hook for civil rights movement essay

Civil Rights Movement - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

The Civil Rights Movement, a pivotal era in the struggle for racial equality in the United States, bore witness to significant events, legislation, and figures dedicated to dismantling systemic racism. Essays could explore key moments like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and the passing of Civil Rights Act, among others. Discussions might also delve into the prominent figures of the movement like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks, exploring their ideologies, strategies, and contributions to the cause. The wider impact of the Civil Rights Movement on subsequent social justice movements, policy reformations, and the broader discourse on race and equality could be analyzed. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the Civil Rights Movement with other global human rights movements can provide a broader perspective on the enduring struggle for racial and social justice across different societal and historical contexts. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of Civil Rights Movement you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

The Sixties Civil Rights Movement Vs. Vietnam War

The 1960s were a very turbulent time for the United States of America. This period saw the expansion of the Vietnam War, the assassination of a beloved president, the civil rights and peace movements and the uprising of many of the world’s most influential leaders; known as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Over the years, scholars have discussed the correlation between the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. It has been argued that violence happening overseas directly […]

How did Martin Luther Kings Jr Death Affect the Civil Rights Movement

In the early 1950’s and late 60’s down south there was a huge movement dedicated to the fight for rights of African Americans. His main goal was to lead a movement that was non-violent no matter what they were up against. Martin Luther King Jr. Was one of the major leaders of the civil rights movement and he fought for civil rights and political rights to get rid of segregation in the United States. On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther […]

The Struggle for African American Equality

The struggle for African American equality played out in all parts of life including schools, public life, and political office. This struggle was ingrained in American culture and it proved to be extremely difficult to escape. Until the 1940s, segregation, inequality, and violence was the norm for African Americans. In the late 1940s, African Americans began to see an opportunity for true freedom and that gave them the fuel to take action to demand change. Change was made through various […]

We will write an essay sample crafted to your needs.

Masterpiece Cakeshop V. Colorado Civil Rights Commission

Jack Phillips, owner, and baker at Masterpiece Cakeshop believed that it was his First Amendment right to refuse any gay couple a wedding cake because it was against his religious beliefs. Further, he felt that by participating in making a cake for a gay marriage would be an act of complicity, as it would be seen as him condoning such a marriage which is strictly the opposite of what his beliefs are, that homosexuality is wrong, and is considered a […]

Does the Civil Rights Movement have an Effect on the Way Minorities are Treated by Authorities?

Abstract The civil rights movement was a mass popular movement to secure for African Americans equal access to and opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship. While the roots of this movement go back to the 19th century, its highlighted movements were in the 1950s and 1960s. African American men and women, along with white American’s and other minority citizens, organized and led the movement at national and local levels nationwide. The civil rights movement centered on […]

Logical Fallacies in Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was composed in 1963, when African Americans were fighting for their rights. The reason for this letter is that Martin Luther King is attempting to persuade the clergymen. While doing this, he utilizes critical and powerful tones to endeavor and to impact the clergymen to agree with him. Martin Luther King gives a substantial contention utilizing Logos, Pathos, and Ethos all throughout his letter. Martin Luther King utilizes logos in the letter […]

Civil Rights Martyrs

Are you willing to give your life for your people? These martyrs of the civil rights movement gave everything for their people. Although some may say their deaths did not have an impact on the civil rights movements. They risked their lives just so African Americans could have the rights they have today. The definition of martyr is a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs. They believe that everyone should be equal and have the […]

Segregation and Civil Rights

Throughout 1950 to the 1960s there was a lot of racial tensions regarding people who were not white. Segregation was a huge part of this including bathrooms, water fountains, transportation, and education. African American people were still being mistreated, performing the same type of labor as the slavery times, except with little payment. Laws were put in place, such as the Jim Crow laws. These laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation (“Jim Crow […]

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest James Gaines

The author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines, is a male African American author who has taken full advantage of his culture by writing about rural Louisiana. His stories mainly tell the struggles of blacks trying to make a living in racist and discriminating lands. Many of his stories are based on his own family experiences. In Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, four themes that are displayed are the nature of […]

Illegal Immigrants Deserve Civil Rights

Citizenship in the United States comes with a very significant and powerful advantage; civil rights. Under these rights, your freedom is protected from several infringements by the government. Many individuals are entitled to these rights, such as those born in the United States, while many individuals may not be granted all of these rights, such as illegal immigrants. There is a huge controversial debate surrounding illegal immigrants and whether they should have civil rights and liberties, and this debate is […]

Civil Rights Figures in the United States

Who were the important civil rights leaders in America and how did they impact the United States of America? Introduction: For our project on social justice, we decided to talk about the leaders of the civil rights movement for their intellect, bravery, and ingenuity. We chose to honor the more widely known people like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and those whom everybody might not know about such as Nina Simone, Dorothy Height, and the Freedom Riders. We […]

Civil Liberties Definition

Civil liberties are the freedoms that citizens have in order to exercise rights that have been given, written, and documented in the Constitution. Although freedom of speech and unwarranted interference from the government are stated within this document, there too are many others. In order to clearly outline and state which rights of the American people were protected by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights was drafted. Although a document such as The Bill of Rights exists to protect citizens’ […]

