good hook for civil rights movement essay

May 31, 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

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

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.

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)

Related Content

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.

The American Civil Right Movement Reflective Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Works Cited

The African-American Civil Rights Movement refers to a group of activists in the United States targeted at banishing the racial discrimination against Black-Americans and reinstating voting rights mainly in Southern states. It covers the duration of the movement in the early 60s especially in S. America.

By the year 1966, the rise of the Black Power Movement, which took place between1966 and1975, widened the aims of the Civil Rights Movement into racial honor, economic and political satisfaction, and freedom from the hardships by white Americans (Purdan, 2001).

This particular has heavily influenced my personal life, career choice, and the global community, especially the African American community in the United States and other non-African nations

During theCivil Rights Movement, there were numerous instances of civil unrest. During this season, acts of peaceful protests and civil disobedience generated crises between activists and government power.

The federal government, state, the congress, local traders, and communities had to react fast to bring the situation under control. This event laid bare the discriminations faced by blacks in the United States.

There was a remarkable legislative achievement during this period of the Civil Rights Movement, including the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964 which had a huge impact on black rights in the US. Both racial and religion stigma were the major resultant factors of this party when it came to public employment exercises and acquiring accommodation facilities.

The second significant outcome of this movement was the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which restored and protected voting rights. The third result was the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, which instantly allowed entry to the United States for immigrants.

The fourth act was the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned discriminations in the right to sale or rent a house. African- Americans resumed politics in South America, and later, this political culture inspired the younger generation across the states (Beito & Beito, 2009).

This Civil Right Movement deprived the Southern Americans of their legal rights to vote, a situation that persisted until a national civil rights legislation was enacted in mid-1960s. When the Democrats took over, they enacted legislation that controlled the voter registration process and this limited the number of African American voters in the polls.

Black voters had no option than be left out of participating in the voting rolls. The number of African American voters reduced drastically making them unable to elect representatives of present our needs in the national meetings and local governments.

The Republican Party, which had all along represented African American interests, reduced in power as voter registration among African Americans was stifled. During this same period when African Americans were denied their rights, the white Democrats forced racial separation by law.

Violence against blacks rose to a situation that left the Southern region unstable socially, economically and politically. The system of dictatorship sanctioned governance, racial discrimination and oppression known as the “Jim Crow” system left many people jobless.

This situation led to the death a number of people who sided with this reform. During this period of civil unrest and violations in the south, African Americans in other regions of the US also received harsh treatment since they exhibited allegiance to the civil rights movement (Frost, 2002).

This event also had a big negative impact on my education career influence and my choice of career path due to the racial segregation. The law of the day led to the separation of government services and social amenities into two: white and colored. Those in the colored domains did not receive enough funding and were always of lesser quality.

There was a rise in the exploitation of the African-Americans with hash economic experiences to the blacks, Latinos, and Asians. We were denied economic opportunities and discriminated during public employment exercises. There existed also individual, military police, organizational, and racial violence against blacks. Many people in the region died while others left homeless and jobless.

The situation for blacks within the South region was worse and pathetic. In most states, they could not afford to vote and have their children educated. Good Schools and Universities were set for the whites leaving the Black Americans with poor learning institutions.

Due to the massive resistance in the south by proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression, the Diasporas increasingly rejected these rules and gradually implemented legalistic methods as the major tool to bring about racism separation. In protest, blacks adopted a combined formula of diverse action with peaceful resistance to overcome this situation.

Racial discrimination is an act of civil right disobedience that offensively denies citizens their rights to serve freely and fairly in the development of the states and the globe at large. Had the Whites give their citizens equal rights to serve in the states then a relatively stable political system could have been achieved.

This stable political system gives citizens equal rights by law to freely mingle and use public resources without any discrimination or racism. People could freely interact between different states without necessarily having a passport as a travel requirement.

Beito, David T., and Beito, Linda R. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power , 3 rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Frost, Mervyn . Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States , NY: Routledge, 2002.

