Civil Rights Movement Essay

658 Words3 Pages

The Civil Rights and Its People

The Civil Rights Movement was a very important part of African American history and America's history. Back then, African Americans were treated unfairly because of their skin. They had different rules and couldn’t work, eat, go to school, and enter certain places because of their skin color. This was called segregation. Segregation is the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart. It is mostly known as racial segregation.

But what exactly is the Civil Rights Movement? What stopped racial segregation? What happened? Well, let's start with what stopped it. Many protests were done over the unfairness. People marched on the street, holding signs with messages on them. People also did actions that changed lives, for example, Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white individual. Back then, if a white person wanted to sit where an African American person was …show more content…

Martin Luther King was an activist. He held many protests. On August 28, 1963, he held his “I have a dream” speech. He motivated many African Americans and a year later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination based on sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. In easier terms, you won’t be able to keep people out of places because of their gender, race, etc. That means African American people can sleep, live, work and eat in places they couldn’t before. But sadly 4 years later on April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated by a man named James Earl Ray. He killed him at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Because of what he did, we celebrate him and what he did every January