Women of the Tennessee and Memphis Civil Rights Movement

Memphis, Tennessee is one of the stomping grounds for the Civil Rights Movement. Before the sanitation strike and before Dr. Martin Luther King’s arrival in Memphis regarding the sanitation workers’, we must learn from the women who initiated for his arrival to help. Women were not as direct and bold as far as the Civil Rights Movement around the United States but in Memphis, Tennessee they were. Take for example Julia B. Hooks, Maxine Smith, Mary Church Terrell, Meharry Medical […]

Impact of the Civil Rights Laws

The Civil Rights Movement continues to impact society today, this has inspired and impacted the lives of many. Humanities is by definition, “the study of how people process and document the human experience”. From the beginning of time, the human race has used philosophy, literature art, music, and history to make record of the world as a whole. Culture is a a very important part of our society as a whole, it is by definition the characteristics and knowledge of […]

After Civil Rights: Racial Realism in the New American Workplace

Since the Civil Rights Act was legislated, the United States has gone through a dramatic change in regards to race and racism in our society. This essence of change includes the ideas of racial and ethnic composition in the United States today, and in regards to this review, the shift in employer behavior. Today, employers seek a more diverse workforce, with hopes of achieving organizational goals because of it. John Skrentny’s After Civil Rights: Racial Realism in the New American […]

Civil Rights Leaders

Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King were two of the most influential and inspiring leaders during the Civil Rights Movement. Both leaders had methods used to inspire followers, major key events, and strong effects on both religion and political views regarding war. The leader had their own unique way in changing history as we know it, but both had a similar goal in mind. Even though both had a similar goal one had a larger effect on Civil rights […]

Civil and Political Rights

This document belongs to the era of the sixties after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This act happened during the Civil Rights Movement that took place during the 1950s to the 1960s, where racial minorities were fighting for equal rights under the law in the United States. It all started when Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency and established the “Great Society” that stated that all Americans should have equal rights and freedoms. From that program he was […]

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights

As I reflect upon what I learned from undertaking an oral history; I realized that Oral history interviews are like fingerprints. The information that you learn cannot be stolen or erased. Oral histories are important to my understanding when it comes to learning a topic at hand because; it offers a place for students like myself to begin finding historical evidence to support their essay. Oral histories are records of the past obtainable by culturally tradition or a person whom […]

Voter Suppression from the Civil Rights Movement to the 21st Century

History of voter suppression In 1865, President Lincoln stated that freed slaves that are intelligent or served as soldiers should be allowed to vote. Although Lincoln felt this way many white people had begged to differ. Throughout history, there have always been obstacles that African Americans faced while trying to vote. Since the civil rights movement to the age of trump, the obstacles they faced were literacy tests, poll taxes, inaccessibility to information, lack of protection, intimidation, and physical violence […]

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Native American and African American were not the only ones that had been discriminated against and deprived of their civil rights. Asian Americans were also denied their civil rights and discriminated against. As a matter of fact, Asians are the most hated of all immigrants group and subjected to the same discrimination as were African Americans and American Indians. Countless Asian Americans were moved by the growth of African American, Chicano, and Native American civil rights movement in the 60’s […]

Progressing the Civil Rights Movement with Aristotle’s Artistic Appeals

Right amidst the heat of the Civil Rights movement in a small cell block within the solid confines of Birmingham city jail, a passionate African American activist completed a published statement in response to eight white clergymen who called out the whole band of the African American community to be patient to earn their rights in the US. Unbeknownst to King, this revolutionary piece of literature advocating for nonviolent resistance to racism for African Americans in America would reshape the […]

The First Amendment

The First Amendment does not protect all forms of speech. Although its protections are incredibly diverse and broad, the First Amendment does not protect forms of speech including: “obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, and solicitations to commit crimes” (Freedom Forum Institute, 1). The incorporation doctrine is a constitutional doctrine establishing the Bill of Rights (amendments 1-10) as fundamental rights guaranteed in both federal and state court […]

Civil Rights and the Media

The media played a vital role in bringing to light the trials of the people who fought for civil rights of the African American right into the living rooms and offices of thousands of people. Some examples of media use are television, newspaper, and radio. Several interest groups used the aforementioned media as forms of promotion. One of the major groups that used the media in all forms was the NAACP with the circumstances of the Little Rock High School […]

The Struggle for Civil Rights

In 1971, Jose Cisneros took to the forefront the fight of bringing the fight for civil rights to Mexican Americans. At the time in the United States, equal rights had only been an issue largely focued on by whites and blacks, basically leaving out any protections to Mexican Americans. This was brought all the way to the supreme court as a continuation of the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. At the time, Corpus Christi Independent School […]

How are Organizations Influenced Today by the Civil Rights Era then and Now

“The minute we look away, the minute we stop fighting back, that’s the minute bigotry wins” (DaShanne Stokes). Blacks and whites in America see racism and disparities in the United States very differently. How we view race, racism, inequality, and the justice system depends a lot on our background. The things that are occurring in our country now are no different than the events that occured in Los Angeles’s 1972, Chicago 1960, as well as New York in the 1970’s […]

Lives Matter – a Civil Rights Issue

The story of Emmett Till, a young black boy, killed in Mississippi is a symbol of the horrible outcomes of hatred and prejudice. Americans today still struggle with equality and fair treatment of all its citizens. In 1955, the beginning of change came from a mother’s decision to show the world the true reality of hate. After the brutal beating of her son, she opened his casket to show the world just what hate was allowed to do. Emmett Till’s […]