Purdan, Robert. A Journey Through the Sixties , 6 th ed. California: Shire Press, 2001.

• Obedience and Disobedience to Authority
• Rights to Civil Disobedience
• Legal Mexican Immigration Wave Since 1965
• Martin Luther King's “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”
• “Why We Can’t Wait” a Historical Document by Martin Luther King Jr.
• Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era
• The history of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent
• Papyrus: Its Invention and Impact on the World
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, June 5). The American Civil Right Movement. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-american-civil-right-movement/

"The American Civil Right Movement." IvyPanda , 5 June 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-american-civil-right-movement/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The American Civil Right Movement'. 5 June.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The American Civil Right Movement." June 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-american-civil-right-movement/.

1. IvyPanda . "The American Civil Right Movement." June 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-american-civil-right-movement/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The American Civil Right Movement." June 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-american-civil-right-movement/.

American History: the Civil Rights Movement

This essay will provide an overview of the Civil Rights Movement in American history, discussing key events, figures, and the movement’s impact on society and legislation. PapersOwl showcases more free essays that are examples of Brown V Board Of Education.

How it works

The Civil Rights Movement was a struggle for social justice during the 1950s through the 1960s. It was for African American people to gain equal rights in the United States. Ever since the Civil War, slavery has been abolished but it doesn’t mean that discrimination against African Americans was over. African Americans had continued to go through the oppression of effects of racism. Majority of this oppression was occuring in the South, and by the middle of the 20th century, black people had more than enough violence and prejudice against them.

African Americans along with many white Americans began to fight together to win equality which lasted over twenty years.

This movement was very significant in the United States history. This movement was a correction for the older American ways of rights, it gave many opportunities to the African American community. Citizens of America before the 1950s had lived in a world where human rights were not executed for every skin color. After slavery was abolished, it has been a dream for African Americans to live with the same privileges as the white Americans. It is inequitable that African Americans with decades of oppression can not be given a chance to drink from the same water fountain as the whites. White Americans have been participating in the slave trade for 300 years without feeling guilt. It was the knowledge and ignorance of trade that made white people think little of blacks. Racism began to intensify even more after the freedom the African Americans received. Black people were not allowed to sit at the front of the bus, have the same education as whites, as they also did not have the right to vote as an American citizen.

The action began in the late 1940s when President Harry Truman issued the Executive Order 9981. The executive order was issued on July 26, 1948, it was to abolish discrimination on race, religion or national origin. It was on May 17, 1954 when the Brown v. Board of Education cases were determined and decided by the Supreme Court, that effectively ended racial segregation in public schools. However, many school remained segregated. This was a major step for the African American community in the Civil Rights movement. The famous case of Linda Brown, where she was denied entrance to an all white elementary school. Where in Oliver Brown’s lawsuit, he claims that schools for black children and schools for white children were not equal, where the segregation had violated the supposed equal protection clause. A unanimous verdict of against the school segregation the following year had impacted the Civil Rights Movement.

During the Civil Rights Movement there were many important figures. A figure that sparks a lot of controversy during the movement was Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks became controversial when she refused to give up her seat of the bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, with her arrest it had sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 African American citizens. The Supreme Court was declining and ruling revenues was forced by the city to desegregate its busses a year later. Because of Rosa Parks act against segregation she became an icon, but because of her resistance it became a natural extension for longing commitment to activism. She had started boycotts and became an active member of the NAACP. The Montgomery Bus Boycotts had contribute to the Civil Rights Movement, having segregation on public buses is unconstitutional, but even with the ruling of having no segregation on busses, many cities continue to discriminate and violate the integrating public bus policies.

