She was a rebel. Most of Society pictures Rosa Parks as a simple women who just happened to do the right thing at the right time. The reality that Theoharis places in your mind is much more intriguing as it proves Rosa Parks’ involvement in the movement was enormous for years before her well known stand on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This story tells of her initial involvement in the Civil Rights movement well before the famous bus incident and tells of her many financial and psychological sacrifices she faced along the way. The book shows in depth her battle against the injustice that the Jim Crow laws of the South during the civil rights era brought to her doorstep.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Acts of 1965 guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after a decade of non-violent protests and marches. Throughout the novel, there were many different means of non-violent protests. The black community were taking a different approach to the racism unlike the white people who were very violent and abusive. The black people wanted to be free from the segregation and would do anything to escape it, if they had of fought back matters may have been made worse and their lives would have been made even more unbearable. One of the forms of non-violent protests was Boycotts.
Taylor Vershay Ms. Turner PSCI-101 9 November 2011 Freedom Riders The film “Freedom Riders” on PBS is an inspirational story of the people who suffered in 1960’s during segregation. The Freedom Riders were a large group of nonviolent protestors. These civil right activists rode interstate buses into southern segregated United States to question the Supreme Court’s decisions. They consisted of mostly college students. This was one of the most successful methods that captured the country’s attention and influenced consciousness of the nation that dealt with racial prejudice.
Other African American students also followed in Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s (and her friend Hamp’s) de-segregation of schools like Clemson. Later in June of 1963 Hunter-Gault graduated two months prior to the March on Washington. This march became the largest public demonstration so far in America and is considered the high point in the Civil Rights movement (p. 971, Foner). Afterwards the Civil Rights movement continued to guarantee more equal rights to blacks in America, even though there were set backs to be had in the 1970’s. In the 70’s blacks and women once again suffered as the new right came into power and went along with white’s fears of radicalism and violence.
African Americans were regarded as second-class people and were subject to various demeaning categorization, such as, segregated rest rooms, drinking fountains and being forced to ride only in the back of buses. The injustice was challenged by Rosa Parks, a mild mannered seamstress, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger (Zastrow 403). This triggered a series of events that helped America recognize the injustice of racial segregation. Even though, black civil rights would only be enforced and respected over a decade later in the late 1960s when racial discrimination was banned in public places, polling stations, workplaces and
However, there were limitations of the bus boycott; the campaign lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 20, 1956 when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. Highlighting how long and drawn out many decisions were suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t as important the desegregation of Little Rock; as it took another stand against the segregation of buses by a Montgomery housewife for the Supreme Court to act. Another important event during the Civil Rights Movement was the Brown II decision (1955), which
One of the most notable and great contributors to the Civil Rights Movement was the Freedom Riders. The freedom riders were civil rights activists who ride interstate buses in the segregated south to challenge local laws and or customs that enforced segregation. However, the most notable figure in the liberation of African American racism is Martin Luther King JR. Martin Luther King used nonviolent methods and teachings of Mahatma Ghandi to fight for justice for African Americans. One of his nonviolent actions that had a tremendous effect fighting segregation in the south was the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, of which an African American lady Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and she was arrested. King leads this boycott for 385 days to the point that he got arrested and his house got bombed, but led to Browder vs. Gayle which ended racial segregation in all Montgomery public buses.
The movement began in 1837 with a young teacher named Susan B. Anthony asking for equal pay for female teachers. Over the course of the next 86 years, several factions were formed, the most prominent being the National American Woman Suffrage Association. These brave ladies staged their first peaceful march on New York in May of 1912. In the following years, they marched on Washington twice, with the second resulting in the arrests of several women. It was later ruled that those arrests were unconstitutional, due to the fact that it was a peaceful demonstration.
If not for them, human beings may not all have the same rights and privileges. Rosa Parks born in 1913 in Montgomery, Alabama, she is the woman who started the civil rights movement. In the 1955, black people had to give up their seat on a bus for a white person. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, causing her arrest for civil disobedience. After Park’s arrest, the black community organised a Montgomery bus boycott, the boycott would not end until the city hired black bus drivers and the seats on the bus were by first come.
Sadly, this is the best news the nation heard in days following the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a religious leader and civil rights activist who led the civil right movement in the 1950s. His actions led to the success of legal segregation of African Americans in the south, especially. Dr. King fronted a host of demonstrations to include the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. The objective was to contest segregation on the public bus system. The Civil Rights activists believed there was a need after Rosa Parks, an African American woman decided not to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus, which ultimately led to her arrest.