Civil Liberties in the United States

In the United States of America, very few documents affect our lives as much as the American Constitution. As being one of the first documents written by describing the inalienable rights of men it has shaped the laws, the thinking, and lifestyles of all those that have or will live in the United States of America. One man who thoroughly understood the Constitution and the liberties that were contained in it was the first ever African-American supreme court justice Thurgood […]

Foot Soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement

Growing up as a black woman in America, you learn very early on that we face a triple barrier: race, gender and class. We also carry the burden of slavery, rape, lynching and other atrocities, while trying to maintain family ties in a America that has historically depicted us as childlike, aggressive, hypersexual and violent. The result of that construct and the accompanying racist fears and forced subjugation it justifies has been counterintuitive: black women in America are caring, loving […]

History of the Battle for Civil Rights

It is impossible to discuss the history of the battle for civil rights for Hispanics without including Black Americans. Minorites of all backgrounds had to band together in order to fight back against the white man’s system of oppression. The battle for civil rights in the south, particularly in the state of Texas, is often associated with Texas's two largest ethnic minorities: African Americans and Hispanic people, particularly Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans have made efforts to bring about better social […]

Civil Rights and Intolerance SA

African Americans in the 1920,The kkk is a klan that is not good for the African Americans. African Americans could not do the stuff that they can do now such as right to vote and the segregation was very bad for the back people sadly.The kkk aka KU KLUX KLAN was founded between the 1865 and the 1866 by the sixs soldiers who had been in the Confederate soldiers during the one war that is the old civil war. The […]


Start date :	1954
End date :	1968
Caused by :	Racism, segregation, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, socioeconomic inequality

How To Write An Essay On The Civil Rights Movement

Introduction to the civil rights movement.

Writing an essay on the Civil Rights Movement requires a deep understanding of its historical significance and impact on American society. This movement, which spanned from the 1950s to the 1960s, was a pivotal era in the struggle for racial equality in the United States. In your introduction, provide an overview of the key events and figures that shaped the movement. Highlight its primary goals – to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law. Setting the context is crucial for a comprehensive analysis of the various strategies used by civil rights activists and the outcomes of their efforts.

Exploring Key Events and Figures

The main body of your essay should delve into the critical events and figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Discuss landmark events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. Highlight the roles of prominent leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and organizations like the NAACP and SNCC. Analyze how their strategies and ideologies contributed to the movement's goals. This section should provide detailed insights into how these events and leaders collectively helped to bring about significant changes, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Analyzing the Challenges and Opposition Faced

In addition to highlighting the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, it's essential to address the challenges and opposition faced by activists. Discuss the widespread resistance from state and local governments, particularly in the Southern United States, and the often violent backlash from groups opposed to desegregation and equal rights. Examine the role of the federal government, the impact of the Cold War, and the influence of the media in shaping public perception of the movement. This critical analysis should provide a balanced perspective, acknowledging the hurdles that the movement had to overcome in its pursuit of equality.

Concluding with the Movement's Legacy and Continued Relevance

Conclude your essay by reflecting on the legacy and ongoing relevance of the Civil Rights Movement. Discuss how the movement fundamentally transformed American society and laid the groundwork for subsequent social justice movements. Consider the progress made in civil rights since the 1960s and the challenges that remain, particularly in addressing systemic racism and inequality. Your conclusion should not only summarize the key points of your essay but also encourage further contemplation on the Civil Rights Movement's role in the broader context of American history and its enduring impact on contemporary discussions about race and equality.

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

Essay: The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement sought to win the American promise of liberty and equality during the twentieth century. From the early struggles of the 1940s to the crowning successes of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that changed the legal status of African-Americans in the United States, the Civil Rights Movement firmly grounded its appeals for liberty and equality in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Rather than rejecting an America that discriminated against a particular race, the movement fought for America to fulfill its own universal promise that “all men are created equal.” It worked for American principles within American institutions rather than against them.

African-Americans endured racial prejudice that compelled them to fight racism in World War II while fighting in segregated units. It was particularly hard to accept because the war was fought against the racist Nazis who were attempting to eradicate the Jews grounded in racially-based totalitarianism. For black soldiers, the stark contradiction with American wartime ideals was as repulsive as their daily condition of fighting separately. Many black units—most famously the Tuskegee Airmen—fought just as courageously as their white counterparts. Fighting for the “Double V” for victory over totalitarianism and racism, returning black veterans were not keen on returning to the Jim Crow South with legal (de jure) segregation nor to a North with informal (de facto) segregation.

On the national level, African-Americans sought to overturn segregation with legal challenges up to the Supreme Court, pressuring presidents to enforce equality, and lobbying Congress for changes in the law of the land.

In the postwar years, civil rights leaders prepared a dual strategy of attacking all discrimination throughout American society. On the national level, African-Americans sought to overturn segregation with legal challenges up to the Supreme Court, pressuring presidents to enforce equality, and lobbying Congress for changes in the law of the land. On the local level, marches were held to demonstrate the fundamental immorality and violence of segregation and to change local laws.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was established by W.E.B. DuBois and other black and white, male and female reformers in 1909 to struggle for civil rights, helped lead the legal battle in the courts. The NAACP legal team, led by Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the first black justice on the Supreme Court, scored the first major success of the Civil Rights Movement with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) decision that indirectly overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had set the precedent for legalizing segregation. New Chief Justice Earl Warren persuaded his fellow justices to issue a unanimous 9-0 decision for the moral force to overcome expected white southern resistance. The outcome was a landmark for black equality that initiated the Civil Rights Movement.

