...The Civil Rights Movement was a mass popular movement to secure for African Americans equal access to and opportunities for basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship. During the Civil Rights Movement many organizations were formed in order to achieve equal treatment. The Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed by Martin Luther King Jr., and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC). These groups achieved major successes in arousing national opinion against segregation in the south. This was time period where most African Americans came together as one doing whatever they could do to get the same opportunities as whites. During the segregation period no one could be integrated in public...
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...Martin Luther King once said that “non-violence is a just and powerful weapon; a sword that heals; it cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.” Nov violence is more effective than violent confrontations in the fight for justice, fairness and equality. The use of violence to fight for justice in most cases escalate to the point where the fighters remaining agenda is vengeance, victory and self-defense. When violence is the tool for getting justice, any moral arguments of the people fighting for justice are rendered irrelevant. Having used violent means, the opponent is justified to retaliate violently. The irony in all these is that each side of the divide is usually able to argue as to who started the violence (Miller 2005). The use of violence usually leads to the loss of innocent lives, the destruction of property, and in most instances, do not achieve the objective that it set out to achieve. Non-violence methods, such as those castigated by Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi try to avoid this trap by evading any violent confrontations. Far from being termed as cowardice, non-violence requires tremendous self-control, courage and a ready heart to endure pain, suffering and death. Non-violent strategies dwell on the strength that they reduce the moral legitimacy of those who persist in their use of violence against non-violence. This loss of legitimacy is a double sword in that it leads to efforts in coalition building that eventually leads to the condemnation...
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...At this period of time in America’s history, they were dealing with a ton of different issues, but the main one for that time was the civil rights movement. There were many many people who were for segregation of whites and African Americans, but nobody hated African Americans like the Klu Klux Klan. Then there were organizations that were against segregation like the Black Panthers who tried to use the approach of violence to get their point across. During this time there were many protests, which usually were nonviolent, but some lasted 382 days. One famous peaceful protest in Birmingham, Alabama when thousands of people were jailed along with Martin Luther King Jr., is where MLK Jr. wrote his piece Letter from Birmingham City Jail that he wrote to call for the end of segregation. It was a tough time in history for the African Americans of...
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...The Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights Movement was a series of political movements for equality before the laws peaked in the 1960’s. During the period of 1954-1965, many gains were made in the progress of desegregation. In 1954, the landmark case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas deemed that separate education facilities for the races were unconstitutional. Though the ruling was a significant victory in the movement, the process of overturning segregation was just beginning (Beacham, T. Gilmartin, B., Grobman, S, Ling, C., & Rhee, V. (Producers), Libretto, J. (Director), 2004). In 1964, the passing of The Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations. In 1965, The Voter Rights Act insured all citizens had the right to vote and eliminated discriminatory “tricks” often used in southern states to prevent African Americans from going to the polls (Bowles, 2011,Chapter 4:6). These momentous strides were not without the painful realities of violence and death for many who supported the movement. Though the movement centered on African Americans, other minorities wanted equality as well. Women, Mexican Americans, and American Indians sought out methods of equality during this time of change in the country. In the 1960’s the United Farm Workers of American (UFW), led by Cesar Chavez, started a strike and boycott of table grapes that gained nationwide support. Women, through voices like Gloria Steinem, called...
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...public recognition. These divisions did limit the effectiveness of the civil rights movement as they slowed down the process and cause many complications. These divisions were extremely clear thought out the 1960s as there was the development of Black Power and their methods of violence which is a contrast to Martin Luther King’s approach which was peaceful protest. In the early 1960s many successes came about for the civil rights movement especially for SNCC and of Martin Luther King. The Greensboro sit-ins led by SNCC in 1960 is an example of a triumph as they demonstrated that civil rights campaigns could spread quickly and also showed that other organisations could work together as the sit-ins attacked all aspects of segregation and it lead to the extending of the existing NAACP campaigns against segregation in education. This was also the case in 1961 during the Freedom Rides. The significance of the Freedom Rides was that they marked a new high point of co-operation within the civil rights movement as they involved CORE, SNCC which was led by Stokely Carmichael and the SCLC as it was such a momentous victory. It is thought that these protests were only victories...
