Youth During The Civil RIghts Movement
By: Lilly Smith
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “You're never too young. Change begins with the first steps''. (DEMARCO) Martin was a powerful influence that encouraged youth during this time to step up but also invited them to bring their own ideas and insights. From 1954 to 1968, the United States' Civil Rights Movement was a nonviolent social movement and campaign to end legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and racial exclusion. Through the youths' participation, they not only changed the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement but also the future of the United States. Young people were involved with many events that changed history, which include, Freedom Summer, Little Rock, lunch counter
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It was an organized civil rights campaign with many organizations for example: SNCC, the NAACP, CORE and others. (Lawson 21) Freedom summer drew out more than seven hundred northern white students, all volunteers, who were brought into the states. They were there to help with citizen training workshops and help Black people register to vote. Additionally, they sought to provide Black children with educational advantages that were previously unavailable to them due to Magnolia State segregation. Freedom riders can be commonly mixed up with Freedom Summer, but they are two different events. Freedom riders were created because of Kennedy's slow pace in helping the movement. And were used to desegregate bus stations. Many of the riders were college students just like Freedom Summer who volunteered to learn non-violent tactics for the Civil Rights Movement. Both Freedom Summer and Freedom Riders were nonviolent but segregationists were not nonviolent to them. Especially Freedom Riders, they were put in situations where they were brutally beaten and some were permanently injured by the violent segregationist …show more content…
Youth activism made a lasting effect, they brought energy into the civil rights movement that would not have been there without them participating. It has made a strong impact on today's world, for example without the youth, there would be a high chance of today's schools still being segregated. With their determination to help desegregate schools starting with Little Rock it has changed the way all school systems are today. Activism in general completely changed the views and ideals of many, but incorporating a view from the youth such as these organizations had, ultimately became the driving force for the Civil Rights Movement. Men, women, seniors and the youth, all made separate impacts, all instruments in the orchestration of the movement's successes. But for complete overall success, the Civil Rights Movemtent no doubltedly was produced solely because of the acts of the infamous youth of