The Case Of Rosa Parks And The Civil Rights Movement

In the postwar years, the NAACP's legal strategy for civil rights continued to succeed. They were now led by Thurgood Marshall. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on five cases that challenged elementary- and secondary-school segregation, and in May

Rosa Parks: My Story is an autobiography. Parks tells about her vital role in the struggle for equality. In detail this book explains how the civil rights movements started. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, beginning the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott.

Little did Rosa know that a simple act of courage would change the course of American history. That day she was arrested for violating Montgomery's transportation laws and took her to jail. She was soon released on a one-hundred dollar bail. A trial was scheduled for December 5, 1955. Her arrest brought a protest of seven thousand blacks in her community. Her community was small but every African American member of her town was sure to be protesting for her release that day. This protest rapidly started the creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association. The most involved and determined person besides Parks in this movement was Martin Luther King Jr. would call for a one-day bus boycott which ended up extending after Rosa was found guilty. Rosa was fined ten dollars. Rosa once again refused to pay any money and appealed her case. Rosa Parks and her husband both lost their jobs and were harassed and ridiculed for what happened on the bus. Most whites would say she made a fool out of herself and she embarrassed

The Civil Rights Movement’s mission was to end segregation and advance equality for African Americans (Hanks, Herzog, and Goetzman). Almost one hundred years after the civil war, African Americans were still struggling to gain the same rights as white Americans. The movement was led by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks. Gaining momentum in the 1950’s with the Supreme court’s ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education where public schools were desegregated, the Civil Rights movement flourished in the 1960’s. One of the group’s main goals was to take on the Jim Crow South. Segregation prevented African Americans from drinking out of the same water fountain, using the same restroom, and even sitting at the same lunch table as white people. By promoting peaceful protest, they were able to educate others on their issues.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, one of the leaders of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, despite being reprimanded by the driver (Schulke 166). Montgomery, Alabama was known for its terrible treatment of blacks. The buses in particular had been a source of tension between the city and black citizens for many years (Schulke, 167). As a result of refusing to give up her seat, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks' popularity among the black community, proved to be the spark that ignited the non-violent Civil Rights Movement (Norrell 2).

The Supreme Court’s decision in the famous and landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 set a precedent for desegregation in schools. But even still, southern activists worked to defend the practice of segregation. Following the Brown decision, grassroots African American activists began challenging segregation through protests continuing into the 1960s (Aiken et al., 2013). During the Eisenhower administration, Congress passed two measures that proved to be ineffective: the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. African Americans demonstrated their frustration with lack of progress on the issue through non-violent means and campaigns led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (Bourne,

On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, Rosa boards a Montgomery City Bus to go home after a long day working as a seamstress. She walks back to the section for blacks, and takes a seat. The law stated that they could sit there if no White people were standing. Rosa parks never liked segregation rules and has been fighting against them for more than ten years in the NAACP, but until then had never broke any of the unjust rules. As the bus stops at more places, more white people enter the bus, all the seats in the “White Only” section was filled and the bus driver orders Rosa’s row to move to the back of the bus, they all moved, accept Rosa. She was arrested and fined for violating a city regulation. This act of defiance began a movement that ended legal Segregation in America, and made her an inspiration to freedom devoted people everywhere.

The NAACP was an important part of the civil rights movement during the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The NAACP was founded in 1909 and fought for colored equality everywhere in America. NAACP supported a lot of rights marches like the March on Washington in the 50s and 60s. In the 1970s, the NAACP decided to enlarge its reach of desegregation from United States to the entire world. The NAACP had helped the March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery March to influence many great outcomes of the marches.

