The Civil Rights Movement

Griselda Ochoa Martínez

Professor Juan Reyes

Raíces Sociales y Culturales de EUA

December 16, 2016

The Civil Rights Movement

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a social struggle movement triggered by inequality of access and opportunities, privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship to African Americans. The movement main fight was against three areas of discrimination: education, social segregation, and voting rights. The Civil Rights movement was challenging segregation; African American men and women were the leaders of the movement gaining followers from local to national levels. They were pursuing their goals using legal means, negotiating, and above all nonviolent protest demonstrations. It was the largest social movement during the 20th century which influenced some others such as: the modern women's rights movement and the student movement of the 1960s. It is believed that the movement started with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the Voting Rights act of 1965. This movement can be also known as the Black Freedom Movement, the Negro Revolution, and the Second Reconstruction.

The Civil rights Movement helped people recognize the powerful their voices could be, and how this completely changed America. One of the most powerful voices in the movement was Martin Luther King, Jr’s. He was a very inspiring leader of the Civil Rights Movement. This peaceful protests in opposition to racism, guided by Luther King, repeatedly got violent threats and responses, beatings, and several arrests. King kept emphasizing how important it was for the black community to not stoop down to the level of the people they were fighting against. His attitude and way of thinking was very successful and gave the Civil Rights Movement a motivating honorable influence.  

The 13th 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed following the Civil war. The 13th amendment would made all black people citizens of the United States. The 14th amendment was to grant them equal protection under the law. The 15th amendment gave black citizens the right to vote. After the banning of slavery, the South developed a new form of slavery called sharecropping; which consisted on a tenant farmer who was provided with credit for seed, tools, living quarters, and food, working the land, and had to agree to share the value of the crop minus a few charges.  Due to the debt, the sharecropper was tied to the land, this way a black family would farm the land owned by white people, however they were allowed to keep about 10-15% of the profit, the rest would go to the landowner. Adding up to their debt the blacks would do their purchases on credit at a General Store which was owned by the landowner.

Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, were created to limit the movement of blacks' rights and to enforce segregation.  For example: The Jim Crow Law (segregation/separate but equal) was made to enforce racial segregation, these laws that would prevent African Americans from doing things that a white person could do like separate use of water fountains and seating sections on public transport. After the civil war were called the Black Codes. The Black Codes Law (no rights) was used to restrict the civil rights of African Americans and mostly former slaves. These laws, were executed like the former Confederate states after the American Civil War that would restrict the freedom of former slaves and assure white supremacy.

Some of the these laws were intentionally created to hinder black voting, the reason behind this was due to the black people outnumbering whites in the South, therefore they would take control. Later they added the “Grandfather clause” which stated that if your grandfather voted in 1864 you could have the right to vote, which resulted effective and no black person would have been allowed to vote. Along this were the Taxes, they had to be paid in February prior to voting time, believing they were not going to be able to afford it or lose the proof of payment by November. Lastly, they were required to take a literacy tests since before 1864 was illegal to teach black slaves to read and write.

In 1869 the phrase “Separate but equal” was coined and this will be the way life will be for the next sixty years since court ruled that segregation existing in most school, restaurant and other public places did not violated the 14th Amendment of the USA Constitution. The second stage of the movement revolved around education; the public schools in black neighborhoods had lower quality than those in white neighborhoods. The banks were making their part either by not giving loans for advancement around those areas and to make sure they wouldn’t to this they draw red lines on maps around black neighborhoods.

The Brown Decision

In 1909 was founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in an attempt to change the discrimination laws and practices in the legal system. During 1954 they challenged the famous case of Brown vs The Topeka; a racial segregation in public schools where whites around the country condemned the decision of finishing this. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan resist desegregation sometimes recurring to violence, and the first target on their lists was the NAACP. In 1957, in Little Rock Arkansas the governor Orval Faubus with the help of the National Guard attempted to prevent that nine black students were admitted to all white Little Rock’s Central High school with protests that escalated to violence. President Eisenhower in response sent 1,000 federal paratroopers to end desegregation and protect the “Little Rock Nine” for the entire school year. Similar situations happened in 1962 at the University of Mississippi and in 1963 when Alabama governor George Wallace wanted to block black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama; both of them under President Kennedy’s administration.

Challenging Social Segregation

The third stage of the movement was the Social Movement. It began on December 1st 1955 with Rosa Parks who was a member of a branch of the NCAAP in Montgomery Alabama. She was returning home from a hard day at work when she was asked to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person, she refused to move and was arrested shortly after. This triggered a boycott to the city busses with support from 50,000 blacks in Montgomery protesting the segregated seating which lasted 381 days, succeeding in integrating the seating. Martin Luther King Jr. was the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which organized the boycott.

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