Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

The twentieth century is marked by the African American demands for equal rights in the early. African Americans in the United States started the movement in order to remove the Jim Crow System of racial white supremacy which had restricted opportunities to white people. The civil rights movement was a consequence of the frustration of the African American community.

Table of Content

Introduction4

Discussion & Analysis4

The Movement in the 19504

Development of the Civil Rights Movement5

Formation of Civil Rights Organizations6

Freedom Rides Garner National Attention6

Setback and Lessons of the Albany Movement7

The Birmingham Protests7

Black Power and Call for Economic Equality8

Conclusion9

Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

The African American community grew their demands for equal rights in the early 1950s. The Jim Crow System of racial white superiority had restricted opportunities to white people, and the African American community had suffered due this system for many decades. Successful strategies of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have already led changes in the U.S. Constitution, however, the speed at which this change was occurring was extremely slow for a majority of the black people. Frustration of this community triggered the civil rights movement. Black and white Americans took up a legal strategy, in addition to direct action to, bring a change in the racial segregation, separation and disproportionate opportunity system in America.

Discussion & Analysis

The Movement in the 1950

In 1954, Montgomery in Alabama was a community deeply divided on the basis of racial segregation. The Jim Crow laws permitted blacks and whites to ride jointly on the city buses, however, the African American community were not permitted to enter and exit the buses from the same doors as whites. In addition, African American riders were obliged to give up their seats and shift to the backside of the bus if any white rider wanted a seat (Carson, p.46).

When Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on 1st December 1955 to a white man, she was arrested. Though incidents of refusal to give up seats to white riders had also happened in the past, however, Parks arrest galvanized the African American community.

A Baptist preacher who was little known at that time, Martin Luther King Jr. was elected as the president of The Montgomery African American, an association of preachers and community leaders from the local community. King had the innate ability to motivate and organize his community, and this ability led him to become one of the most influential and famous civil rights leader in the history of United States.

Development of the Civil Rights Movement

The African American community got their first sense of victory when the decision to integrate the Montgomery bus system was passed on 13th November 1956. This victory led to a chain reaction throughout the community, and an increasing number of the members of the African American community started approaching courts to do away with the Jim Crow system.

The Brown decision was implemented in the mid 1950s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to call the National Guard troops in ...