American Civil Rights
American Civil Rights
In the South, and in a number of different parts of nearby bordering states, African Americans were banned from associating with whites in many different institutions and public accommodations. Schools, hospitals, nursing homes, bathrooms, restaurants, swimming pools, movie theatres and many other public places were all segregated. Many recreational places posted signs that said things like, “Negros and Dogs Not Allowed.” Due to the immense amount of discrimination and segregation, blacks were not given the same rights as whites were. Southern blacks were deprived of certain things like decent jobs and schools. African Americans were also denied the ability to vote. There came a time where many blacks were fed up and ready for a change. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led The American Civil Rights Movement which was a mass protest against racial segregation and discrimination in the southern United States. The Civil Rights Movement came to prominence during the 1950s and ended around 1968. The civil rights movement helped African American people by giving them the rights to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law. One thing that came out of The Civil Rights Movement was boycotting. Boycotting helped the civil rights movement in more ways than people realize. Boycotting is defined as “withdraw from commercial or social relations (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest. The Civil Rights Movement was a nonviolent protest where African Americans chose to protest while remaining nonviolent. Many events emerged from this but there are three that were amongst the most important. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Greensboro Sit In, and the March on Washington were a few of the main events through the whole Civil Rights Movement that helped integrate African Americans today. In the essay titled “The Civil Rights Movement” all of this information is put on a pedestal and I cannot agree with it more.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was an event in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama to protest segregated seating. The protest lasted from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956. It is known as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation. Roughly four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined. Even though the majority of the protests were centered on the actions of the black ministers, the most crucial positions were played by women, leading to the success of the boycott. Women like Johnnie Carr and Irene West sustained MIA committees and volunteer networks. The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery began on the day of Parks’ court hearing and lasted 381 days. As the time passed more and more African American people stopped riding the buses, and stopped giving their seat to white people. It was the first official time that black people took a stand as a whole to get something accomplished. Soon after the trail of Rosa Parks was over, The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. African American people made their first mark on the path of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Greensboro Sit In occurred February 1, 1960. On February 1, 1960, at 4:30pm four black students, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond, from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth store at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. The men bought toothpaste and other household products from a desegregated counter at the store with no problems, and then were refused service from the segregated lunch counter, at the same store. Following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the black men at the "Whites Only" counter and store manager Clarence Harris asked them to leave. The store served every race but the lunch counter was for whites only. The students refused to leave and they remained seated at the lunch counter until the store closed. The next day, more than twenty black students had been recruited from other campus groups came to the store to join the sit-in. Students from Bennett College, a college for black women in Greensboro, joined the protest. White customers tried to shake the black students, who read books and studied to keep busy. The lunch counter staff continued to refuse service. One Black lady, a dishwasher, behind the counter was heard to shout at them that they were "stupid, ignorant…….rabble-rousers, troublemakers." In the end, the African Americans prevailed. The sit-ins ended with the Woolworth department store chain reversing their policy of racial segregation.