The civil rights movement was a very popular movement to secure equal rights for African Americans. The movement was for very basic privileges that the U.S. citizens had. Mostly directed towards three areas of discrimination education, social segregation, and voting rights. The civil rights movement peaked in the 1950’s and 1960’s. African American men and women, along with whites, organized and led the movement at national and local levels.The civil rights movement was largest social movement of the 20th century in the United States.
On May 17, 1954, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren made the ruling in the civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. It was at the beginning of the civil rights movement where the court declared the separate schools for black and white is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court made this ruling because everything wasn’t equal for all people. The Southern states were furious and still took a very long time to desegregate.
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old from Money, Mississippi.He was an African American that was brutally murdered because he “flirted” with a white woman. Roy Bryant, the proprietor of the store and the woman’s husband, heard how Emmett had “flirted” with his wife. He was so angry he went to the home of Till’s great uncle, Mose Wright, with his brother-in-law J.W. Milam in the middle of the night. Despite Wright fighting, they took Emmett and forced him into the car. They drove him down to the Tallahatchie River. They had beaten Emmett so badly and dumped his body in the river. When he was found Mose couldn’t even recognize him, he only knew because of Emmett’s ring. The two men who killed Emmett pleaded not guilty, knowing that they could not be tried again. A few years later the two men were paid by a reporter and told the whole truth. How they abused and killed Emmett Till.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil-rights movement in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. Rosa Parks was a catalyst for the event on December 1,1955 because she refused to give her seat up on the bus because a white wanted it. She was shortly arrested after. She was not the first to do this, but she was the first to make a point out of it. It was after her that all blacks around her refused to The Supreme Court ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged as a leader of the American civil rights movement near this time.
Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The nine students were Elizabeth Eckford, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray, Terrance Roberts, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Jefferson Thomas, Melba Patillo, and Carlotta Walls. These students became known as the Little Rock Nine. While they were at school they had there own personal security. The only one of the nine to actually finish was Eris Green. Although the immediate results of the Little Rock Nine’s actions were not positive, they did help the de-segregation of public schools to take a huge step forward in the South. Their bravery gave other students the courage to press forward in the years to come. The next year Central High School closed down.
The Nashville sit-ins, lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960. They were part of a direct action campaign to end segregation at lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was known for its early success. Many of those who were involved in the sit in practice no violence. They used white men to hit them before time so they know what to do. Local police officers responded to the staged sit-ins by arresting those who participated. Despite the arrests, students continued to carry out the sit-ins by continuously have more blacks sit at lunch counters.
In conclusion the civil rights movement was a struggle for African Americans. They had to stand up for their own rights but not use violence to do it. It was led by people like Martin Luther King Jr., Emmett Till, Little Rock Nine, and many other people. These people are the ones who stood up against those who discriminated them.
