preview

Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee Essay

Good Essays

When a person, who is a citizen of this country, thinks about civil rights, they often they about the Civil Rights Movement which took place in this nation during mid 11950s and primarily through the 1960s. They think about the marches, sit-ins, boycotts, and other demonstrations that took place during that period. They also think about influential people during that period such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, John Lewis, Rosa parks, and other people who made contributions during that movement which change the course of society's was of life in America. In some people view, the Civil Rights Movement began when the Supreme Court rendered their decision in Brown vs. Education, or when Rosa Parks refused to give up her …show more content…

In fact, Congress had to pass several pieces of legislation to spell out specifically what those rights were so they could no longer be assumed as they previously were.
The issue that was primarily discussed throughout the book was the right to vote and for Negroes to hold political offices. For some reason it was hard for people of European descent to see blacks equal to their capabilities. An example of this would be James Alston returned home from a Republican Party meeting, late one Saturday night at the Negro Zion Church in Tuskegee. Alston was the leader of the local black Republicans and also represented Macon County in the Alabama Legislature. As he and his wife were going to bed, gunfire was blasted through their house like hail. Alston was struck in the back and hip and his wife, who was pregnant at the time, was hit in the foot. Incredibly, nobody was seriously injured in which more than three hundred-buckshot holes were counted. J. T. Menifee, who was the county general and probate judge who was a Republican aligned with the Democrats made it absolutely clear that how white felt about blacks holding political offices. He made a stern warning on Saturday night events very clear: "a nigger couldn't hold no office in this county no longer." (p. 4). He later he told Alston that he was going to be shot and that "a nigger wasn't fit for nothing else than to

Get Access