Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was a mass widespread movement to arise for African Americans fighting for their equal rights. “In federal courts and in cities throughout the South, African Americans struggled to eradicate the system of racial segregation that denied them dignity, opportunity, and equal protection under the law” (Ayers, Gould, Oshinsky, Soderlund, p. 740). Segregation laws being endorsed were recognized as Jim Crow. Affecting the lives of masses of people, Jim Crow, was entitled after a stereotype song during the 19th century. All over America, states were enforcing segregation with laws, such as, in North Carolina, were books were not be interchangeable among the white and colored schools, however, may well be continued to be used by the race first using them; all marriages between whites and Negros are prohibited and declared entirely illegal in states like Missouri, Florida and Maryland; and no nurse should be placed in a room that a negro men is placed in, Alabama. “‘Jim Crow’ laws at the local and state levels barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures” (Civil Rights Movement). During the civil rights movement, various significant events occurred; the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr., and voting rights were three major ones.

Rosa Parks was an African American who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white men. She was bailed out of jail by president, Edgar Nixon, of the NAACP. After hearing about what occurred to Rosa Parks, the black community formed a boycott of Montgomery’s bus system. “Calling themselves the Montgomery Improvement Association, they chose a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the struggle f...

... middle of paper ...

...d so much in addition to risked their lives to make a change to segregation. “What began with such hope and promise soon gave way to deep suspicion and despair, as Americans reeled from one crisis to another” (Ayers, Gould, Oshinsky, Soderlund, p. 793). African American fought hard to put an end to segregation and discrimination. As people and events lost and won, the civil rights act movement made history. “The African American communities of Montgomery helped awaken America to the long-standing injustice of racial segregation, and new leaders emerged with innovative strategies to carry on the fight” (Ayers, Gould, Oshinsky, Soderlund, p. 759). Martin Luther King Jr. had voiced and protested in an expressive manner and made a change. The Voting Rights Act helped end Jim Crow. Without these people and events America may have still been a racial segregated country.