The most well-known figure during the Civil Rights Movement was Martin Luther King Jr., he was a pastor, activist, humanitarian and leader of the Civil Rights Movement. MLK Jr. was best known for his nonviolent ways of activism, using Christian beliefs in his campaign and boycotts. He had sought for equality and human rights for African Americans. King wanted to achieve what he and many citizens sought through peaceful protests.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the driving force behind the major events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington. Kings support on these small movements helped bring about landmark legislation such as the Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act. He was such an impactful figure to the Civil Rights Movement that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

An iconic line that was said by Martin Luther King Jr. was “I Have a Dream”. In 1963 King and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement organized an impactful march for equal rights in Washington D.C., there was a massive crowd of over 200,000 people who participated in the march. This march was a protest against racial discrimination in the workforce and schools. The protest demanded minimum wage for all workers, as it was the largest gathering in Washington D.C.’s history

In this massive march, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech that was capable of punching his points with anaphoras, while citing meaningful and powerful sources from the U.S. Constitution and the Bible. This speech marked him as a master orator. Because of the speech and the march, the citizens of America had began to put increasing pressure on the presidential administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. The movement was encouraging the president to push the civil rights laws to pass through Congress, to become recognized on a national level.

Through long hardships and protest Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2nd. It is a law that prevented the employment discrimination that was caused by race, color, sex, religion or national origin. The Act establishes the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for the prevention of workplace discrimination.

The Civil Rights act was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, it would not have been accomplished without the strategic marches, protest and demonstrations aimed mostly toward the advancing cause of racial and economic justice. The Civil Rights Act had fundamentally help transform American democracy. Slowly African Americans were able to go to the same schools and receive the same education as the whites. African American men could get minimum wage jobs, their community is slowly prospering. Even though the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination was still at large, though black people got the same rights as the white people racism still affected the way black people live.

Despite the fact that the Civil Rights Act was passed, there were still marches and protest occurring such as the Selma to Montgomery march. It was was a part of a series of civil rights protest that happened in 1965 in Alabama, which was a Southern state with a deep entrenched racist policies. In March of 1965, it has been made an effort to register black voters in the South. There were protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the capital of Montgomery. The marches were confronted with deadly violence from white vigilante groups and local authorities. This historic march, where Martin Luther King Jr. also participated in had finally achieved their goal of walking for three days to reach Montgomery, it raised awareness of the struggles black voters faced and the need for a national Voting Rights Act.

Finally on August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. It was to prevent the use of literacy test as a voting requirement, as it allowed federal examiners to go over voter qualifications, as well as having federal observers monitoring polling places. Although the Voting Rights Act was passed, the local and state enforcements of the law was weak and most of the time ignored the Act, this mainly occurs in the South and in areas where the population of blacks were high which threatened the political status quo. Even though there were unfortunate events in the South, the Act gave African American voters the legal means to challenge the voting restrictions which immensely improved voting turnouts.

Nearing the end of the Civil Rights Movement, President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968 on April 11th, which is also known as the Fair Housing Act. The Act prohibited the discrimination about the sale, rental and financing of housing that is based on race, religion, sex or national origin. It was intended to follow up the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was quickly passed by the House of Representatives in the says after Martin Luther King Jr, was assassinated. Where the Fair Housing Act stands as the last great legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Civil Rights Movement was a vital part in the American history. It was necessary as it deeply affected the American society. There were important achievements brought out of the movement which was the civil rights laws that were passed by Congress. These laws ensured the constitutional rights for African Americans and other minorities, it affected how people live today. As it also broke the pattern of public facilities being segregated by race, finally letting everyone share a public place and also slowly taking away the discrimination against race,color, sex and national origin.

Cite this page

American History: The Civil Rights Movement. (2020, Sep 08). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/

"American History: The Civil Rights Movement." PapersOwl.com , 8 Sep 2020, https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/

PapersOwl.com. (2020). American History: The Civil Rights Movement . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/ [Accessed: 31 May. 2024]

"American History: The Civil Rights Movement." PapersOwl.com, Sep 08, 2020. Accessed May 31, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/

"American History: The Civil Rights Movement," PapersOwl.com , 08-Sep-2020. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/. [Accessed: 31-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2020). American History: The Civil Rights Movement . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/american-history-the-civil-rights-movement/ [Accessed: 31-May-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

