African American Perseverance

945 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Black women's role in the civil rights movement

Perseverance is very important to succeed and accomplish something in the world. Many people struggle to have this characteristic, but there are few groups of people out there who have this unique attribute. There was a time in history that African Americans worked together and persevered to achieve a common goal. This goal was to achieve freedom and desegregation; they believed if they worked together as a community they could attain this goal.
During the period of segregation, hate groups like the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and other segregationist attempted to oppress the African American community, but this brought the black community closer together. The freedom walkers were trying to make America a better society by embracing diversity and togetherness, …show more content…

The time African Americans walked to protest segregation on the bus was a hard and difficult time, but one lady told people that “My feet may be tired but my soul is rested.”(Freedman 86-87). When the blacks would walk, the so called “colored” facilities were few and the distance was far apart. Not only that the quality was very poor, which made things very complicated since not many people were able to get water while walking(AARP). To help with the lack of water the grandmother of Diane Mazurek started a lemonade stand. This rewarded all the hard working and determined African Americans(AARP). This determination and effort by the African Americans was quite incredible. They knew that they would reach the promised land if they worked hard to get …show more content…

The black community was mentally strong and knew that the best way to fight hate is with love. One of the many ways protesters tried to get their word out was by having sit ins in which African Americans would enter white only restaurants and sit at the counters (Teacher serve). Another way they protested was to march and this was one of their effective protests. It showed the number of people who supported their case (Teacher Serve). African Americans also put names on churches and started carpooling to show that they were not going to stop protesting. Even though these protests sometime landed them in jail; with perseverance they continued to came out to

Show More
Related

  • The Pros And Cons Of The 13th Amendment

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1865 4 million people were freed and let out on their own for the first time ever. They weren’t really sure what to do at this time but they had to find a way because they were now by themselves in a world that didn’t accept them. There were 3 Amendments made to the US Constitution that freed these slaves and put the African Americans in the country in such a bad situation. These Amendments and the actions by the president and his appointed boards were unsuccessful due to the racist laws and resistance against the American Reconstruction. Some of these laws include the Jim Crow Laws and some of these racist people congregated in a group called the Klu Klux Klan.

    Read More

  • Ain't Scared of your Jails

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the first documented incidents of the sit-ins for the civil rights movement was on February 1, 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee. Four college African-Americans sat at a lunch counter and refused to leave. During this time, blacks were not allowed to sit at certain lunch counters that were reserved for white people. These black students sat at a white lunch counter and refused to leave. This sit-in was a direct challenge to southern tradition. Trained in non-violence, the students refused to fight back and later were arrested by Nashville police. The students were drawn to activist Jim Lossen and his workshops of non-violence. The non-violent workshops were training on how to practice non-violent protests. John Lewis, Angela Butler, and Diane Nash led students to the first lunch counter sit-in. Diane Nash said, "We were scared to death because we didn't know what was going to happen." For two weeks there were no incidences with violence. This all changed on February 27, 1960, when white people started to beat the students. Nashville police did nothing to protect the black students. The students remained true to their training in non-violence and refused to fight back. When the police vans arrived, more than eighty demonstrators were arrested and summarily charged for disorderly conduct. The demonstrators knew they would be arrested. So, they planned that as soon as the first wave of demonstrators was arrested, a second wave of demonstrators would take their place. If and when the second wave of demonstrators were arrested and removed, a third would take their place. The students planned for multiple waves of demonstrators.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Bus Boycott

    457 Words  | 1 Pages

    The bus boycott succeed because the black people stood up for what they thought was right, they did not use violence, they did not fight back, they fought smart, and they fought right. See many of the white people abuse the power that they had by making the blacks give up their seats after long days of work, and making them go to the back of the store to purchase food and other items. They treated them different because they didn’t have the same skin tone, but little did they know that on December 1st 1955 everything was about to change; one day on the bus ride home when Rosa Parks decided that she was not going to stand and let a young white man have her seat after a long day at work, she was arrested.

    Read More

  • Nonviolent Resistance In Martin Luther King

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    Times were looking up for African Americans, their new freedom gave them the option to go down a road of either criminal actions or to make something out of themselves. But the presence of racism and hatred was still very much so alive, Klu Klux Klan, although not as strong as they were after the Civil War was still present. Laws like Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” came into play and continued to show how racism was alive. Besides these actors of racism, blacks still started gaining a major roll in American society.

    Read More

  • The Children’s Crusade: Dr Martin Luther King Jr

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    The punishment of the African American race was harsh; when those punishments were mixed with how they protested for civil rights, it only got worse. Not all the time does one stop and realize that some whites felt the need to help out in some way. Whether they could relate or they just truly had sympathy, these whites helped protest. When someone protests, they express their objection to something. Whether it was more a silent protest or an aggressive protest, punishments to both races were given.

