Civil Rights and Legislation in Mississippi

The civil rights movement spurred the passing of much federal legislation throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. Although, race relations eventually changed in Mississippi due to federal force, civil rights legislation would pass but segregation continued in Mississippi because of unsupportive state government, lack of federal enforcement and white Mississippians continuous threats and intimidation.

The civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s was a monumental event in American history. The large amount of legislation passed in accordance with this movement was greatly outnumbered by the many horrendously, violent acts that occurred throughout it. Judicial decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 should have been able to inspire hope within black communities. Yet the brutality of events such as the murder of Emmett Till and Medgar Evens, as well as staunch, white resistance like the Southern Manifesto, kept many African Americans desire for freedom repressed by their desire for safety. The civil rights movement was opposed with some of the most unrelenting resistance in the state of Mississippi. Organizations tackling integration in Mississippi were met with unyielding violence and discrimination, by both citizens and local officials. “…going into Mississippi to organize was not like going to any other state in the South. Mississippi was the heart and soul of segregation. It resisted integration more fiercely than any of the other southern states.”

Legislation passed and judicial decisions continued to be made in favor of civil rights but the federal government failed to enforce these successfully. As early as 1947 the President’s Commission on Civil Rights declared, “The very fact that these outrages [lynching] c...

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...ce equal rights eventually became the standard in Mississippi and throughout the South.

Works Cited

1. R. Edward Nordhaus, “S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, 1963-64: A Time of Change,” The History Teacher, Vol. 17, No. 1 (November 1983), 95.

2. Eric Foner, "The United States and the Cold War, 1945 – 1953," in Voices of freedom: a documentary history. Third ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 232.

3. Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, (New York: Random House, 1968), 413.

4. Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, 403.

5. Nordhaus, “S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi,” 96

6. Eric Foner, "An Affluent Society, 1953 - 1960," in Voices of freedom: a documentary history. Third ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 253.

7. Nordhaus, “S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi,” 97