The good outcome led many to overlook the questionable legal reasoning employed in the decision. The Supreme Court shockingly admitted white and black schools were equal despite evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the Court stated that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had “inconclusive” origins related to segregated schools and doubted whether it could be applied to this case. Instead, the Court turned to social science as the basis for its decision. It referred to experiments in which black children played with dolls of different races. Members of the Court misread the evidence because the results of the studies actually showed that the segregated black children chose to play with black dolls. The Court mistakenly reported that the black children played more with the white dolls and had a “feeling of inferiority.”

The Court settled for declaring the edict that segregated schools were “inherently unequal” based on dubious social science and missed an opportunity for a constitutionally-grounded precedent banning all racial discrimination.

In Plessy v. Ferguson , Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote this powerful dissent: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of our civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.” (John Marshall Harlan, Plessy v. Ferguson Dissenting Opinion, 1896).

By ignoring Harlan’s understanding of the equality principle in the Constitution and settling for the use of social science, Chief Justice Warren diminished the constitutional force of the decision, which, if read narrowly, did not exactly overturn Plessy .

Even with the unanimous decision that Chief Justice Warren sought, the case encountered opposition, and it took more than a decade of direct action by African-Americans and others to win equality. In 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott initiated a decade of local demonstrations against segregation in the South. In December 1955, Rosa Parks courageously refused to give up her bus seat to a white man because she was tired of being treated like a second-class citizen. African-Americans applied economic pressure for more than one year to force concessions for desegregation at the local level, and a charismatic young Baptist minister, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., provided vision and leadership for the emerging movement at Montgomery.

As a result of the Brown decision, many white politicians and ordinary citizens engaged in what they called “massive resistance” to oppose desegregation. In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to use the state National Guard to protect black children at Little Rock High School. President Dwight Eisenhower sent in troops from the 101st Airborne Division to compel local desegregation and protect the nine black students while federalizing the Arkansas National Guard to block Faubus. The Little Rock Nine attended school under the watchful eye of federal troops. The principles of equality and constitutional federalism came into conflict during this incident because the national government used the military to impose integration at the local level.

4.1 dwight d eisenhower official presidential portrait

In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus refused to use the state National Guard to protect black children at Little Rock High School. President Dwight Eisenhower sent in troops from the 101st Airborne Division to compel local desegregation and protect the nine black students while federalizing the Arkansas National Guard to block Faubus.

In the early 1960s, African-Americans continued to press for equality at the local and national levels. In 1960, black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina started a wave of “sit-ins” in which they took seats reserved for whites at segregated lunch counters. The sit-ins led to applying the economic pressure of a boycott that successfully desegregated the local lunch counters.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. used his moral vision and rhetoric to achieve the greatest successes of the movement for black equality and the end of segregation. King helped to organize marches in Birmingham, Alabama, where police dogs and fire hoses were turned on the Birmingham marchers and caused shock and outrage across the nation when the violence was televised. King and hundreds of others were arrested for demonstrating without a permit.

From his jail cell, King wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” defending the civil rights demonstrations by quoting the great Christian authority St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Employing the principles of America’s Founders, King explained that a just law is a “man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.” King posited that just laws uplift the human person while unjust laws “distort the soul” (Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963).

He argued that just laws are rooted in human equality, while unjust laws give a false sense of superiority and inferiority. Moreover, segregation laws had been inflicted upon a minority who had no say in making the laws and thereby passed without consent, violating American principles of republican self-government.

King closed the letter by asserting that the Civil Rights Movement was “standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence” (Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963).

On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy responded and addressed the nation on television. “We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution,” he told the nation. For Kennedy, the question was “whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities” (John F. Kennedy, “Civil Rights Address,” June 11, 1963).

Kennedy was mindful of the historical significance of the year when he appealed to Lincoln’s Proclamation freeing the slaves: “One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free…And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free” (John F. Kennedy, “Civil Rights Address,” June 11, 1963).

On August 28, 1963, the greatest event of the Civil Rights Movement occurred with the March on Washington. More than 250,000 blacks and whites, young and old, clergy and laity, descended upon the capital in support of the proposed civil rights bill. From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King evoked great documents of freedom when he said “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation” (Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream,” August 28, 1963). The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves one hundred years before on January 1, 1863. Simultaneously, he also subtly referred to the other great document of 1863, Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” which was inscribed in the wall of the memorial, and begins, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” (Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address,” November 19, 1863).

King offered high praise for the “architects of our republic” who wrote the “magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.” King began his evocative peroration “I Have a Dream” by declaring that his dream is “deeply rooted in the American dream.” “One day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal’” (Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream,” August 28, 1963).

African-Americans won the fruits of their decades of struggle for civil rights when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act legally ended segregation in all public facilities. The act had to overcome a Southern filibuster in the Senate and the fears of conservatives in both parties that it was an unconstitutional intrusion of the federal government upon the rights of the states and into local affairs and private businesses.

Although the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified a hundred years before, African Americans still voted at low rates, especially in the Deep South. A number of devices—literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses that prevented descendants of slaves from voting—severely curtailed black suffrage. Violence and intimidation were the main vehicles of preventing African-Americans from voting in the mid-1960s.

