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Civil Rights Movement Leaders

Decent Essays
5) Michael Harrington constituted the “Other America,” he wrote about the continuing poverty in America. In 1960, more than a fifth of Americans were living below the poverty line. Eighty percent of those who were poor were not always poor, those people would be out of the poverty line once they got a job. Many farmers in the 1950s received only 4.1 percent of the national income. Employers relocated mills and factories from cities to suburbs, so the number of unskilled jobs reduced. The rich white people did not decide to share their wealth so they made a policy to tear down buildings in the poorest areas and fill them with middle- and upper-income houses. It was a way to keep the people in the middle class from leaving the poor areas. Mexican-Americans, Native Americans and Asian-American…show more content…
and Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks used a strategy of negligence in which she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white person. Through Rosa Park’s actions, black leaders in Montgomery challenged segregation in buses and a boycott of buses happened. Boycott was a new form of racial protesting, which was almost completely successful. Martin Luther King Jr.’s strategy was passive resistance even in the face of a direct attack. Malcolm X was also another important civil rights leader where the group taught its members to be independent and not dependent on whites. The leader of Malcolm said that he did not advocate for violence but that blacks had the right to protect themselves and also violence might be necessary. The civil rights movement became increasing violent and assertive because the civil rights movement moved from the South to the whole nation and it became a national problem. When whites were aggressive to blacks, many blacks had pride and groups like Malcolm X began to fight back. Many blacks got sick and tired of the constant aggression from whites and they decided to fight
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