Essay Examples on Civil Rights Movement Essay Example

Essay Examples on Civil Rights Movement Paper 1st Essay Sample on Civil Rights Movement The 1960s were one of the most significant decades in the twentieth century. The sixties were filled with new music, clothes, and an overall change in the way people acted, but most importantly it was a decade filled with civil rights movements. On February 1, 1960, four black freshmen from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical College in Greensboro went to a Woolworths lunch counter and sat down politely and asked for service. The waitress refused to serve them and the students remained sitting there until the store closed for the night. The very next day they returned, this time with some more black students and even a few white ones. They were all well dressed, doing their homework, while crowds began to form outside the store. A columnist for the segregation minded Richmond News Leader wrote, Here were the colored students in coats, white shirts, and ties and one of them was reading Goethe and one was taking notes from a biology text. And here, on the sidewalk outside was a g ang of white boys come to heckle, a ragtail rabble, slack-jawed, black-jacketed, grinning fit to kill, and some of them, God save the mark, were waving the proud and honored flag of the Southern States in the last war fought by gentlemen. Eheu! It gives one pause(Chalmers 21). As one can see, African-Americans didnt have it easy trying to gain their civil rights. Several Acts were passed in the 60s, such as Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. This was also, unfortunately, the time that the assassinations of important leaders took place. The deaths of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all happened in the 60s. Slavery in the United States existed from the early senventeenth century until 1865. It was put to an end by the combination of the Emancipation Proclamation, 1863, and then the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. 2nd Essay Sample on Civil Rights Movement The Civil Rights Movement in AmericaAnd when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of Gods children-black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants-will be able to join hands and to sngn in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, we are free at last.Martin Luther King, Jr. The civil rights movement in the United States was a political, legal, and social struggle that was organized primarily by black Americans with some help from white America.The civil rights struggle was aimed at gaining full citizenship and racial equality for all Americans, particularly the most discriminated group, African Americans, and wasfirst and foremost a challenge to segregation.Segregation was deeply embedded in the South and was used to control blacks since the reconstruction of the South following the American Civil War.Durin g the civil rights movement, individuals and organizations challenged segregation and discrimination by using a number of methods that included protests, marches, boycotts, and refusing segregation laws.Most historians agree that the civil rights movement began with either the Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 or the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965; however, there is a lot of debate on when it began and ended.There were civil rights issues well into the 1980s. The main tool of discrimination against blacks in the United States was segregation, often called the Jim Crow system.Segregation became common in the South after the Reconstruction when the Democratic Party had gained control of the South and started to reverse black advances made during reconstruction. 3rdEssay Sample on Civil Rights Movement We will write a custom essay sample on Essay Examples on Civil Rights Movement specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Essay Examples on Civil Rights Movement specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Essay Examples on Civil Rights Movement specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer In order to understand what led to the Civil Rights Movement, we need tofirst understand what the blacks had been enduring.One could state that the civil rights movement actually started back in 1863 with the Emancipation of Proclamation abolishing slavery.During the First Reconstruction, 1865-1877, blacks tried to live a free life.The white plantation owner’s of the South could not run their plantations without the slaves helping.So, they set up a system called share-cropping.Under this plan, blacks would borrow from the local merchants against their future crops.They would go into debt so much they were unable to pay.Thus, they were stuck on the plantations, working off their debt.This crop-lien system lasted until the 1960’s.Also, in the South, blacks were still not allowed to vote.The people in South denied their right to vote by using â€Å"grandfather clauses† and literacy tests.Segregation still existed.There was also a lot of violence in the South agains t blacks.From 1910-1919, 57 lynchings a year took place.All of this background is important in understanding what the blacks went through during this time period. One of the most indispensable factors of beginning the Civil Rights Movement, involved the cotton industry.The demand for cotton had decreased with the increase of synthetic fibers and imported fabrics.Also, with the increase in mechanization, the demand for plantation workers decreased.After all of these influences, 70% of sharecroppers were let go.Of these, 10 million came to the North.Of the 10 million, about half were black.Many of these people moved to urban areas. Another important factor of the Movement, was that blacks became a â€Å"swing vote.†Politicians recognized that with blacks gaining voting rights, they could get more votes.Thus, politicians became more aware of what affected the blacks. 4thEssay Sample on Civil Rights Movement In 1947, Branch Rickey of the New York Dodgers made history by signing Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers, thefirst African American major league baseball player. Jackie made a huge step for himself but also for all African Americans in the nation. A few years later, in 1954, the Supreme Court settled a case called Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas where they reversed Plessy vs. Ferguson stating that segregation was constitutional as long as equal facilities were provided. This action got the ball rolling for the civil rights movement because it showed the African Americans that the federal government was now on their side. In 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama and ignited the progress of the movement. Soon a pastor, Martin Luther King, emerged as a great leader for the movement. His unique non-violent approach to achieving the goals for civil rights established King as an effective guide for the African Americans in the nation. The main goal of the civil rights movement was to provide African Americans with equal rights in society. Most of them held lower position jobs than whites, and earned less. This goal was too large to accomplish all at once, therefore smaller goals were made from this one vast aspiration. One of these objectives was the desegregation of schools. Since the Supreme Court ruled that segregation is illegal in Brown vs. Board the NAACP tried to make schools in the south integrate. The idea was not accepted well and after a year, Governor Faubus of Arkansas closed thefirst high school that mixed white and black students. African Americans also pushed for desegregation of lunch counters, busses, and public facilities such as toilets and water fountains.