Civil Rights Movements In The 1960s

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The 1960s appeared to have it all, as a decade filled with numerous movements, progress, and sadness for the American people. In this time, people were caught between losing faith in the fight in Vietnam and starting to support the fight for equal rights on American soil. College Students stood up against everything such as sending our troops to Vietnam at Kent State all the way to equality and complete desegregation as what took place in Greensboro. Along with those fighting for these rights second wave feminism was kicked off by Betty Friedan’s book the Feminine Mystique outlining women oppression, the first Gay Rights March took place, and the United States sent a man to the moon. With all the great events taking place during the 60s it also marked one of the darkest times in American history, by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. As a nation completely split over so many issues both deaths along with John F. Kennedy’s assassination still fresh on the American’s mind, would push Congress coming together to create action, in the Gun Control Act of 1968. This act prohibited the sale and transfer to those with criminal backgrounds, first establishment of serial numbers to track; it changed legislation, was …show more content…

This group did not take the same stance of nonviolence and many of the incidents would turn into riots, and their battle cry was Black Power. This change in the movement sparked concern among government officials resulting in COINTELPRO broadening out from communism to surveillance of the black panthers and other radical groups, the FBI spread lies in the media, have spies infiltrate the groups, and try to get them destroyed. Then in 1969 the FBI goes as far as to have, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, leaders of the Black Panthers