In March 1965, Martin Luther King and other leaders organized marches in Selma, Alabama, for voting rights. After enduring beatings by club-wielding mounted police officers on “Bloody Sunday,” the marchers eventually set out again several days later and reached Montgomery under the watchful eye of federal troops. Congress soon passed the Voting Rights of 1965, banning abridgment of the right to vote on account of race.

Yet in the wake of the great legislative triumphs for social and voting equality the summer of 1965 (and successive summers) witnessed the explosion of racial violence and rioting by black citizens in American cities. Despite gaining rights of equal opportunity African-Americans still lived under obvious economic disparities with whites. The passage of federal laws securing equal opportunity led to rising expectations of immediate equality, which did not happen. Young “Black Power” advocates also began advocating self-reliance as a race, a celebration of African heritage, and a rejection of white society. Forming groups like the Black Panthers, a minority of young African-Americans spoke in passionate terms advocating violence, leading to confrontations with police. Many white Americans were shocked and confused at the urban riots occurring just after legal equality for African-Americans had been achieved.

In the 1970s and 1980s, plans of “affirmative action” were introduced in college admissions and in hiring for public and private jobs that soon became controversial. Intended to remedy the historic wrongs of slavery and segregation, affirmative action policies established preference or quotas for the number of African-Americans (and soon women and other minorities) who would be admitted or hired. Its proponents sought to achieve an equality of outcome in society rather than merely equal opportunity in American society. Some whites complained that this was “reverse discrimination” against whites that tolerated lower standards for the benefited groups. The most notable Supreme Court case addressing the issue was the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) decision, in which racial preferences, but not racial quotas, were upheld.

The Supreme Court essentially agreed with the supporters of affirmative action who argued that “discrimination against members of the white ‘majority’ cannot be suspect if its purpose can be characterized as ‘benign’” (Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Regents of the University of California v. Bakke , Opinion, 1978)

The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement sought to win the American promise of liberty and equality during the twentieth-century. From the early struggles of the 1940s to the crowning successes of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that changed the legal status of African-Americans in the United States, the Civil Rights Movement firmly grounded its appeals for liberty and equality in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Rather than rejecting an America that discriminated against a particular race, the movement fought for America to fulfill its own universal promise that “all men are created equal.” The Civil Rights Movement worked for American principles within American institutions rather than against them.

September 3, 2024

published by phi beta kappa

Print or web publication, the civil rights movement: what good was it.

Read Alice Walker’s first published essay, which won first place in our 1967 essay contest

Demonstrators march on Washington in 1963. (Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress)

In 1967, Alice Walker—then a 23-year-old unknown—won $300 and first place in our national essay contest. The piece led to a writing fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and offers a rare glimpse at the early writing of one of America’s literary icons.

Someone said recently to an old black lady from Mississippi, whose legs had been badly mangled by local police who arrested her for “disturbing the peace,” that the civil rights movement was dead, and asked, since it was dead, what she thought about it. The old lady replied, hobbling out of his presence on her cane, that the civil rights movement was like herself, “if it’s dead, it shore ain’t ready to lay down!”

This old lady is a legendary freedom fighter in her small town in the Delta. She has been severely mistreated for insisting on her rights as an American citizen. She has been beaten for singing movement songs, placed in solitary confinement in prisons for talking about freedom, and placed on bread and water for praying aloud to God for her jailers’ deliverance. For such a woman the civil rights movement will never be over as long as her skin is black. It also will never be over for twenty million others with the same “affliction,” for whom the movement can never “lay down,” no matter how it is killed by the press and made dead and buried by the white American public. As long as one black American survives, the struggle for equality with other Americans must also survive. This is a debt we owe to those blameless hostages we leave to the future, our children.

Still, white liberals and deserting civil rights sponsors are quick to justify their disaffection from the movement by claiming that it is all over. “And since it is over,” they will ask, “would someone kindly tell me what has been gained by it?” They then list statistics supposedly showing how much more advanced segregation is now than ten years ago—in schools, housing, jobs. They point to a gain in conservative politicians during the last few years. They speak of ghetto riots and of the recent survey that shows that most policemen are admittedly too anti-Negro to do their jobs in ghetto areas fairly and effectively. They speak of every area that has been touched by the civil rights movement as somehow or other going to pieces.

They rarely talk, however, about human attitudes among Negroes that have undergone terrific changes just during the past seven to ten years (not to mention all those years when there was a movement and only the Negroes knew about it). They seldom speak of changes in personal lives because of the influence of people in the movement. They see general failure and few, if any, individual gains.

They do not understand what it is that keeps the movement from “laying down” and Negroes from reverting to their former silent second-class status. They have apparently never stopped to wonder why it is always the white man—on his radio and in his newspaper and on his television—who says that the movement is dead. If a Negro were audacious enough to make such a claim, his fellows might hanker to see him shot. The movement is dead to the white man because it no longer interests him. And it no longer interests him because he can afford to be uninterested: he does not have to live by it, with it, or for it, as Negroes must. He can take a rest from the news of beatings, killings and arrests that reach him from North and South—if his skin is white. Negroes cannot now and will never be able to take a rest from the injustices that plague them for they—not the white man—are the target.

Perhaps it is naïve to be thankful that the movement “saved” a large number of individuals and gave them something to live for, even if it did not provide them with everything they wanted. (Materially, it provided them with precious little that they wanted.) When a movement awakens people to the possibilities of life, it seems unfair to frustrate them by then denying what they had thought was offered. But what was offered? What was promised? What was it all about? What good did it do? Would it have been better, as some have suggested, to leave the Negro people as they were, unawakened, unallied with one another, unhopeful about what to expect for their children in some future world?