    Read More

  • The 1960’s: Decade of Disillusionment

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    African Americans had been struggling to obtain equal rights for scores of decades. During the 1960’s, the civil rights movement intensified and the civil rights leaders entreated President Kennedy to intervene. They knew it would take extreme legislature to get results of any merit. Kennedy was afraid to move forward in the civil rights battle, so a young preacher named Martin Luther King began a campaign of nonviolent marches and sit-ins and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama to try and force a crisis that the President would have to acknowledge. Eventually things became heated and Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor released his men to attack the protesters, which included many schoolchildren. All of this was captured and televised to the horror of the world. Finally this forced the President into action and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities. The bill became bogged down in Congress but civil righ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Pacifism Vs. Armed Resistance In The Civil Rights Movement

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    While non-violent protests were politically correct, many participants often put their lives, families and property in danger. Particularly in the south, the KKK and other white supremacist groups gained a reputation for church bombings, lynching and other violent acts against minorities. Despite pacifist idealism in a public protest, it didn’t mean black were willing to let their homes, churches and loved ones go undefended. Many took it upon themselves to arm and protect their communities through any means necessary, and by acquiring as many weapons they could get their hands on. Many black southerners were prepared to meet violence with

    Read More

  • Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...

    Read More

  • The March on Washington - August 28, 1963

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.

    Read More

  • Black Nationalism

    2403 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout history, African Americans have encountered an overwhelming amount of obstacles for justice and equality. You can see instances of these obstacles especially during the 1800’s where there were various forms of segregation and racism such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan terrorism, Jim- Crow laws, voting restrictions. These negative forces asserted by societal racism were present both pre and post slavery. Although blacks were often seen as being a core foundation for the creation of society and what it is today, they never were given credit for their work although forced. This was due to the various laws and social morals that were sustained for over 100 years throughout the United States. However, what the world didn’t know was that African Americans were a strong ethnic group and these oppressions and suffrage enabled African Americans for greatness. It forced African Americans to constantly have to explore alternative routes of intellectuality, autonomy and other opportunities to achieve the “American Dream” especially after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed after the Civil War.

    Read More

  • Origins of Funk Music

    2188 Words  | 5 Pages

    In a society of a violent system it was hard for young blacks to take charge in an non-violent organization, it seemed to be a hypocrisy. And the idea of tolerance was wearing thin for the whole generation. Later on in the year, around August, the first of many large-scale riots began to break out. The first one was in Los Angeles, California and lasted for a little over three weeks. This single riot killed 39 people during its wrath of burning block after block.

    Read More

  • Civil Rights Now and Then

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of the Brown v. the Board of Education. This was a very historical moment because their ruling eliminated, the "separate but equal " doctrine. Their ruling called for school integration, although most school were very slow in complying if they complied at all. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Color People, viewed this ruling as a success. The schools lack of the obedience toward this ruling, made it necessary for black activism to make the federal government implement the ruling, and possibly help close the racial gap that existed in places other than public schools. During one of the boycotts for equality, a leader emerged that would never be forgotten. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, quickly became the spokesperson for racial equality. He believed that the civil rights movement would have more success if the black people would use non violent tactics. Some say he was adopting the style of Ghandi. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, was formed by King and other activist in 1957. They were a group of black ministers and activist who agreed to try and possibly help others see the effects of a non violent movement. Also following the strategies set by the SCLC, a group known as the SNCC or the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, began a string of sit-in and campaigns as the black population continued it's fight for equality. It was the undying efforts of the two groups that paved the way for the march on Washington. This march which drew a crowd of at least 200,000, was the place that Dr. King, gave his famous "dream speech." Both the SNCC, and the SCLC were victims of lots of threats and attempted attacks, yet they continued to pursue freedom in a non violent fashion. However near the late 60's they had another problem on their hands. There was a group of activist known as the Black Panthers who were not so eager to adopt the non-violent rule. The believed that the civil rights movement pushed by Dr. King and is non-violent campaign, which was meant to give blacks the right to vote and eliminate segregation, was not solving problems faced in poor black communities. This Black Panther group, stabled the term "black power", which was used a sort of uplifting for the black self esteem.

    Read More

  • The Struggle for Freedom Among African American Citizens

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ners they continued to fight. As more and more African American students were admitted into white Southern schools, segregationist continued to retaliate and defend their schools against them. No matter how difficult the situation turned out for some of them, and without much help from the government, African Americans did everything they possibly could to protect their educational rights for the sake of their future and success, and in the hope of promoting equality for all African American people of the United States. These students became the symbol of freedom and opened up the window of opportunity for all black people, for their ancestors, and for the future generations to come.

    Read More

  • Reflection On Years Past And Years To Come

    1048 Words  | 3 Pages

    Moreover, with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, “new racial and ethnic ghettos were forming. These conditions alongside continued Southern segregation."9 After each nonviolent protests and boycotts many black men were being arrested and facing charges. Even though many people felt inspired and participated in protests, by the end of the 1960s, 3600 demonstrators were jailed. With all these happening in the South, the black community needed to become a whole and help their neighbors. As a response to this, “Northern students formed solidarity committees and raised money for bail”.10 In the document, Andrew states that the main challenge was to create a community among themselves and appreciate

    Read More

  • Religion's Role In The Civil Rights Movement

    108 Words  | 1 Pages

    Religion was the most significant element that maintained the movement’s validity in the time of misery, poverty and discrimination. The spiritual growth helped to deal with the maltreatment and hardships that black people confronted every day. It offered them the inner strength that allowed them to survive. The motivation that originated from religious beliefs could be experienced in the freedom songs that were recognized as an indication of the movement. Merging traditional hymns with a promise of freedom encouraged activists to sing them wherever they were able to, during processions, rallies, while serving a sentence so that their need for equal treatment and rights could not be

    Read More

More about African American Perseverance

Open Document