Civil Rights Movement
By Carli Newton
Time for Change
They had a plan
Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor at a black baptist church. One of the biggest things he did was preach nonviolence no matter the circumstances. He believed that if they stayed nonviolent, it wouldn't give police or white Americans a reason to be violent towards African Americans. Of course it was the 60s and with black people fighting for rights, it couldn't just be peaceful. MLK helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as well as the March on Washington where he gave the famous "I have a dream" speech. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Malcolm X was a Civil Rights Leader who changed his last name from Little to X so he did not have to be related to his families slave past. He had a rough life as a child when his dad was murdered and his mom was driven insane. He later lived with his sister before he turned to obtaining money illegally and was sent to prison. While there, he found out a few of his brothers had turned to the Nation of Islam and so he did too. X became a Black Muslim minister in 1954, just 2 years after he got out of prison. He preached black separatism, meaning he believed the US should not integrate. He also believed violence was alright if it was to defend themselves. X thought not standing up and fighting was a show of weakness and the hatred would not stop.
In the Civil Rights Movement, some of the tactics were very successful. They used things such as boycotts, where they would get everyone to stop doing something, or buying things from a particular store. This helped especially with buses with mainly black passengers and stores with mainly black customers. Civil Rights activists also used a form of protest called sit-ins. This was a nonviolent way of basically just being an inconvenience until who ever it is they were sitting-in on agreed to change what they were doing.
Another thing that civil rights groups did was arrange marches. The march from Selma to Montgomery which was to help blacks in the south register to vote. The first of the three marches was on March 7, 1965, and was stopped by Alabama police before they could cross the Edmund Pettus bridge. Some people who marched were badly beaten by the police. The second march was on March 9 and was led by Martin Luther King. They made it to the Edmund Pettus bridge, had a prayer session, and then dispersed. The third march on March 25, 1965 had been granted a court order so they were able to make it through Alabama peacefully. In total, the march covered 54 miles in only 5 days and 4 nights.
Bloody Sunday
SNCC
Boycotting
Heroes often Unheard of
Reverend George Lee was a black man who knew the place to start was voting. He encouraged everyone to pay the poll tax in order to vote, but the whites in the Mississippi town were not in favor of that. In a year, he got 92 black people to register to vote. Things started getting violent and him and his friend Gus Courts who helped him with getting people to vote often received death threats. One day while he was driving home, he was shot in his car. He was taken to the hospital and dies of his wounds, and without any investigation, police indicated that it was a car accident. Even when the doctor pointed out there was lead found in the head of the body, the sheriff said it was probably just fillings and it was obvious nothing was going to be done.
Standing Up for civil rights
One of the groups fighting to end dicriminatory polices and help improve relations between races was CORE. The name CORE stands for Congress of Racial Equality and they were made up of mostly African Americans, but they had some white members. They took part in things such as sit-ins in Chicago, Detroit, and other northern cities. With their help Jackie Robinson was able to become one of the first African American baseball players.
A group of college students made up a group called SNCC. SNCC stands for Student Non-violent Coordinating Committees. They were made up of both black and white students and had the same basic goals as CORE. They were tired of discrimination and advocated for change. Along with CORE, they made up a group called the Freedom Riders.
The Freedom Riders were a group that was made up of CORE and SNCC members. They fought for the integration of bus terminals. To do this, they rode buses into the deep southern states with both black and white riders who wanted to end segregation. They ran into many obstacles as people did not agree with what they were fighting for.