Civil Rights Movement: The Freedom Summer

234 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: American civil rights movement

If viewed at in the context of the entire civil rights movement, the “Freedom Summer” actually had a huge impact. It made the rest of the country really realize what it was still like in a majority of the south and specifically Mississippi. In just four short years of their efforts, they made voting for anyone legal in any state at a Federal level. Thus making it impossible for a state like Mississippi to deny any citizen the right to vote, because the elections were also overseen by the Federal Government. When it came to the people in the “Freedom Movement” at the end they would never be the same. For the young black kids, they never thought that white people could actually be just like them. They were raised still to pick cotton, work, and

Show More
Related

  • Freedom Summer comparisons with Era of Reconstruction

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    Voting is one thing that was still around when Freedom Summer came; and when I say around I mean available. Let me explain… during the Reconstruction era blacks were able to vote. But most of them didn’t due to a number of factors. A couple of these being: poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, etc. And if that weren’t enough you still had the Klan that would destroy any black polling booth and/or shoot, intimidate, and kill any black person trying to vote; especially in Mississippi. In the months leading to Freedom Summer the same thing was going on except the rules had changed. These new rules, to keep the black community from voting, were the same as the old except very vague. In document 2 it details these new requirements to become a registered voter. Some of these requirements included being able to read and write a section of the new Constitution, are able to demonstrate a reasonable understanding of citizenship, make a sworn written application for registration. So as you can see just like in Reconstruction, the voting power shifts back to the white race. Even if every black could read and write, who’s to say what a “reasonable” understanding of citizenship is.

    Read More

  • The Freedom Rides: Malcolm X And The Civil Rights Movement

    422 Words  | 1 Pages

    Black liberation was stalled once again in 1961 and 1962, as white savagery reared its head again and black people were forced to deal with the reality that success was not inevitable, yet. Still more "sit-ins", "shoe- ins" were led to combat segregation in public places which were met with violent responses from some white people. These responses ranged from burning down a bus with black people to assaulting black passengers on a train car in Anniston. These racist white people also targeted other white people who were deemed as sympathizers to black struggle or "nigger lovers". Police refused to arrest the white aggressors and in some cases also refused to protect the black people. The Freedom Rides resulted in both losses and gains in the civil rights movement. People came to the realization that justice will not be won through merely trying to persuade Southern whites with peaceful protest but only "when

    Read More

  • Analysis of Black Reconstruction

    2735 Words  | 6 Pages

    Prior to the Civil War and Reconstruction, the main goal of the African American population was to be granted freedom. African Americans had been enslaved since 1619 in America, when the first slaves were sold on the auction block. However, their concepts of freedom were extremely romanticized and highly unrealistic as a direct result of the atrocities they witnessed and endured in the institution of slavery. They visualized the abolition of slavery to be comparable with the coming of Jesus Christ. Yet when politics made that day become reality on January 1, 1863, the newly freed men and women were utterly disappointed and in disarray. After living their lives under the institution of slavery, the former slaves were literally left to survive on their own without the proper tools such as opportunities, provisions, or education. This race of people, for whom it was illegal to learn to read or write and even to congregate in groups of three or more, was now released into the same society that had enslaved them, and which was now supposed to open its arms and accept them as equals. Along with this freedom came a sudden change in identity, a clinging to faith, and a supposed new placement within society.

    Read More

  • Primary Sources Of Reconstruction Essay

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...om they were still put through events and had to experience many difficulties to get to where they are today. Freedom and rights was not given to them as easily as it was for rights, it took a lot of fighting and hard work to receive what they deserved. The Southern whites put up a fight to keep slavery going and even once they lost that they continued to fight to take the rights away from African Americans. Soon the Ku Klux Klan came to be and that even made it harder for African Americans to stay alive and live a normal happy life. Through it all though they never gave up on fighting to one day be equal and to live a life where they would not have to live every hour in fear. Eventually they received just that and are now seen as equal among every race in the United States, so every fight, death, and pain they had to endure all ended up being worth it in the end.

    Read More

  • Slavery By Another Name Essay

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the period after the emancipation many African Americans are hoping for a better future with no one as their master but themselves, however, according to the documentary their dream is still crushed since even after liberation, as a result of the bad laws from the federal government their lives were filled with forced labor, torture and brutality, poverty and poor living conditions. All this is shown in film. First, after emancipation, federal laws revived slavery into new form. After slaves were freed during post- civil war, the whites especially those in the south faced problems in running their plantations; since there was no free labor force from slaves, and also some whites who had never owned slaves saw the African Americans as undesirable competition. I think the laws enforcements eventually became the method through which slavery of blacks take its new form.

    Read More

  • The Mississippi Burning Case And Trial

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mississippi Summer Project also known as the Freedom Summer, took place in the summer of 1964. It was organized with the help of the NAACP, SNCC, CORE and Robert Moses. The purpose of the Freedom Summer was to increase African American voting registration in the state of Mississippi. One of their main goals was to organize the Freedom Democratic Party. They hoped to challenge the white-only Mississippi Democratic Party, and set up Freedom Schools, with the intent to open community centers to African Americans seeking medical and legal assistance.

    Read More

  • The American Civil War

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although there were a lot of good outcomes that made the nation what we are, there were also bad ones. Following the Civil War and the slaves being freed, African Americans struggled immensely in order to get rights and not to get discriminated.