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...At the midpoint of the twentieth century, African Americans once again answered the call to transform the world. The social and economic ravages of Jim Crow era racism were all-encompassing and deep-rooted. Yet like a phoenix rising from the ashes of lynch mobs, debt peonage, residential and labor discrimination, and rape, the black freedom movement raised a collective call of "No More"! The maintenance of white power had been pervasive and even innovative, and hence those fighting to get out from under its veil had to be equally unrelenting and improvisational in strategies and tactics. What is normally understood as the Civil Rights movement was in fact a grand struggle for freedom extending far beyond the valiant aims of legal rights and protection. From direct-action protests and boycotts to armed self-defense, from court cases to popular culture, freedom was in the air in ways that challenged white authority and even contested established black ways of doing things in moments of crisis. Dixie and Beyond By the middle of the twentieth century, black people had long endured a physical and social landscape of white supremacy, embedded in policy, social codes, and both intimate and spectacular forms of racial restriction and violence. The social and political order of Jim Crow—the segregation of public facilities—meant schools, modes of transportation, rest rooms, and even gravesites were separate and unequal. Yet the catch-all phrase "Jim Crow" hardly accounts for the...
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...March 2013 Freedom Riders Backlash The Freedom Riders strive through a journey of hardships to have their point accepted by others, which was bus desegregation. Through the journey the Freedom Rides took some obstacles that affected them physically and mentally. They fought threw times like the downfalls that their movement brought and the mobs that greeted them in every state. The mobs were verbally and physically violent towards the Freedom Riders more than a few times while their movement went on. The Freedom Riders went through a devastating downfall through their movement. In May of 1961, the Greyhound carried the Freedom Riders into South Carolina where, like Carson’s article “SNCC” describes, “…John Lewis was the first to be hit as he approached the white waiting room” (SNCC 1). This was a downfall because they were trapped and injured, not being able to move on in their movement. The “MLKJ Research and Education Institute” stated that, “[…] from the attack of Lewis and another rider, the arrest of one participant attracted media coverage.” (MLKJ 1). Their arrival in South Carolina brought an impact on their movement; it began to be shown from each state. As the Freedom Riders rode into Alabama, a furious mob crowded the Greyhound bus and sent it into flames without care for the people inside. The mob surrounded the bus and locked them inside. In Carmichael Stokleys “Freedom Riders”, she states that the Freedom Riders continued to fight for their rights as the...
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...a little more than 30 minutes in the store that first day. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1957689_2030694,00.html Gathering Steam The next day, the four young men returned to the store, along with approximately two dozen more students from the college. They sat from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and were once again refused service. As they sat, they kept themselves busy with books and study materials. Several white patrons heckled them. But their actions drew local media attention and thus attracted even more students to their cause. By the time this photo was taken on Feb. 6, the lunch-counter protest had lured several hundred people to the store. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1957689_2030666,00.html The Sit-ins and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In his writings, Martin Luther King Jr. hailed the sit-ins as an "electrifying movement" that "shattered the placid surface of campuses and communities across the South." In the fall of 1960, some of the student leaders, including Julian Bond (fourth from right), one of the founders of the SNCC, persuaded King to join them at a sit-in organized at Rich's, an Atlanta department store. The action resulted in the arrests of King and approximately 300 students. The Sit-ins and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In his writings, Martin Luther King Jr. hailed the sit-ins as an "electrifying movement" that "shattered the placid surface of campuses and communities across the...
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...college education. Whereas Fannie Lou Hamer was born into a family of share croppers, and was the last of twenty children. Obviously Hamer grew up in an extremely poor household, and she ended up dropping out of school to work full time on the fields with her family. In the 1950’s Hamer became a victim to one of her major forms of injustice, “She went into a hospital to have a small cyst in her stomach removed, only to wake up and find that she had been given a hysterectomy.” (Lee 21). Without her permission, a doctor had taken one of the most valued privileges the right to reproduce. Although Hamer did not speak out much about this injustice, it did incite her to attend her first Civil Rights Meeting by James Forman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. These meetings brought a consciousness that the African-American...
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...they still were in a secure and loving environment. King began his education at the Yonge Street Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia. He was enrolled in David T. Howard Elementary School and he also attended the Atlanta University Laboratory School and Booker T. Washington High School. Because of King’s high examinations, his junior year of high school he advanced to Morehouse College only being 15 years old because he skipped ninth and twelfth grade. He graduated Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in sociology and enrolled in Crozer in Chester, Pennsylvania. While still at Crozer he also studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected president of senior class and won the Pearl Plakfer Award of the most outstanding student. In September of 1951, Martin Luther King began doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at Boston University. Martin Luther King Jr. was an exceptional leader because through his intelligence and determination he helped prove African Americans and whites are equal through powerful speeches. "When I was 14, I traveled from Atlanta to Dublin, Georgia with a dear teacher of mine, Mrs. Bradley (to) participate in an oratorical contest. We were on a bus returning to Atlanta. Along the way, some white passengers boarded the bus, and the white driver ordered us to get up and give the whites our seats. We...
