The Civil Rights Movement was a social movement aimed at securing equal rights for African Americans in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement was fought in courtrooms for equality under the law, and simultaneously on the streets for equal treatment in society.
The breakthrough U.S. Supreme Court case that ignited the Civil Rights Movement was Brown V. Board of Education, in 1954. This ruling overturned an 1869 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that allowed for “separate but equal” public facilities based on the color of one’s skin.
As African American rights were secured under federal law, massive resistance ensued, particularly in the South, where Jim Crow laws institutionalized racism and kept African Americans marginalized in society. In the wake of the Brown decision, African Americans were met with widespread scare tactics, brutal violence, and increased terror activity by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1955, a 14-year-old Mississippi boy named Emmett Till was brutally murdered for speaking to a white woman. This murder spawned widespread outrage among the black community. African Americans throughout the country organized to fight for racial equality and social justice.
In Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus, which was mandated under segregation laws. Her actions led to a 13 months of bus boycotts in the city, organized by the then president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr.
The movement continued to swell and civil rights activists became organized under student groups such as SCLC and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. These early years of the Civil Rights Movement were steeped in nonviolent resistance. The nonviolent tactics utilized in the movement included sit-ins in segregated lunch counters, freedom rides, and protest marches. Nonviolent protesters were met with police dogs, high power fire hoses, and other violent responses by citizens and local government officials.
The movement eventually divided between those who continued to promote and believe in the nonviolent resistance methods, and those who felt frustrated by the continued resistance to equal rights. The Black Power movement gained popularity, focused on creating community self-sufficiency and sustainability within the black community. Leaders who did not promote nonviolence such as Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael emerged.
The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert, Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. shook the country and the black community. While the Civil Rights Movement ultimately led to increased equality under the law, the promise of eradicating institutionalized racism and creating equal opportunity was not fully realized.
The 1950s was a key decade for bringing decades-long grievances by African Americans to the general public's awareness. There are several reasons. First, the cold war between the two "super powers" (Soviet Union and United States) heated up. Hoping to win the "hearts and minds" of the so-called "third world" countries/continents (Africa, Asia, Latin America), this global cold war ensured that bad media publicity to countries persisting in civil rights violations would help "lose" important allies; in essence, American leaders were afraid of being shamed by uncivil actions of its citizens towards minorities in the eyes of the world.
Second, the post-WWII economic boom helped foster rising expectations about the standard of living in the United States by all citizens---black and white. While the civil rights movement had origins before the 1950s, the importance of new federal highways, booming economies, and increasing tv coverage led to charismatic media figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X; citizens could now watch civil rights violations in real time in distant states. These violations included: segregated schools, diners, buses, and other public infrastructures. In addition, voting restrictions were targeted by activists to collectively ensure that the earlier, Reconstruction-era Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) were finally enforced within the southern states.
The impact was significant. From 1955 (Alabama Bus Boycott) through 1965 (passage of the Voting Rights Act), public segregation was systematically dismantled. These laws/acts changed the public sphere mainly in the South, but later activists would target northern discriminatory policies, such as de facto housing and school segregation. Major groups included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, 1960) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, 1957).
The civil rights movement of the mid-20th century was, in essence, demanding the fulfillment of promises made during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Emancipation Proclamation set in motion the abolition of slavery, which was completed with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. The end of slavery, however, did not equate to equal rights for African Americans. During Reconstruction, two more amendments were passed in an effort to extend equal civil rights to black Americans. The 14th Amendment prohibited states from treating people differently under the law. The 15th Amendment granted African Americans the right to vote. Despite these constitutional and legal gains, however, African Americans remained second-class citizens.
Southern states passed a series of so-called "Jim Crow" laws, which segregated whites and blacks. These laws were upheld in the Supreme Court Case, Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896. While the ruling famously upheld segregation on the basis that "separate but equal" does not violate the 14th Amendment, the reality was that blacks were not treated equally. In addition, many states used loopholes such as poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting.
In the 1950s, a significant number of Americans began demanding equal treatment and an end to segregation. They employed numerous strategies to bring attention to their cause and achieve their goals.
They utilized the legal system. Organizations such as the NAACP initiated court cases intended to challenge segregation. The most famous of these were the ones focused on school segregation, culminating in the Brown v. Board decision in 1954, which ruled that segregation in schools was inherently unconstitutional. This ruling not only set in motion the integration of schools, but it also set legal precedent for arguing that any form of segregation in the public sphere violated the 14th Amendment.
Individual communities and organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), utilized mass nonviolent protest and acts of civil disobedience. The primary one of these was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 in which the local community boycotted the city's buses for over a year in reaction to Rosa Parks's arrest and in an effort to end the city's segregated bus policies. This boycott marked the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a leader in the civil rights movement. It also gained national attention.
By the end of the 1950s, the civil rights movement had grown more powerful due to the rise of leaders such as Dr. King, the creation of organizations such as the SCLC, the growing attention it received from events such as the integration of Central High School in Little Rock and the Montgomery Boycott. The multi-pronged approach of national organization, legal challenges, and mass, nonviolent protest would continue into the 1960s.
The civil rights movement spearheaded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. campaigned for equal rights for black people. A chief goal was to achieve these rights in a short period of time, because, as King noted, black people had been waiting a century for equality and felt the time was now.
Beyond the generalized goal of achieving equality with white people, the movement had targeted goals, such as the ability to vote in the south without the restrictions put in place that prevented black people from exercising their voting rights. Another goal was the integration of public places, such as restaurants, lunch counters, buses, restrooms, and pools.
The chief strategy used was nonviolent disobedience. King placed emphasis on peaceful protest and had his protesters trained in Mahatma Gandhi's techniques of nonviolent resistance. For example, before the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, volunteers role-played so that they would be prepared not to respond violently to ridicule, insults, having drinks or catsup poured over their heads, being spat on, and even being hit, punched, kicked, or suffering other forms of attack.
Garnering publicity was also an important part of King's strategy. He wanted the public at large, especially white people, to know what black people were trying to achieve. He also wrote persuasively to encourage white people not to sit on the sidelines but to actively and vocally support the movement.
King's strategies were successful. Public sympathy for the civil rights movement grew, and by the 1960s it had achieved most of its preliminary goals in terms of legal reforms to protect voting rights and end segregation. Unfortunately, however, the changing of hearts has remained a more elusive problem.
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