I do not think so. If knowledge of my condition is all the freedom I get from a “freedom movement,” it is better than unawareness, forgottenness and hopelessness, the existence that is like the existence of a beast. Man only truly lives by knowing, otherwise he simply performs, copying the daily habits of others, but conceiving nothing of his creative possibilities as a man, and accepting someone else’s superiority and his own misery.

When we are children, growing up in our parents’ care, we await the spark from the outside world. Sometimes our parents provide it—if we are lucky—sometimes it comes from another source far from home. We sit, paralyzed, surrounded by our anxiety and dread, hoping we will not have to grow up into the narrow world and ways we see about us. We are hungry for a life that turns us on; we yearn for a knowledge of living that will save us from our innocuous lives that resemble death. We look for signs in every strange event; we search for heroes in every unknown face.

It was just six years ago that I began to be alive. I had, of course, been living before—for I am now twenty-three—but I did not really know it. And I did not know it because nobody told me that I—a pensive, yearning, typical high-school senior, but Negro—existed in the minds of others as I existed in my own. Until that time my mind was locked apart from the outer contours and complexion of my body as if it and the body were strangers. The mind possessed both thought and spirit—I wanted to be an author or a scientist—which the color of the body denied. I had never seen myself and existed as a statistic exists, or as a phantom. In the white world I walked, less real to them than a shadow; and being young and well-hidden among the slums, among people who also did not exist—either in books or in films or in the government of their own lives—I waited to be called to life. And, by a miracle, I was called.

There was a commotion in our house that night in 1960. We had managed to buy our first television set. It was battered and overpriced, but my mother had gotten used to watching the afternoon soap operas at the house where she worked as maid, and nothing could satisfy her on days when she did not work but a continuation of her “stories.” So she pinched pennies and bought a set.

I remained listless throughout her “stories,” tales of pregnancy, abortion, hypocrisy, infidelity and alcoholism. All these men and women were white and lived in houses with servants, long staircases that they floated down, patios where liquor was served four times a day to “relax” them. But my mother, with her swollen feet eased out of her shoes, her heavy body relaxed in our only comfortable chair, watched each movement of the smartly coiffed women, heard each word, pounced upon each innuendo and inflection, and for the duration of these “stories” she saw herself as one of them. She placed herself in every scene she saw, with her braided hair turned blonde, her two hundred pounds compressed into a sleek size seven dress, her rough dark skin smooth and white. Her husband became dark and handsome, talented, witty, urbane, charming. And when she turned to look at my father sitting near her in his sweat shirt with his smelly feet raised on the bed to “air,” there was always a tragic look of surprise on her face. Then she would sigh and go out to the kitchen looking lost and unsure of herself. My mother, a truly great woman—who raised eight children of her own and half a dozen of the neighbors’ without a single complaint—was convinced that she did not exist compared to “them.” She subordinated her soul to theirs and became a faithful and timid supporter of the “Beautiful White People.” Once she asked me, in a moment of vicarious pride and despair, if I didn’t think that “they” were “jest naturally smarter, prettier, better.” My mother asked this; a woman who never got rid of any of her children, never cheated on my father, was never a hypocrite if she could help it, and never even tasted liquor. She could not even bring herself to blame “them” for making her believe what they wanted her to believe: that if she could not look like them, think like them, be sophisticated and corrupt-for-comfort’s-sake like them, she was a nobody. Black was not a color on my mother, it was a shield that made her invisible. The heart that beat out its life in the great shadow cast by the American white people never knew that it was really “good.”

Of course, the people who wrote the soap opera scripts always made the Negro maids in them steadfast, trusty and wise in a home-remedial sort of way; but my mother, a maid for nearly forty years, never once identified herself with the scarcely glimpsed black servant’s face beneath the ruffled cap. Like everyone else, in her daydreams at least, she thought she was free.

Six years ago, after half-heartedly watching my mother’s soap operas and wondering whether there wasn’t something more to be asked of life, the civil rights movement came into my life. Like a good omen for the future, the face of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the first black face I saw on our new television screen. And, as in a fairy tale, my soul was stirred by the meaning for me of his mission—at the time he was being rather ignominiously dumped into a police van for having led a protest march in Alabama—and I fell in love with the sober and determined face of the movement. The singing of “We Shall Overcome”—that song betrayed by nonbelievers in it—rang for the first time in my ears. The influence that my mother’s soap operas might have had on me became impossible. The life of Dr. King, seeming bigger and more miraculous than the man himself, because of all he had done and suffered, offered a pattern of strength and sincerity I felt I could trust. He had suffered much because of his simple belief in nonviolence, love and brotherhood. Perhaps the majority of men could not be reached through these beliefs, but because Dr. King kept trying to reach them in spite of danger to himself and his family, I saw in him the hero for whom I had waited so long.

What Dr. King promised was not a ranch-style house and an acre of manicured lawn for every black man, but jail and finally freedom. He did not promise two cars for every family, but the courage one day for all families everywhere to walk without shame and unafraid on their own feet. He did not say that one day it will be us chasing perspective buyers out of our prosperous well-kept neighborhoods, or in other ways exhibiting our snobbery and ignorance as all other ethnic groups before us have done; what he said was that we had a right to live anywhere in this country we chose, and a right to a meaningful well-paying job to provide us with the upkeep of our homes. He did not say we had to become carbon copies of the white American middle-class; but he did say we had the right to become whatever we wanted to become.

