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Peaceful Protests During The Civil Rights Movement

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Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” The US Constitution provides all Americans with the right to peacefully petition the laws made by the government in the First Amendment. The United States would look nothing like it does now without the freedom of petition. Without the right to petition, American schools would still be segregated between African Americans and whites and most women would still only be housewives with no job of their own. Some of the everyday things experienced in America were once fought for tirelessly by protesters. Protests have changed the country and often have a ripple effect in society and in government. Ripple effects …show more content…

Before 1964, African Americans in the US were segregated from white people. They had different bathrooms, couldn’t eat at the same restaurants and schools were separated between African Americans and white people. African Americans were tired of being treated unfairly by most white people and decided to take a stand against segregation. Thus began the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights movement consisted of peaceful protests by African Americans and small acts of resistance towards African Americans. One of the most memorable moments during the Civil Rights movement was the March on Washington. On August 28, 1963, a quarter million people marched on the Washington Monument to protest the segregation between African American and white people. During the march, multiple people spoke, and one of the most famous speeches of all time was given at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The goals of the famous march were to get the Civil Rights Act that Kennedy had sent to Congress passed, desegregate schools, and they wanted bills ensuring fair employment and forbidding job discrimination (Dunn). The March on Washington had a ripple effect in American history because of the prejudice driven violence, which had an influence on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of

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