INFORMATIVE

The civil rights movement was a campaign from 1954-1968, but it really started during world war 2. The main idea of this campaign was to abolish racial segregation, discrimination, and the jim crow laws.In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools, in the case of brown vs board of education. Rosa Parks’ action in 1955 incited the MIA, Montgomery Improvement Association led by Martin Luther King, to stage the Montgomery bus system boycott. This movement emphasized direct action such as boycotts, freedom rides, stand-ins, marches, and walks. In 1957, an Alabama high school admitted a group of nine African American teenagers, the little rock nine, and was protested by fellow students the governor, and the National Guard. The president at the time intervened to assure the students’ safety. In 1962 colleges had also started integrating more African American students into their schools, yet they were all met with the same protests as the High School in Alabama. This movement continued into the 60’s with the support of the new President, John F Kennedy, and his brother. However, it was the events at the Birmingham campaign that convinced the President to fully support this movement. The 1963 Birmingham campaign was one of the most significant movements of the civil rights movement. It was organized by the southern Christian leadership conference in order to draw attention to their attempts to desegregate the city. This is because according to Martin Luther King Jr, it was “probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States”. Their actions at this campaign made huge steps towards the desegregation of the city and helped lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They held mass meetings, lunch counter sit-ins, marches, and boycotts. However the only problem was that at the time, they were receiving very little news coverage. In one of the reports, the activists were viewed as too aggressive, making the community skeptical about joining the movement. On June 19th, 1963, The president proposed a Civil Rights Bill to Congress, which was approved in 1964. The bill struck down existing legislation that allowed for discrimination. This captured the attention of the media and brought hundreds of thousands of people together in support of civil rights. Shortly after that, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended the prejudiced voting system. Sadly, a few days later on August 11th, a violent-6 day riot broke out in Los Angeles, resulting in the death of 34 people. This indicated a period of racially motivated violence in the mid 60s. This was also where we saw the rise of black power, mainly led by Stokely Carmichael against the KKK. This ideology was popularized by the Black Panther Party, which followed the ideology of Malcolm X. Malcolm’s rose in popularity in 1957. He was deeply critical of civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, who preached integration not segregation. Malcolm believed Black people needed land, power, freedom, not desegregation. He believe desegregation may have integrated schools but it didn’t help Black people get closer to actual liberation, or address police brutality, unemployment, poverty. Malcolm was publicly challenging Martin Luther's ideas of a non violent moment, as they both began to gain influence. More people moved on from the non-violent movement and joined the nation of islam after the bombing of the 16th street baptist Church. As Malcolm became more popular and his influence grew, criticism didn’t just come from outsiders but from inside the nation of islam. In Malcolm made comments about the assassination of JFK, and that the murder was a consequence of “ chickens coming home to roost“ Malcolm was punished for this by getting his ability to do any public speaking taken away for 90 days, but many people saw this as a way to silence him. in March 1954 Malcolm left the nation of Islam after hearing some harsh rumors. and went on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Shortly after his return he established the OAAU. He was assassinated on February 21st of 1965, well giving a speech in the Audubon ballroom, he was shot 7 times, killing him immediately. Martin luther king helped lead the Montgomery bus boycott, and he served as a spokesperson for the movement. When the supreme court said that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional, Martin and the others had a victory but there was still a lot of work to be done. He would travel around the country supporting people in other boycotts and speaking at nonviolent protests. Martin participated in many lunch sit ins, they would sit down and quietly demand service, he was arrested at one of these sit ins. He traveled to birmingham where people were staging sit ins and marches and was arrested there.. After he was arrested for joining the protest he wrote a letter from his jail cell, that described their ideas of non violence, he feel like he needed to write that letter because white ministers were saying that they’re lawbreakers, and that he just wanted to explain that non-violence is a powerful weapons and it draws attention to i justice. In august 1963 he helped organize the march for jobs and freedom, which brought over a quarter million people to Washington DC, they are marching for quality no matter the person's race, gender and that’s where he said his famous I have a dream speech in which he talked about——-and the march in washington led the government to pass The civil rights act which made segregation illegal in the United States. After that he focus on international peace and economic justice. And he spoke about the vietnam war and worked with campaigns advocating for economic change. His final protest was in memphis in 1968, a march with sanitation workers for them to get a better pay. On that trip to memphis Martin stepped out on the balcony and was shot and killed.