Civil Rights Movement Versus Womens Rights Movemen Essay

Civil Rights and Women’s Rights Movements

The Civil Rights and Liberal Feminist Women’s Rights movements of the mid 20th century each attempted to achieve equal opportunity for their particular groups.   The movements both utilized very similar methods, for the most part extremely effectively, in an effort to meet their objectives.   The decision to employ these different strategies was carefully calculated based off of their location, the type of opportunity sought, and the historical context of the given time period.   However, as a whole the methods of Civil Right’s movement were more effective in creating equal opportunity in the United States for African Americans.
The mainstream Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s utilized several different methods to achieve their goal of equal rights.   At the conclusion of the Second World War, the Civil Rights movement “proceeded on two tracks: on the ground, where blacks began to stand up for their rights, and in the courts and corridors of power, where words sometimes mattered more than action” (H., 817).   Beginning on the frontlines, nonviolent protest became a crucial means for creating equal rights and opportunity for African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr., who believed strongly in the peaceful methods used by Mahatma Gandhi, became the leader for this nonviolent movement.   The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) became the major organization for organizing and instructing in the methods of nonviolent protest (H., 818).   The Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 was the Civil Rights Movement’s first attempt at nonviolent protest.   This lasted for the 381 days, and ended when the city of Montgomery was forced to comply with the 1956 Supreme Court ruling that made bus segregation unconstitutional (H., 818).   Nonviolent protest also included “Freedom Rides” that took place on interstate bus lines during 1961 as a means to “call attention to blatant violations of recent Supreme Court rulings against...