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...Clayborne Carson’s In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960’s gives detailed information and factual accounts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee also knows as (SNCC) for short. Known as one of the most influential and effective civil rights organizations in the 60’s. In Struggle tells the story SNCC’s story from its beginning in 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina wheere four black college students planned to protest segregation by a “sit-in” at Woolworth lunch counter. Carson explores how the SNCC was able to raise a lot of attention in the black community by bringing light to long avoided racial tensions. Because of this the SNCC stimulated blacks through the country and the methods used serve as a model for future activists. Carson explores the SNCC’s evolution which went through three major stages, and describes how each stage impacted the SNCC and how they played a very important role in the civil rights movement....
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...The Wall of Respect and the Black Power Movement In 1966, former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Stokely Carmichael definitively introduced the term “black power” into popular consciousness at a rally in Mississippi. The Movement that would subsequently take the name “Black Power” evolved quickly, most fundamentally from the philosophy of Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) founder Marcus Garvey, who, earlier in the twentieth century, opposed racial integration in favor of a self-reliant black nation. During the 1960s, Malcolm X’s rhetoric of empowerment and the militancy of groups such as the Black Panther Party more directly influenced the character of the Movement. The Wall of Respect’s creation bears striking resemblance to the beginning of the Black Power Movement. For as central as the Wall of Respect was to the beginnings of the Community Mural Movement in the United States and to redevelopment and beautification efforts on Chicago’s South Side in the 1960s, its cultural significance cannot be addressed as separate from or as merely coincidental to the Black Power Movement. Rather, the Wall of Respect was as integral to the evolution of the Movement as the Movement was to the life of the Wall. In partic ular, the condition of the Wall’s creation, celebration, and demise reflect the major stages of the Black Power Movement’s development in the 1960s. Like the Black Power Movement, the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC)...
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...Coloured People (NAACP), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE.) However these groups became more radicalised in the 1960's and the Civil Rights movement developed into 2 sides. The more radical side criticized the moderate side to not using self defence and for cooperating with the government and white people. There methods also began to change when some groups started to accept the idea of self defence whereas Martin Luther King taught the way to completely turn the other cheek. They also even criticized there main goal of the end to segregation and wanted completely separate states for each of the races. However, it is debateable as to whether Black Power decreased the success of the civil Rights movement, to increase it. There split of certain issues made it difficult to organise a national campaign. This included support for the Vietnam War. Leaders of the NAACP supported the war as they believed any criticism of it would drive a wedge between the civil right movement and the government, and that they would then be less willing to cooperate. However groups such as the SNCC were very critical of the war as they believed it was a racial war however they felt that King did not support there ideas as he refused to criticize the war. He later changed his mind as he said it violated his commitment to peace. I was also argued that King undermined the SNCC when he said that they should become a student wing of the SCLC. The split...
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... protesters attempting to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. As the world watched, the protesters (under the protection of federalized National Guard troops) finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery. The historic march, and King’s participation in it, greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the South, and the need for a Voting Rights Act, passed later that year.Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in voting on the basis of race, efforts by civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register black voters met with fierce resistance in southern states such as Alabama. In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC decided to make Selma, located in Dallas County, Alabama, the focus of a voter registration campaign. Alabama Governor George Wallace was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff in Dallas County had led a steadfast opposition to black voter registration drives. As a result, only 2 percent of Selma’s eligible black voters (300 out of 15,000) had managed to register.King had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his higher profile would help draw international attention to Selma during the eventful months that followed. On February 18, white segregationists...
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...14th, the Greyhound bus arrived in Anniston, Alabama and was met with violence when an angry mob bombed the bus, ending the Greyhound’s journey. The Trailways Freedom Riders rode on until they reached Birmingham, Alabama. Bull Connor, the Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner, a vocal supporter of segregation, told local KKK klansmen he would make sure the police would take at least 15 minutes to arrive to break up the impending violence upon the arrival of the Freedom Riders. The angry mob that appeared in Birmingham slashed the bus’s tires, ending its ride. Faced with an inability to find a willing driver, CORE was ready to end the Freedom Rides altogether. Diane Nash, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), pushed to continue the rides with a new group of students from Nashville, Tennessee. After her insistence to government officials that the riders were not afraid of dying for their cause and had, in fact, signed their wills the previous day, Robert F. Kennedy arranged for a new Greyhound bus with a police escort to continue the ride the Trailways bus had left off, in Birmingham, Alabama. The new Freedom Riders police escort, however, only lasted until shortly before their arrival in Montgomery, Alabama, where another mob attacked the riders. The violence only stopped when 600 federal marshals arrived in the city to disperse the mob. The Riders arrived in Jackson, Mississippi shortly after, where they were met not with violence but, initially...
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