Civil Rights Movement In The 1950's And 1960s

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The Civil Rights Movement was a movement that opened the door for African Americans to have the same essential privileges and rights as all other United States citizens. As Hewitt and Lawson note, “blacks faced much greater obstacles than did whites in obtaining these dreams, particularly in the South, where African Americans attended separate and unequal schools, faced discrimination if not outright exclusion from public accommodations, were not permitted to vote, and encountered vigilante violence.” This movement hit a high in the 1950’s and 1960’s, however it had been around since the 19th century. This was a popular movement led by both white and African American men and women and was both on the national and regional levels. The civil …show more content…

The civil rights activists first took on the case of breaking down school segregation by bringing the matter to the courts. In 1951, the civil rights activists took the case to court to override Plessy v. Ferguson a 1896 case that upheld segregation in public places if it was “separate but equal,” the civil rights activists were successful the Supreme Court in 1956 ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated schools to be “inherently unequal.” This ruling opened the door for civil rights activists who then continued their fight for rights with transportation. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her bus seat to a white man. This sparked the very successful Montgomery bus boycott that led to the de-segregation of public facilities. The civil activists did not stop there moving on to housing and jobs. On August 28,1963 the civil rights activists conducted a March on Washington that advocated that they want fair and equal wages compared to the whites and not to be judged when they do their housing. Lastly, the civil rights activists fought for their voting rights. Making sure every African American can vote even if they wanted too They even had Freedom Riders volunteers go to the South to register people to