Because of the movement, because of an awakened faith in the newness and imagination of the human spirit, because of “black and white together”—for the first time in our history in some human relationship on and off TV—because of the beatings, the arrests, the hell of battle during the past years, I have fought harder for my life and for a chance to be myself, to be something more than a shadow or a number, than I have ever done before in my life. Before there had seemed to be no real reason for struggling beyond the effort for daily bread. Now there was a chance at that other that Jesus meant when He said we could not live by bread alone.

I have fought and kicked and fasted and prayed and cursed and cried myself to the point of existing. It has been like being born again, literally. Just “knowing” has meant everything to me. Knowing has pushed me out into the world, into college, into places, into people.

Part of what existence means to me is knowing the difference between what I am now and what I was then. It is being capable of looking after myself intellectually as well as financially. It is being able to tell when I am being wronged and by whom. It means being awake to protect myself and the ones I love. It means being a part of the world community, and being alert to which part it is that I have joined, and knowing how to change to another part if that part does not suit me. To know is to exist; to exist is to be involved, to move about, to see the world with my own eyes. This, at least, the movement has given me.

The hippies and other nihilists would have me believe that it is all the same whether the people in Mississippi have a movement behind them or not. Once they have their rights, they say, they will run all over themselves trying to be just like everybody else. They will be well-fed, complacent about things of the spirit, emotionless, and without that marvelous humanity and “soul” that the movement has seen them practice time and time again. What has the movement done, they ask, with the few people it has supposedly helped? Got them white-collar jobs, moved them into standardized ranch houses in white neighborhoods, given them intellectual accents to go with their nondescript gray flannel suits? “What are these people now?” they ask. And then they answer themselves, “Nothings!”

I would find this reasoning—which I have heard many, many times, from hippies and nonhippies alike—amusing, if I did not also consider it serious. For I think it is a delusion, a copout, an excuse to disassociate themselves from a world in which they feel too little has been changed or gained. The real question, however, it appears to me, is not whether poor people will adopt the middle-class mentality once they are well-fed, rather, it is whether they will ever be well-fed enough to be able to choose whatever mentality they think will suit them. The lack of a movement did not keep my mother from wishing herself bourgeois in her daydreams.

There is widespread starvation in Mississippi. In my own state of Georgia there are more hungry families than Lester Maddox would like to admit—or even see fed. I went to school with children who ate red dirt. The movement has prodded and pushed some liberal senators into pressuring the government for food so that the hungry may eat. Food stamps that were two dollars and out of the reach of many families not long ago have been reduced to fifty cents. The price is still out of the reach of some families, and the government, it seems to a lot of people, could spare enough free food to feed its own people. It angers people in the movement that it does not; they point to the billions in wheat we send free each year to countries abroad. Their government’s slowness while people are hungry, its unwillingness to believe that there are Americans starving, its stingy cutting of the price of food stamps, make many civil rights workers throw up their hands in disgust. But they do not give up. They do not withdraw into the world of psychedelia. They apply what pressure they can to make the government give away food to hungry people. They do not plan so far ahead in their disillusionment with society that they can see these starving families buying identical ranch-style houses and sending their snobbish children to Bryn Mawr and Yale. They take first things first and try to get them fed.

They do not consider it their business, in any case, to say what kind of life the people they help must lead. How one lives is, after all, one of the rights left to the individual—when and if he has opportunity to choose. It is not the prerogative of the middle-class to determine what is worthy of aspiration.

There is also every possibility that the middle-class people of tomorrow will turn out ever so much better than those of today. I even know some middle-class people of today who are not all bad. Often, thank God, what monkey sees, monkey avoids doing at all costs. So it may be, concerning what is deepest in him, with the Negro.

I think there are so few Negro hippies today because middle-class Negroes, although well-fed, are not careless. They are required by the treacherous world they live in to be clearly aware of whoever or whatever might be trying to do them in. They are middle-class in money and position, but they cannot afford to be middle-class in complacency. They distrust the hippie movement because they know that it can do nothing for Negroes as a group but “love” them, which is what all paternalists claim to do. And since the only way Negroes can survive (which they cannot do, unfortunately, on love alone) is with the support of the group, they are wisely wary and stay away.

A white writer tried recently to explain that the reason for the relatively few Negro hippies is that Negroes have built up a “super-cool” that cracks under LSD and makes them have a “bad trip.” What this writer doesn’t guess at is that Negroes are needing drugs less than ever these days for any kind of trip. While the hippies are “tripping,” Negroes are going after power, which is so much more important to their survival and their children’s survival than LSD and pot.

Everyone would be surprised if the Israelis ignored the Arabs and took up “tripping” and pot smoking. In this country we are the Israelis. Everybody who can do so would like to forget this, of course. But for us to forget it for a minute would be fatal. “We Shall Overcome” is just a song to most Americans, but we must do it. Or die.

What good was the civil rights movement? If it had just given this country Dr. King, a leader of conscience for once in our lifetime, it would have been enough. If it had just taken black eyes off white television stories, it would have been enough. If it had fed one starving child, it would have been enough.

