EOTO: The Civil Rights Movement
- Taylor Gray
- Jul 16, 2019
- 2 min read
The Civil Rights Movement was a fight for social justice that took place in the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. Even though the Civil War had abolished slavery and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment were passed granting African Americans citizenship and allowing men the right to vote, they continued to endure the effects of racism. African Americans had more than enough of the prejudice and racism that they had been targets of for decades and decided to protest and fight back against it.
One instance of protesting is the Montgomery Bus Boycott that involved Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white man and being arrested because of it. After Parks protested segregation on buses, while she was in jail hundreds of African Americans decided to protest the public bus systems all together. This sparked sit-ins and protests of thousands of people across the state of Alabama and begin to stem into other neighboring states as well.
The biggest protest and demonstration of the Civil Rights Movement occurred in 1963 when 250,000 people gathered in Washington D.C. and aimed to draw attention to the ongoing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans. A. Philip Randolph begin to plan this march months before it actually happened because John F. Kennedy was hesitant and worried that the protest would become violent so the protest was cancelled. After this occurred violent riots ensued in Selma, Alabama when thousands of angry African Americans protested the treatment they were exposed to. Eventually John F. Kennedy gave the go ahead for the March on Washington that combined Randolph's agenda to fight for better employment but also Martin Luther King Jr.'s motivation advocating for the fair and equal treatment of African Americans.
This movement was an empowering time for African Americans and yet there was backlash along the way, they continued to fight for equality in all aspects of society and the law and put an end to segregation, black voter suppression, and discriminatory housing and employment practices.
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