In 1909 blacks and whites, led by W. E. B. DuBois and Arthur and Joe Spingarn, formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an organization dedicated to fighting for racial equality and ending segregation. The NAACP challenged segregation through its Legal Defense and Education Fund. From 1936 to 1950 the organization won a number of cases leading to the desegregation of law schools and other professional schools at segregated universities in Mississippi, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Texas. The NAACP also had some success in forcing states to equalize public school funding and to pay teachers in black schools at the same rate as those in white schools. But throughout the South, public education for blacks remained terribly

This organization was founded in 1909 by sixty black and white citizens. In 1910 they published Crisis, a magazine that covered achievements for blacks in the arts, business and several other social fields. Most of the NAACP’s efforts where focused on anti-lynching laws and gaining civil rights for blacks without discrimination. When they heard of Oliver Brown’s problem they were eager to help. So in 1951 the NAACP requested an injunction that would outlaw the segregation of Topeka’s schools. Their defense was that not only were the schools inherently equal, what with the conditions of the schools themselves, but also that it was detrimental to black children’s education and future to be living with such segregation. Black children must learn to associate with white children who are a large percentage of the population in order for their curriculum not to be curtailed. The Board of Education’s defense was that black children should learn in segregated schools because they lived in a segregated society and would for the rest of their lives, therefore teaching them at a young age the way society is will prepare them for the future. They also argued that such blacks as Washington Carver and Frederick Douglas went to segregated schools and became great successes.

Because of the many other school districts that were experiencing similar issues, the NAACP had begun to focus largely on the desegregation of society, starting at schools. The main strategy, was to push for the acceptance of black students into schools that would be difficult and expensive for the states to desegregate (National Archives 4). Each of the other schools involved showed parts of the struggle of being an African American in a white school district, but the NAACP chose to focus on the Brown case, because it was undoubtedly avoidable without segregation (History.com 3). This allowed the Brown case to soar through the courts and eventually make its way at the highest one, the Supreme Court. Lawyers for the plaintiff feared rejection from the Supreme Court because of the decisions of a previous case, Plessy V. Ferguson. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson was an earlier landmark case for the United States, because it stated that 'separate but equal ', in all public spaces, was in line with the fourteenth amendment; An amendment whose purpose

The NAACP made an impact in South Carolina by the mission of ensuring that everyone has political, educational, social, and economic equality. They wanted to challenge federal anti hanging laws and fair housing laws. Also, they supported the crucial Supreme Court case Brown vs The Board of Education which desegregated schools. The NAACP helped have a social equality by civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights, and equal access to social goods and services. They also helped with the anti lynching and fair housing rights by supporting the Supreme Court decision on stop hanging everywhere in the United States and fair housing rights for enforcing the new fair house laws. Also, the NAACP helped with educational equality by supporting the

Civil Disobedience is the act of purposely opposing and breaking a law that has been created by the government. When one hears the word "disobedience", one pulls a negative connotation from it; however, Civil Disobedience can sometimes lead to great and immense positive change that can benefit society as a whole. Two wonderful examples of this can be seen in Rosa Parks' refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man, and in MLK'S "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" where he states why he and his fellow marchers must continue to practice Civil Disobedience and to march despite being told they would be arrested if they did so.

“The only tired I was, was tired of giving in” (Parks). I was tired, tired of being oppressed, and tired of being stepped on by the law, and my fellow people. That was the only tired i felt. The Montgomery Bus protest sparked a fire that would be felt throughout the entire country, and it was the spark that ignited the fire of the civil rights movement that shook the world. The boycott was the first of it, once light was shown on the problem, she began travelling cross country spreading information about civil rights, and sparking more peaceful protest. Rosa Parks was an important figure that changed the direction of the United States of America. She was trying to get home from work that day, but she turned into an icon for the civil rights movement, and shined a light on the unfair treatment of african americans.

Rosa Parks was the center of one of the greatest civil rights movements in the mid-20th-century. She became an icon due to her calm refusal to give up her seat to a white man, which triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott beginning in 1955 (Baggett, 2016). Rosa Parks acted with courage and stood up for what she believed in; paving the way for many American citizens to follow in her footsteps - or lack of footsteps. She stayed true to herself and inspired others to take similar courageous actions throughout the civil rights movement in America.