The Civil Rights Movement : A Great Deal Of Thought And Realization

Spanning from 1954 to 1968, the Civil Rights movement is one of the most powerful turning points in American history. This movement was proof of the everlasting hope in the African-American communities, where time and time again people risked their lives in order to fight for their constitutional rights. Throughout the fourteen years that the movement lasted, six key moments are linked together through one common thread: the perseverance to never give up in order to gain what is just.

Thesis Statement: In this paper, I’m going to explore how the Civil Rights Movement first started, and the brutal events and forms of protest during this monumental moment in history. Looking at first-hand accounts from pivotal figures such as the leaders of the social movement organizations, I can properly recount the conditions and struggles in the fight for equality for African Americans. Covering these topics, I can properly describe the effects that came from each movement and the change that subsequently followed. Brown v. Board:

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore’s book Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 shows the Civil Rights movement in the same light as those writers like Jacquelyn Dowd Hall who believed in “The Long Movement.” Gilmore sets out to prove that much more time and aspects went into the Civil Rights Era and that it did not just start at the time of Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights acts of the nineteen sixties. The book adhered to the ideology of “The Long movement” aspects of the civil rights era during its earlier times. However it also differs by displaying the more unorthodox, often unseen origins of the movement in Communism, labor, and fascism. She also shows that Black civil rights is not a problem faced by many

Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still lived in a unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. This is when the Civil Rights Movement was introduced; an era dedicated to activism for equal rights and treatment of African Americans in the United States. During this period, people rallied for social, legal, political, and cultural changes to end discrimination and segregation. This era included endless amount of events involving discrimination to minorities. This movement occurred somewhere between 1955 and 1965 but the exact time span is debated.

The African American Civil Rights Movement officially “began” in 1954, but the ideas of Civil Rights had been brewing since the end of the Civil War, and even earlier. The Civil Rights Movement was centered on the idea of the equal, fair, and constitutional treatment of African Americans in the United States. The movement features some of history’s most prominent figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks. Throughout the movement, activists utilized protests, marches, boycotts, and strikes in attempts to change public opinion and governmental action on African Americans. The movement succeeded in overturning

Social movements are one of the primary means through which the public is able to collectively express their concerns about the rights and wellbeing of themselves and others. Under the proper conditions, social movements not only shed light on issues and open large scale public discourse, but they can also serve as a means of eliciting expedited societal change and progress. Due to their potential impact, studying the characteristics of both failed and successful social movements is important in order to ensure that issues between the public and the government are resolved to limit injustices and maintain societal progress.

The Civil Rights Movement began with the presence of enslaved blacks in the new world (Litwack 2009) with the European societal enslavement and oppression; and still lives on today. The African American experience remains the bleakest time in the history of America. It is this story of a resilient people of color that refused to be seen as inferior and demanded equality for all. As we look at the era of slavery, it is evident that this is where activism and liberation begins.

A debate in civil rights history appeared in the decades following the well-publicized struggles of the early 1960s and continues today. This debate is of whether the movement was finished with its goals when it attained equal treatment under the law, or whether it had changed to a new goal of fighting all forms of discrimination, not just the formal version found in Jim Crow.

i. Many believe that the Civil Rights movement started in the 1940s and 1950s, however the Civil Rights movement really started before the Civil War even began. The first Supreme Court case to involve the rights of human beings in America occurred in 1857 with Dred Scott v. Sanford. After being a slave in a free state, Dred Scott sued for his freedom, he later got his freedom but not by way of the Court decision. The Supreme Court found that “np black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks are unable to petition the court for their freedom” (History). This decision not only enraged abolitionists, it heightened tensions between the North and the South, with eventually erupted in war.

Prior to the civil rights movement, was hard for social injustice that mainly occurred during the 1950s and the 1960s for blacks to achieve equal rights under the law of the U.S. Civil War had regularly repealed slavery, but it didn’t end the discrimination, harassing, and the threatening. Jim Crow laws were settled in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Blacks couldn’t use the same public efficiency as whites, live in frequent of the same towns or unable to go to the same schools. Activists used, during the civil rights movement, multiple strategies that resulted in both successes and failures.

The Civil Rights Movement as we know it started in 1945 due to the end of the second World War. After the racial atrocities carried out by the Nazis killing over 6 million Jews it showed how far racial abuse can be taken and convinced many people that racism should be opposed in all circumstances. There were clear signs of change for black Americans however progress was not equally shared across the united states. The Federal Government which is headed by the President, but also comprises

“The civil rights movement was a mass popular movement to secure African American equal access to and opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of US citizenship.”(Davis, 2014, p.1) “It started in 1954 when Rosa Parks started it with

Truly, the Civil Rights Movement was a period amid the 1950's and 60's to wipe out isolation and increase parallel rights. Thinking back on every one of the occasions, and element figures it created, this depiction is extremely obscure. Keeping in mind the end goal to completely comprehend the Civil Rights Movement, you need to do a reversal to its beginning. The vast majority trust that Rosa Parks started the entire social liberties development. She did in actuality drive the Civil Rights Movement to uncommon statures at the same time, its starting point started in 1954 with Brown versus leading group of Education of Topeka. Chestnut versus leading group of Education of Topeka was the foundation for change in American History in general. Indeed,

The Civil Rights Movement was a long-term initiative to overcome the unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation, and other forms of oppression such as the Jim Crow laws. The period of the civil rights reform can be divided into several phases such as the “prehistory” of the Civil Rights Movement during the 1930s to 1954, the “Lunch counter” phase during the years 1955 to 1965, the Black Power Movement beginning in 1965 and progressing until mid 1975, and lastly, the post-civil rights and post-black power era. During each phase, the movement began with isolated, small-scale protests and ultimately resulted in the emergence of organized, some militant, some non-violent movements led by various organizations. While the movement could be divided into phases, they were not isolated incidents, each phase evolved or carried into the next movement. Due to the depth of each era, it is impossible to combine all the historical facts into one paper. However, three epigraphs from, Race, Reform, and Rebellion, written by Manning Marable, summarizes the development of the Civil Rights Movement over the era of 1940 to 1982.

The Civil Rights movement is one of the most important acts to change the way not only African Americans were able to live their lives but all races and colors. It would slowly break down the social, economic, political, and racial barriers that were created by the The Age of Discovery and Transatlantic Slave trade. I believe without the Civil Rights acts our country would result to be no better than what it was when the Emancipation Proclamation just took effect. In the 1950s and long before, Southern folk, who were white had created a system that would interpret them as a superior race over blacks. The system would defend whites rights and privileges from being taken away from them while establishing terrible inhumane suffering for African Americans. In the South blacks were controlled in all aspects economic, political, and personal, this was called a “tripartite system of domination” - (Aldon D. Morris) (6) Though it isn’t as prevalent racism and discrimination towards other races that aren’t white is still found in America and can be in schools, the workplace, even when you are in the general public but you no longer see discriminating signs saying “Whites” or “Blacks” or Colored” along the front of bathroom, restaurants, and shopping malls doors. Nor do you see people being declined the right to buy a home based on their color or access to school and an equal education being declined because one didn’t meet racial requirements. The acts of violence towards