If the civil rights movement is “dead,” and if it gave us nothing else, it gave us each other forever. It gave some of us bread, some of us shelter, some of us knowledge and pride, all of us comfort. It gave us our children, our husbands, our brothers, our fathers, as men reborn and with a purpose for living. It broke the pattern of black servitude in this country. It shattered the phony “promise” of white soap operas that sucked away so many pitiful lives. It gave us history and men far greater than Presidents. It gave us heroes, selfless men of courage and strength, for our little boys to follow. It gave us hope for tomorrow. It called us to life.

Because we live, it can never die.

Alice Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist. Her novel The Color Purple won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

● NEWSLETTER

History Classics
Your Profile
Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
This Day In History
History Podcasts
History Vault

Civil Rights Movement

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 14, 2024 | Original: October 27, 2009

Civil Rights Leaders At The March On WashingtonCivil rights Leaders hold hands as they lead a crowd of hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Washington DC, August 28, 1963. Those in attendance include (front row): James Meredith and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), left; (L-R) Roy Wilkins (1901 - 1981), light-colored suit, A. Phillip Randolph (1889 - 1979) and Walther Reuther (1907 - 1970). (Photo by Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War officially abolished slavery , but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans, along with many other Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.

Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction , Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they’d once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they’d made during Reconstruction, “ Jim Crow ” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn’t use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn’t vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

Jim Crow laws weren’t adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be “separate but equal."

World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II , most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren’t given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with—to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn’t find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the “mother of the modern-day civil rights movement.” Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr ., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks’ courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system . The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education . In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine , arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Sit-In at Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth’s lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth’s lunch counter where they’d first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael , who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power.”

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 “ Freedom Riders ”—seven Black and six white activists–mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C. , embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother’s Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy ) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders—and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.—by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a “whites-only” facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals

March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington . It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph , Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King’s speech in which he continually stated, “I have a dream…”

King’s “ I Have a Dream” speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 —legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination —into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.

Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as “ Bloody Sunday .” Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King’s assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.

Six Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement

Though their stories are sometimes overlooked, these women were instrumental in the fight for equal rights for African‑Americans.

How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement

With a focus on racial pride and self‑determination, leaders of the Black Power movement argued that civil rights activism did not go far enough.

8 Key Laws That Advanced Civil Rights

Since the abolishment of slavery, the U.S. government has passed several laws to address discrimination and racism against African Americans.

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation. Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library. Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives. Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey. Little Rock School Desegregation (1957). The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford . Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford . Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks. Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org. The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center. The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

Photo Galleries

1957, central high school, integration of central high school, little rock, arkansas, little rock nine, Black students, black history

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Home / Essay Samples / History / History of The United States / Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement Essay Examples

Emmett till: the murder that changed america.

For every citizen to have the same importance, privileges and prospects would mean to have equality. The lack thereof became the determination to obtain for black woman and men in the US, on a platform known as the Civil Rights Movement. Contrary to popular belief...

Martin Luther King Jr.: a Legacy of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Martin Luther King Jr. is an iconic figure in American history, celebrated for his tireless efforts in advancing civil rights and social justice. His life and work continue to inspire and resonate with people around the world. This essay delves into the remarkable journey of...

Civil Rights Movement and Civil Rights Act of 1964

Considering the topic 'Civil Rights Movement and Civil Rights Act of 1964 Essay' we can say that the main aims of the Civil Rights movement in the classic ‘Montgomery to Memphis’ period of 1955-1968 were to establish laws and public institutions in an attempt to...

Causes and Effects of the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a period committed to activism for equal rights and treatment of African-Americans in the United States. During this period, many people revitalized for social, lawful and political changes to deny separation and end isolation. Numerous significant occasions including victimization African-Americans...

Discussion About Was the Civil Rights Movement Successful

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress”. The civil rights movement had many successes along with some failures as well. Successes included ending segregation and the important advance in equal rights legislation. Failures of the movement included a continued deep-rooted racism towards African...

The Success of the Civil Rights Movement: a Struggle for Equality

The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a watershed moment in history, seeking to dismantle racial segregation, discrimination, and ensure equal rights for all citizens. This essay explores the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, examining its impact on legal reforms, social attitudes,...

Civil Unjust in United States in 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. quotes, “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.” This generation had civil unjust, no trust in the...

Civil Right Acts after Civil War

In my essay, I will be writing about racism in the united states between the blacks and the white and how the blacks are treated unfairly compared to the whites. So, what exactly is racism about? In layman terms racism is the belief of one...

Gender Ineguality in the America

This assignment will compare the sociological perspectives between functionalism and feminism and contrast them. It shall be analysing their views on families. Although feminism began in 1792, when Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) wrote a book ‘a vindication of the rights of women’ stating that women were...

The African Americans in Custer Died for Your Sins

In Chapter 8 of Custer Died For Your Sins, Deloria sets the foundation of how African Americans and Natives were treated by the white man and effectively highlights the differences between both minority groups. The Civil Rights movement was a “huge” accomplishment for African Americans...

Trying to find an excellent essay sample but no results?

Don’t waste your time and get a professional writer to help!

About Civil Rights Movement

United States

W.E.B. Du Bois, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Henry MacNeal Turner, John Oliver Killens

Unfortunately, there's still a lot of discrimination in our society. The modern civil rights movement is working to address the less visible but very important inequities in our society, such as gender inequality, discrimination of the disabled, ageism, police brutality, etc.

samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->