Civil Rights
Essay: Trace the development of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Explain why it became more radical and violent in the 1960s. What changes occurred in the motives, assumptions, and leadership of the movement? The Civil Rights movement has been a debate that has plagued America since the its conception with slaves first appearing to the New World in 1619. The debate over the rights of slaves became even more explosive in the 1850s with the Civil War when America fought over the freedom of these slaves, and the eventually the slaves gained their constitutional guarantee to be free through the Thirteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment gave the Federal Government the right to protect the individual against the state which was supposed to help pave way for Civil Rights. Despite these massive changes in their lives, the slaves were not truly free. They now had to free themselves from the chains of segregation and oppression. Everywhere they would travel, they would be discriminated purely on the color of their skin. The Civil Rights movement gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s as blacks thirsted for equal rights and became more violent in the 1960s with such leaders as Malcolm X.
However, the protest showed that despite the Supreme Court ruling, the interstate travel was still segregated. On December 11, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus because she was tired and did not want to move. CORE, meanwhile, went out to help desegregate the nation's interstate highway system. Meredith sued and the Supreme Court agreed on behalf of Meredith and said that the University of Mississippi must allow Meredith to attend their college. Virginia passed in 1956 the "massive resistance. Kennedy's administration prior to the Civil Rights Act was purely reactionary as they never acted as a catalyst for change. " This action in Selma led Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Bill. The leader of the boycott was a young pastor known as Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1962, James Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi after which he was not allowed to attend because he was black. The Interstate Commerce Commission followed up in November 1961 by banning segregation on interstate travel. King preached non-violent resistance. King began on a new crusade in the north that would combat social racism instead of institutional racism. Johnson had to push the proposal through Congress as Kennedy was assassinated before the Act was passed. Faubus blatantly defied the Supreme Court and ignored the Brown decision. Gandhi and King were both inspired by Transcendentalist thinker Henry David Thoreau's On Civil Disobedience.
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