Despite slavery being abolished in the 1860s, African Americans still faced segregation and racial injustices by white people. However, African Americans stood tall and in 1955, began the African American Civil Rights Movement. It all began with one courageous woman, Rosa Parks, defying social codes of conduct by refusing to give up her bus seat. Her arrest for refusing to do so sparked a citywide bus boycott, which lasted for 385 days. Blacks in Montgomery, Alabama carpooled and walked, not taking the buses to make a statement about the unfair segregation on them. This boycott also allowed Martin Luther King Jr. to rise up and take control of the movement. The de facto leader of the civil rights movement, MLK Jr. was a fearless leader, a Baptist minister who excelled in the art of rhetoric. Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, in the Deep South, and from an early age was exposed to much racism and injustice. He would go on to lead many other protests, including the March on Birmingham.
MLK wanted to have a peaceful protest and decided to lead a march through the very racially segregated city of Birmingham. Accompanied by thousands, both blacks and whites marched alongside King. MLK was arrested, and police brutality was rampant as the Birmingham March continued. Major national television coverage led to the whole United States seeing police’s beatings and the horror of the situation. This gave African American freedom fighters leverage in Congress, and eventually led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, ended and prohibited discrimination because of race, religion, national origin, and gender. It gave all citizens equal rights, regardless of color. This Act also showed that the Civil Rights Movement was not just for African Americans and that it was for all who had been discriminated against. This was shortly followed by the 24th amendment, which banned poll tax, and allowed all blacks to vote as well as poorer citizens. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was what finally toppled any barriers keeping blacks from voting, eliminating literacy tests which had disqualified many African Americans to vote. Now all blacks had to do was overcome the fear and threats of violence from their white counterparts.
By: Yotam and Jonas
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