Civil Rights Movement
Swaran Nagi
Introduction
Feature Article
The Brown versus Board did help a lot because they were multiple cases that made more and more Americans question their ideas on human equality. The people that did try to exercise the right to equality in the Brown versus Board cases kept them going. The "Little Rock Nine" did not stay at Central High School for very long, but when Eisenhower sent in troops to Little Rock, it became a number one priority that the President would enforce the Supreme Court rulings.
Support from around the world helped the Civil Rights movement as well. News channels in Europe began reporting on the ideas of segregation. Photos of police dogs attacking demonstrators were seen in Britain, France, Canada, and Germany. After new reports in Europe and the word began spreading globally about the USA using segregation, Congressmen and Senators finally realized segregation was bad and it made the USA look very bad.
The Civil Rights movement was never keen on huge violent protests because that would never get freedom of equality anywhere. They realized that nonviolence is the key to solving segregation because violence will give the African Americans a bad name. Peaceful protests always got more attention. Sit-ins made a direct contact with the issue and because of them, businesses had to give in.
Segregation on buses
Peaceful protests to end segregation
Integrated schools show success
Selective Elements
Top 5 Events
- Emmett Till murder - A 14 year old boy who was from Chicago was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury.
- Rosa Parks - As a member of the NAACP, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" bus to a white passenger, which was forbidden in the south at the time. Because of her arrest, the Montgomery black community launched a bus boycott, which would last more than a year.
- "Little Rock Nine" - Trying to stop segregation, nine black students are blocked from entering Central High School in an attempt to integrate school. President Eisenhower sent federal troops and the National Guard to protect the students.
- "Freedom Riders" - Over the spring and summer of 1961, student volunteers, black and white, began taking bus trips down into the south to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities. It was sponsored by CORE and the SNCC, which involved over 1,000 students.
- Student sit-ins - Four black students from NCATC began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Even though they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. Because of the refusal of service, this event brought about many more non-violent protests.
Redemption Song - Bob Marley
Lyrics - http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+marley/redemption+song_20021829.html