Civil Rights Movement Tactics

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Assess the effectiveness of the different tactics used by the various wings of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Life for the majority of the African-Americans living in the Old South, involved poor living and working conditions. They also faced the daily problem of legal segregation, as well as the possibility of violent retaliation from the white community if they challenged the status quo. The Jim Crow laws placed African-Americans in a position of inferiority and created a segregated society. The period between 1945 to 1968 represents the most significant years in the movement for African-American civil and political rights. Tired of being mistreated, thousands of African-Americans took it upon themselves…show more content…
The aim of which was to shame the federal government into action which would safeguard African-American rights. All CORE, the Congress for Racial Equality, planned to do was to find out if the law against segregation on inter-state bus travel really existed in the South. In Alabama, the Greyhound bus was fire-bombed and other freedom riders were attacked by a mob in Mississippi. Media coverage of these events had the desired effect. It forced the Inter-state Commerce Commission and Justice Department, to enforce segregation on inter-state transportation. Although professing non-violence, the students of SNCC and CORE forced Southern whites into violent retaliation by their actions. They had actively encouraged violent white resistance to highlight their case to American and world public opinion. In doing so, they forced the Kennedy Administration to…show more content…
More radical voices than Martin Luther King started to appear, like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. Malcolm X, presented a completely different vision of the position of the African-American in US Society from that of Martin Luther King. While Martin Luther King was optimistic and tolerant, looking forward to an integrated society, Malcolm X was intolerant, threatening and a supporter of black revolution. Malcolm X is less important for what he personally achieved than for his influence on other black radicals. The idea of Black Power appeared and a more radical approach to civil rights was adopted. The most extreme manifestation of Black Power was the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence. The Black Panthers demands included reparations to the black community for discrimination faced by African Americans since their arrival as slaves. They also wanted Blacks to be exempt from military service. Wearing distinctive black berets, black leather jackets and black gloves, the Panthers represented the most extreme phase of the civil rights movement. The high point in the publicity for Black Power came with the Mexico Olympics in 1968. At the 200 metres men’s final award ceremony, African Americans Tommy Smith and John Carlos made the Black Power salute with black leather gloves. After the demonstration, neither athlete represented the USA again. By 1970
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