’d once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.
  To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people
and erase the progress they’d made during Reconstruction, “Jim
Crow” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th
century. Black people couldn’t use the same public facilities as white
people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools.
Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn’t vote
because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

 Jim Crow laws weren’t adopted in northern states; however, Black

people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they
tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse,
laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black
Americans.

 Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S.

Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black
and white people could be “separate but equal.”

2. World War II and Civil Rights:

 Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage
farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s,
war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren’t
given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the
military.

 After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington

to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national
defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless
of race, creed, color or national origin.

 Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite
suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment.
The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first
 Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more
than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were
met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark
contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with—to
defend freedom and democracy in the world.

 As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil

rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end
discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for
grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the
civil rights movement.

3. Rosa Parks:
 On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found
a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws
at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at
the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

 When a white man got on the bus and couldn’t find a seat in the
white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks
and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused
and was arrested.

 As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly

became the “mother of the modern-day civil rights movement.” Black
community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement
Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role
which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

 Parks’ courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery

bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On
November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was
unconstitutional.
4. Little Rock Nine:
 In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the
United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public
schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Central
High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-
Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

 On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock

Nine, arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead
met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval
Faubus and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried
again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be
removed for their safety when violence ensued.

 Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered

federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at
Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and
prejudice.

 Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue

of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

5. Civil Rights Act of 1957:

 Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many
southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often
required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were
confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.
  Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and
minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration
pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

 On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights

Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since
Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to
prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to
investigate voter fraud.

6. Sit-In at Woolworth’s Lunch

Counter:
 Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced
blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four
college students took a stand against segregation in
Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a
Woolworth’s lunch counter without being served.

 Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their

cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After
some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters
launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the
owners caved and the original four students were finally served
at the Woolworth’s lunch counter where they’d first stood their
ground.

 Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations

in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get
involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of
young college graduate Stokely Carmichael, who joined the
SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black
 voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of
the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the
phrase “Black power.”

7. Freedom Riders:
 On May 4, 1961, 13 “Freedom Riders”—seven Black and six white
activists–mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., embarking
on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus
terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court
in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate
transportation facilities unconstitutional.

 Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the
Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother’s Day 1961,
the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus
and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning
bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames
were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to
take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother
to President John F. Kennedy) negotiated with Alabama Governor
John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders
resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the
officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white
mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded
to the riders—and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.—by sending
federal marshals to Montgomery.

 On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson,

Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was
arrested for trespassing in a “whites-only” facility and sentenced to
30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) brought the matter to the
U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of
 new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides
continued.

 In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration,

the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting
segregation in interstate transit terminals.

8. March on Washington:
 Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took
place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington. It was organized and
attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin
and Martin Luther King Jr.

 More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. For

the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation
and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was
King’s speech in which he continually stated, “I have a dream…”

 King’s “I Have a Dream” speech galvanized the national civil rights

movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

9. Civil Rights Act of 1964:

 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964—
legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his
assassination—into law on July 2 of that year.

 King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law
guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy
tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were
integrated.
10. Bloody Sunday:
 On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an
especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in
the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil
rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to
encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

 As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were

blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor
George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to
stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten
and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

 The entire incident was televised and became known as “Bloody

Sunday.” Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King
pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal
protection for another march.

11. Voting Rights Act of 1965:

 When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on
August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps
further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided
federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

 It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll
taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

 Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a
Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights
 Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on
certain states and federal review of states’ voting procedures were
outdated.

12. Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated:

 The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in
the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and
Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated
at a rally.

 On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin
Luther King Jr. Was assassinated on his hotel room’s balcony. Emotionally-
charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the
Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

13. Fair Housing Act of 1968:

 The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after
King’s assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on
race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation
enacted during the civil rights era.

 The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time

for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless
protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation,
Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing
practices.

Conclusion