Civil Rights Essay

Submitted By arabellasawyer1
Words: 617
Pages: 3

The African American Civil Rights movement refers to the movements between 1955- 1968 in the United States aimed at the illegalization of racial discrimination against African Americans. The processes and strategies used by African Americans during The Civil Rights Movement, consisted of a series of campaigns such as The Montgomery Boycott, Selma Montgomery Marches, and Greensboro Sit-ins. These campaigns highlighted the inequalities for African American’s, protests where non-violent.

On December 1 1955, an African American women, Rosa Parks (“Mother of the civil rights movement”) was arrested for not giving up her seat for a White American in Montgomery. 50 potential African-American leaders gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott for the aim of full desegregation and equal rights, for both White and Black Americans. With the support of 50,000 African Americans, the Bus Boycott lasted for 381 days until the segregation was lifted in November 1956 due to decreasing in bus revenue and the boycott finished. In the image to the right of the page it shows Rosa Parks being fingerprinted by a police officer after her arrest in December 1955, which set off the start of the campaigns for desegregation, and equal rights for African Americans and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycotts.

Another process African American’s used to achieve equal rights, in the Civil Rights Movement was the Selma Montgomery Marches, The local residents of Selma, Alabama in 1953, asked assistance from the SCLC, Martin Luther King Jr, came to Selma’s aid and held a series of several marches in which he was arrested alongside with 250 demonstrators shown the in source. The marches got a negative and violent attitude from police; A local resident was killed by police in a later protest which prompted the march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 7, 1965 John Lewis, and Hosea Williams, representative from the SCLC led the march which consisted of 87km, 600 people attended the march. Although the march was unsuccessful as it was interrupted the peaceful protesters six blocks into the march by police, and taken back to Selma. Eight days after the march, a new bill was presented called the Voting Rights Act 1965, which gave African American’s the right to vote. These Marches were a successful way of displaying, a sense of negative opinions in the community and are a effective process during The Civil Rights Movement, using the theory “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”, The local residents,