Black Americans experienced a radical change in their goals, strategies, and support of the civil rights movement during the 1960s due to the eruption of new leaders, sympathetic presidents, radical groups, and a rejuvenation of history and heritage. From the “separate but equal” laws of Plessy v. Ferguson and the Jim Crow Laws of the late 1800’s, the new goals of Martin Luther King Jr. would strive to change African American civil rights through non violence and revealing oppression, while other groups would emphasize the embracement of black culture, both still against the oppression in the United States. Strategies were born from MLK’s ideals, about demonstrating to the American people the horror of oppression, while the Black Power movement …show more content…
Originally in 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, sought that “through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate… the redemptive community supersedes systems of gross social immorality” (Doc A). The strategies of nonviolence in focusing on love and courage against hate and fear with racism was essential in Martin Luther King Jr’s quest to root out oppression in the United States and make it well-known to reveal its immorality to the community. Birmingham was the most well-known for having black oppression and prejudice, being in the Deep South and the most equality resistance existing there. Groups of Freedom Riders came through the South to try and end segregation, and ultimately drew more attention to segregation due to white mobs. MLK’s peaceful campaign in Birmingham provoked the police and authorities like Bull Connor, using water hoses on sit-in protesters, who demanded service at whites-only facilities, along with dogs to try and control the black protests (Doc C). However, this backfired against the white oppression, since these terrible conditions were publicized and Americans could see the terrible qualities of racism in the South. Nonetheless, the first Civil Rights Act in 1957 set up a Civil Rights Commission due to Orval Faubus mobilizing the guard for preventing black students from enrolling in high school, and Eisenhower sent federal troops to keep them in class. Additionally, Martin Luther …show more content…
The goals of Martin Luther King Jr and radicals like Stokely Carmichael manifested itself in the strategies of either nonviolence or violence, both overall for the goals of displaying racism to the public and protesting for black civil rights. The support from groups like the NAACP and SNCC, along with presidents like Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, the black rights movement gained more support and action in legislation was put into place, changing the status for African Americans in the coming years. Ultimately, due to the increase in black voting, blacks had a better role in the future decisions of presidential elections, like Nixon’s 95 percent gain of the black vote in the 1968 election, allowing his party to gain more electoral votes from Southern states. (Doc H). Blacks in the late 1900s gradually gained more equality due to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and although African Americans were still not fully accepted, it pushed forward the road towards full racial