The Civil Rights Movement In The 1950's And 1960s

“The volunteers merely dropped in for a summer, then went home to question America” (Watson.14) is what started it all. The Civil Rights Movement happened in the 1950’s and 1960’s. A volunteer campaign, Freedom Summer, occurred in the summer of 1964. This movement was influenced by the Jim Crow Era. It was started to attempt to secure legal rights for African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement had been occurring for nearly two decades when this campaign was put forth, but not many blacks in the south were registered to vote. This influenced the arrival of whites from the North to help, bringing upon much conflict in

Mississippi, but ending in a successful campaign. By 1964, the civil rights movement was in full swing. The movement had scored numerous victories by mass marches, boycotts, and sit-ins. In the state

The Ku Klux Klan, police, local authorities, and White citizens carried out many violent attacks against the activists. These included arson, beatings, false arrest and even several murders (History.com). If you were an African American that had a job, and your boss found out that you had tried to register, you would immediately be fired. This caused a lot of African Americans to be scared and not even try, as they would risk losing their job that they needed to support their families. Not only that, if they had a loan form the bank out in their name, the loan would be cut. As well as the name of the individuals were published in the local newspaper. What this accomplished was that everyone in the town, all the whites, would know what you had done. As if that isn't harsh, it was almost impossible to actually register. When you went to register, you had to take a literacy test. These tests were made to be impossible, which was very cruel to the African Americans. The harassment and reprisals against them began to be widely covered in the national media once this campaign took