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

Sharing Stories Inspiring Change

• Civil Rights
• Community Organizing
• Disability Rights
• Labor Rights
• LGBTQIA Rights
• Reproductive Rights
• Voting Rights
• Women's Rights
• Architecture
• Fashion and Beauty
• Photography
• Advertising and Marketing
• Entrepreneurs
• Jewish Education
• Jewish Studies
• Summer Camps
• Women’s and Gender Studies
• Food Writing
• Antisemitism
• Soviet Jewry
• World War II
• Rosh Hashanah
• Simchat Torah
• Tisha B'Av
• Tu B'Shvat
• Philanthropy
• Social Work
• Civil Service
• Immigration
• International Relations
• Organizations and Institutions
• Social Policy
• Judaism-Conservative
• Judaism-Orthodox
• Judaism-Reconstructionist
• Judaism-Reform
• Midrash and Aggadah
• Spirituality and Religious Life
• Synagogues/Temples
• Agriculture
• Engineering
• Mathematics
• Natural Science
• Psychology and Psychiatry
• Social Science
• Coaches and Management
• Non-Fiction

Civil Disobedience and the Freedom Rides: Introductory Essay

Introductory Essay for Living the Legacy , Civil Rights, Unit 2, Lesson 3

One of the ways African American communities fought legal segregation was through direct action protests, such as boycotts, sit-ins, and mass civil disobedience. The tactic of non-violence civil disobedience in the Civil Rights Movement was deeply influenced by the model of Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who became a spiritual leader and led a successful nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial power in India. Gandhi's approach of non-violent civil disobedience involved provoking authorities by breaking the law peacefully, to force those in power to acknowledge existing injustice and bring it to an end. For its followers, this strategy involved a willingness to suffer and sacrifice oneself.

In 1960, black college students used non-violent civil disobedience to fight against segregation in restaurants and other public places. On February 1, four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth's and politely ordered some food. As expected, they were refused service, but they remained sitting at the counter until the store closed. The next day, they were joined by more than two dozen supporters. On day three, 63 of the 66 lunch counter seats were filled by students. By the end of the week, hundreds of black students and a few white supporters filled the lunch counters at Woolworth's and another store down the street.

The sit-ins attracted national attention, and city officials tried to end the confrontation by negotiating an end to the protests. But white community leaders were unwilling to change the segregation laws, so in April, students began the sit-ins again. After the mass arrest of student protestors on the charge of trespassing, the African American community organized a boycott of targeted stores. When the merchants felt the economic impact of the boycott, they relented, and on July 25, 1960, African Americans were served their first meal at Woolworth's.

The success of the Greensboro sit-ins led to a wave of similar protests across the South. More than 70,000 people – mostly black students, joined by some white allies – participated in sit-ins over the next year and a half, with more than 3,000 arrested for their actions.

Like the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides of 1961 were designed to provoke arrests, though in this case to prompt the Justice Department to enforce already existing laws banning segregation in interstate travel and terminal accommodations. These were not the first Freedom Rides. In 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an organization devoted to interracial, nonviolent direct action led by the African American pacifist Bayard Rustin, co-sponsored a bus ride through the South with the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, to test compliance with 1946 Morgan v. Virginia decision that prohibited segregation on interstate buses. Those first Freedom Riders were arrested in North Carolina when they refused to leave the bus. In 1961, James Farmer – one of CORE's founders and its national director – decided to hold another interracial Freedom Ride, with support from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (founded in 1957 by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, founded in 1909).

The Freedom Ride began in Washington DC in May, with two interracial groups traveling on public buses headed toward Alabama and Mississippi. (John Lewis, who appears in Unit 2 lesson 7 and Unit 3 lesson 5, was among those on the first buses of Freedom Riders.) They faced only isolated harassment until they reached Anniston, Alabama, where an angry mob attacked one bus, breaking windows, slashing its tires, and throwing a firebomb through the window. The mob violently beat the Freedom Riders with iron bars and clubs while the bus burned. The second bus was also brutally attacked in Anniston. Violence followed both buses to Birmingham, where a mob beat the Freedom Riders while the police and the FBI watched and did nothing. No bus would take the remaining Freedom Riders on to Montgomery, so they flew to New Orleans on a special flight arranged by the Justice Department.