    Read More

  • Racial Caste System: An Unending Struggle for Equality

    787 Words  | 2 Pages

    when the president had declared the free slavery, but not every single black was free from their master. That what President Lincoln try to do, but nothing happens. the only thing happened was war and so many people die. Alexander tells us about the civil war, she said “ civil war had to be won first, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and then - only then we 're slaves across the South set free.” why they had to fight to get freedom When “ The contitvtiral amendments guaranteeing African American will have “equal protection of law” and have right to vote.” Did black people really got equal protection from law as white? Not at all black become less power and in the camps that was like worse than where they use to be

    Read More

  • The Selma-Montgomery March

    2478 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Civil Rights Movement began in order to bring equal rights and equal voting rights to black citizens of the US. This was accomplished through persistent demonstrations, one of these being the Selma-Montgomery March. This march, lead by Martin Luther King Jr., targeted at the disenfranchisement of negroes in Alabama due to the literacy tests. Tension from the governor and state troopers of Alabama led the state, and the whole nation, to be caught in the violent chaos caused by protests and riots by marchers. However, this did not prevent the March from Selma to Montgomery to accomplish its goals abolishing the literacy tests and allowing black citizens the right to vote.

    Read More

  • Civil Rights Movement: The Selma March

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    On March 7 1965 policemen attacked 525 civil right demonstrators that took part in the march between Selma and Montgomery Alabama. The march was to let black people vote. The police used tear gas and charged on horseback into the crowds, there were more than 50 demonstrators injured. The day of the protest was named “Bloody Sunday”, and it was all over America broadcasted on national TV and in newspapers and Americans were very mad at how the authorities handled it. Even though people were hurt in bloody Sunday, 8 days after bloody Sunday President Lyndon B. Johnson presented a bill to congress that would turn into the black Voting Rights act of 1965. ("The New York times")

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement: Freedom Rides

    1216 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans sought to have their Constitutional Rights permitted. One form of protesting came forth in the form of the Freedom Rides. After slavery ended, many amendments and laws were created to ensure the rights of African Americans, but because of prejudices and racism, most of these were ignored. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Fergunson established "separate but equal" on interstate transportation in 1896, but in 1947 the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. And although segregation was outlawed, Jim Crow laws still ruled the Deep South and “codified in law, sanctioned by the courts, and enforced by the ubiquitous threat of physical violence even more than legal reprisal" (Catsam 87). The Jim Crow laws drastically affected the public transportation systems of the South. The Congress of Racial Equality challenged the unfair laws with Freedom Rides, which "arose out of the need to end segregation at lunch counters, in bus terminals, as well as in other facilities essential to the intercity traveler" (Olds 17-18). The first freedom ride commenced in Washington, DC, in 1961.Because the first Freedom Riders were from the North, they didn't realize how harsh the racist South was and “violence in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama, would prove to be too much for the first group of freedom riders, who ended up flying from Birmingham to New Orleans. . ." (Catsam 94). However the movement didn't stop there because ". . .students from the Nashville Movement, led by Diane Nash, realized that to allow violence to stop the Rides would send a message that would do incalculable harm to the movement" and the progression of the African American race (94). The students choose to continue t...

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    Historically, the Civil Rights Movement was a time during the 1950’s and 60’s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. Looking back on all the events, and dynamic figures it produced, this description is very vague. In order to fully understand the Civil Rights Movement, you have to go back to its origin. Most people believe that Rosa Parks began the whole civil rights movement. She did in fact propel the Civil Rights Movement to unprecedented heights but, its origin began in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was the cornerstone for change in American History as a whole. Even before our nation birthed the controversial ruling on May 17, 1954 that stated separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, there was Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 that argued by declaring that state laws establish separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. Some may argue that Plessy vs. Ferguson is in fact backdrop for the Civil Rights Movement, but I disagree. Plessy vs. Ferguson was ahead of it’s time so to speak. “Separate but equal” thinking remained the body of teachings in America until it was later reputed by Brown vs. Board of Education. In 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and prompted The Montgomery Bus Boycott led by one of the most pivotal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. After the gruesome death of Emmett Till in 1955 in which the main suspects were acquitted of beating, shooting, and throwing the fourteen year old African American boy in the Tallahatchie River, for “whistling at a white woman”, this country was well overdo for change.

    Read More

  • The Situation of Black Americans Today

    1303 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history people of color have been deprived of many rights such as voting, work, and education. They have been forced to go to segregated schools, and not allowed to go to universities. They have even been denied of their basic freedom, something everyone deserves. A large percentage of black Americans lived in poverty and were enslaved in the past. A slaves past, present, and future was determined by someone else. Many years have past since then and today the situation is not very different. Although today there is less resentment of black Americans and more opportunities for them, they still fight for social justice. We may see some changes, and some black Americans may be happy with what they have, some are still fighting to win the war.

    Read More

  • The Struggle for Freedom Among African American Citizens

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s. During the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place, it was the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools....

    Read More

  • Essay On Civil Rights Movement

    2889 Words  | 6 Pages

    However, these African American citizens had remarkable courage to never stop, until these un-just laws were changed and they received what they had been fighting for all along, their inalienable rights as human beings and to be equal to all other human beings. Up until this very day there are still racial issues where some people feel supreme over other people due to race. That, however, is an issue that may never end. African Americans fought until the Jim Crow laws were taken out of effect, and they received equality for all people regardless of race. Along the way, there were many controversial court cases and important leaders who helped to take a stand against racial segregation.

    Read More

More about Civil Rights Movement: The Freedom Summer

Open Document