The CORE-sponsored Freedom Ride disbanded, but SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, founded in 1960) took up the project, gathering new volunteers to continue the rides. A new group of Freedom Riders, students from Nashville led by Diane Nash -- a young African American woman -- gathered in Birmingham and departed for Montgomery on May 20. The Montgomery bus station, which initially seemed deserted, filled with a huge mob when the passengers got off the bus. Several Freedom Riders were severely injured, as were journalists and observers. The mob violence and indifference of the Alabama police attracted negative international press for the Kennedy Administration. In response, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 400 U.S. marshals to prevent further mob violence, and called for a cooling off period, but civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, James Farmer and SNCC leaders insisted that the Freedom Rides would continue. So Robert Kennedy brokered a compromise agreement: if the Freedom Riders were allowed to pass safely through Mississippi, the federal government would not interfere with their arrest in Jackson.

At this point, the Freedom Riders developed a new strategy: fill the jails. They called on civil rights activists to join them on the Freedom Rides, and buses from all over the country headed South carrying activists committed to challenging segregation. Over the course of the summer, more than 300 Freedom Riders were arrested in Jackson, where they refused bail and instead filled the jails, often facing beatings, harassment, and deplorable conditions. More than half of the white Freedom Riders were Jewish.

Judith Frieze, a recent graduate of Smith College, was among those white northerners and many Jews who joined the Freedom Rides in the summer of 1961. Arrested in Jackson, she spent six weeks in a maximum security prison. Upon her release, she documented her experience in an 8-part series of articles published in the Boston Globe .

Eventually, the Freedom Rides succeeded in their mission: by the end of 1962, the Justice Department pressed the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue clear rules prohibiting segregation in interstate travel. The experience revealed the hesitancy of the federal government to enforce the law of the land and the intransigence of white resistance to desegregation. But it also strengthened SNCC, whose leadership at a crucial moment of the Freedom Rides led to the project's success and taught these young civil rights activists about the central role of politics, and the importance of appealing to the pragmatism of politicians -- even the President -- in the fight for civil rights.

Help us elevate the voices of Jewish women.

Listen to Our Podcast

Get sweet swag.

Get JWA in your inbox

Read the latest from JWA from your inbox.

sign up now

How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Civil Disobedience and the Freedom Rides: Introductory Essay." (Viewed on May 31, 2024) <https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/civil-disobedience-and-freedom-rides-introductory-essay>.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Martin Luther King — Martin Luther King Jr.: A Legacy of Civil Rights and Social Justice

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

• Categories: Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King

About this sample

Words: 944 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 944 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, the life and leadership of martin luther king jr., king's impact on civil rights, king's influence on contemporary issues, continuing inspiration and positive change.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: History Social Issues

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 739 words

4 pages / 1959 words

1 pages / 681 words

1 pages / 617 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King Jr.'s iconic speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, remains etched in the annals of American history. With his memorable words that proclaimed his dream for [...]

On August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic speech, "I Have a Dream." The speech has since become one of the most famous and influential speeches in American [...]

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech to a massive audience at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The speech was instrumental in the civil rights movement, and it remains an [...]

Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent figure in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. On August 28th, 1963, he gave a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. that has become known as one of the most [...]

Have you ever wondered why some people choose to disobey societal norms and authority figures? In his thought-provoking essay "Disobedience," Erich Fromm delves into the complexities of this behavior, exploring the psychological [...]

Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus, all these radical men and more are alluded to in Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” His use of their names in the context of this paper creates a form of kinship [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Edvocate

• Lynch Educational Consulting
• Dr. Lynch’s Personal Website
• Write For Us
• The Tech Edvocate Product Guide
• The Edvocate Podcast
• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Assistive Technology
• Best PreK-12 Schools in America
• Child Development
• Classroom Management
• Early Childhood
• EdTech & Innovation
• Education Leadership
• First Year Teachers
• Gifted and Talented Education
• Special Education
• Parental Involvement
• Policy & Reform
• Best Colleges and Universities
• Best College and University Programs
• HBCU’s
• Higher Education EdTech
• Higher Education
• International Education
• The Awards Process
• Finalists and Winners of The 2023 Tech Edvocate Awards
• Award Seals
• GPA Calculator for College
• GPA Calculator for High School
• Cumulative GPA Calculator
• Grade Calculator
• Weighted Grade Calculator
• Final Grade Calculator
• The Tech Edvocate
• AI Powered Personal Tutor

Teaching Students About Super Hero Girls: Empowering the Next Generation

Teaching students about the iron curtain: a comprehensive guide, teaching students about tribes: enhancing cultural awareness and understanding, teaching students about age of bruce springsteen, teaching students about hotel pennsylvania: a journey through time and hospitality, teaching students about the stanley cup finals: a lesson in hockey history and culture, teaching students about xavier: renegade angel – an exploration into surreal animation, teaching students about flashdance cast: a creative approach to film history, teaching students about hellenistic culture and its impact, teaching students about stokely carmichael: civil rights, black power, and the legacy of a revolutionary, civil rights movement essay topics.

Civil Rights Movement Essay Titles

• The Civil Rights Movement’s Peaceful Protest Achievements
• The Civil Rights Movement and the Drug War
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Long-Term Impact
• During the Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and Religion
• The American Civil Rights Movement and Its Effect on African Americans
• The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement Analysis
• Rock’ n’ Roll’s Influence on the Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Importance and Impact on Public Policy
• Women Activists in the Civil Rights Movement
• A History of the Feminist and Civil Rights Movements in the United States
• How Far can the 1950s Be Considered a Great Success for the Civil Rights Movement?
• Study of the Civil Rights Movement in Selma: The Historical Accuracy of Ava DuVernay
• A Look at the American Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Role
• The Historiography of Women’s Civil Rights Movement Roles and Visibility
• The Civil Rights Movement and The Southern Jewish-Black Relationship
• The America Civil Rights Movement’s Contradictory Outcome
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott Movement and The Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement and the Role of the Police
• The Supreme Court’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement

Fascinating Civil Rights Movement Topics to Write about

• The Civil Rights Movement’s Progressive Reform Stages
• Democracy in the United States and the Civil Rights Movement
• Theatre During the Civil Rights Movement
• Student’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement
• During the Civil Rights Movement: Relationship between Activism and the Federal Government.
• African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement Adopted Both Violent and Nonviolent Protest Methods
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Role and Importance of Grassroots Organizers
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Fight for Aid
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Success in the 1950s
• The Reconstruction Era Laws and the Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement and The New York Times
• White Opposition to Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement’s Impact on Black Women
• The Civil Rights Movement in America versus Australia
• Civil Rights Movement Successes and Failures
• The Black Middle Class and the Civil Rights Movement
• The Origins and Impact of the Niagara Movement on the American Civil Rights Movement
• How Significant Was Grassroots Activism in Growing the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s
• The Civil Rights Movement: A History, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
• The Importance of Civil Rights Movement Research
• The Civil Rights Movement’s True Face

Commerce Essay Topics

Media literacy: everything you need to know.

Matthew Lynch

Related articles more from author, most interesting life of pi essay topics, most fascinating moby dick essay topics, fascinating topics to write about a very old man with enormous wings, mind essay topic ideas & examples, simple & easy iraq war essay topics, atmosphere essay topics.

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!

You may also like

• Historiography
• Alexander Hamilton
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• African Diaspora
• Imperialism
• Romanticism
• French Revolution
• Human Trafficking
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Great Depression Essays
• Hurricane Katrina Essays
• Louisiana Purchase Essays
• American Revolution Essays
• The Progressive Era Essays
• Trail of Tears Essays
• Salem Witch Trials Essays
• Industrial Revolution Essays
• Civil War Essays
• New Deal Essays

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 .--> -->