Segregation and the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is perhaps that most well known of the federal civil rights acts. However, it is only one of eight total acts of its kind. The first civil rights act was passed in...

The Civil Rights Movement succeeded in ending segregation. Brown v. Board of Education ended segregation in schools and set a precedent for making segregation illegal. This opened up public...

It should come as no surprise that the fight for racial equality in the United States led to a number of other movements for reform by various minority groups. This Civil Rights movement showed the...

There were two major differences between these two philosophies. First, the Black Panthers did not believe in integration like Dr. King did. The Black Panthers were black nationalists. They...

The meaning of the quote "We must accept finite disappointment but must never lose infinite hope" by American civil-rights activist and minister Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is saying that, as the...

Racial segregation existed throughout the United States, North, and South. As one historian of segregation has written, "no reflective historian any longer believes" that Northern states were...

There are many theories that discuss the assassination of Dr. King. Some theories suggest that James Earl Ray killed Dr. King to gain a name for himself. He was a high school drop out and petty...

The road to the 1950s and 60s civil rights struggle was a long one. After African Americans began to lose rights in the latter nineteenth century, they turned to accommodation, a policy...

Rosa Parks illustrated very well the idea of 'passive resistance' or non-violent protest. One very famous proponent of this techn ique was of course Gandhi in India. He attempted to find a way of...

First, we should recognize that the NAACP was much older than the other two organizations. It was founded in the first decade of the twentieth century, whereas the SCLC and SNCC were founded in the...

In this question, you are referring to the Supreme Court case of Plessy v Ferguson, which was decided in 1896. In that case, the Court had to decide whether a Louisiana law that required whites...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the preeminent civil rights organization in the United States up through the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954....

Martin Luther King Jr. was not a president. He was a civil rights leader who led marches for freedom, was imprisoned for his beliefs, spoke to the heart of the people, and inspired millions. Martin...

This question has no one right answer, but one of the many reasons that the Civil Rights movement was effective is that Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers practiced non-violence. Even when...

There were many ways Southern white people attempted to limit the freedom of African Americans after their emancipation. In addition to the laws that have been mentioned in other answers, there...

One of the problems with a system of legal constitutionalism is that the courts have no means to enforce their rulings. In the case of Boynton v. Virginia (1960), the Supreme Court declared...

The Australian Freedom Ride was directly inspired by the American civil rights movement. Just as Dr. Martin Luther King and his supporters challenged racial hatred and prejudice in the United...

There were several factors leading to civil unrest in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. One of these factors was tied to discrimination and segregation in the South. Throughout the South,...

Because the previous educator did such an outstanding job in outlining the first part of your question, I'll focus on the second part and more specifically address how the North both met the...

Martin Luther King didn't want blacks to wait anymore for what he called, in his "I Have a Dream" speech, payment on the promissory note whites had long ago given blacks that they would one day...

After a long struggle, the Civil Rights movement accomplished many of its goals. By the end of the 1960s made many positive changes had been made by the movement. With the Brown v Board of...

Short Answer: The Freedom Rides have great significance to the Civil Rights Movement in the following ways: they provided a real-life example that inspired many to take immediate action for more...

The American civil rights movement was necessary due to the second-class citizen status that African Americans held. Following the American Civil War, and the passing of the Thirteenth and...

The Red Power movement came to the forefront in the late 1960s. As its name indicates, it sought justice for Native Americans (often characterized as "redskins") and took its cue from black civil...

Militant nonviolence means making the passive act of being nonviolent into an assertive action. While not a goal of the civil rights movement, this was a method championed by Martin Luther King,...

Several issues arise when trying to compare the leadership styles of these men. One is that they operated in their own unique contexts. The other is that many of them—DuBois in particular—changed...

I think that Dr. King's ethical frame of reference is rooted in the idea that he would not allow someone else to control how he was to act. In its most basic definition, violence as a response is...

There were several stages and aspects of the Civil Rights Movement that all eventually led into the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1940s/early 1950s the first major...

Religion was crucially important to the civil rights movement. The movement was led by Christian pastor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a religious...

The nonviolent protests of the 1950s and the 1960s were very successful for several reasons. For example, the Montgomery Bus Boycott showed that African-Americans were very determined to achieve...

While no time in American history can fairly be called all “progressive” or all “conservative,” it is appropriate to say that, on balance, the 1960s were a progressive era. This was a time of...

The 1960s was the height of the modern civil rights movement. Much of this movement was focused on ending segregation and the unequal treatment of African Americans. For about a century, much of...

Many factors, both great and small, contributed to the success of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Small but significant factors include the decision of popular entertainers to advocate for...

In short, Rosa Parks shows the power of one person to ignite needed social change. When Parks originally refused to give up her seat, she said that she was simply tired of giving in. She knew that...

Both the Progressive Movement and the Civil Rights movement aimed to use the government as a means of improving society, specifically the lives of those who were disadvantaged. Although the methods...

As Martin Luther King Jr. observed the sufferings imposed on Black people by racism, he realized he faced several challenges that hemmed Black people in as they struggled to try to change their...

Both giants of the Civil Rights Movement understood that their causes had to be rooted in religious doctrine not only to persuade their following, but to increase its persuasion to others as well...

W. E .B. Du Bois (1868–1963) and Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) were both key leaders of black Americans who sought redress of the numerous injustices they faced during this period. The two men...

In Oslo, on December 10, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and likened his struggle in the civil rights movement to a road he is traveling. In his speech he says, The...

The Civil Rights movement began in earnest in the 1950s, although there were actions that occurred prior to that time that focused on civil rights. As early as the late 1890s and early 1900s,...

After the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, the former Confederate states were quick to institute what was known as the Black Codes. These were laws that were made with the...

Martin Luther King, Jr. used compromise to bring about change in the civil rights movement. One example of this can be seen concerning the debate surrounding the Voting Rights Act. African...

The word "zeitgeist" is from the German and means "spirit of the times." It is the feeling people have about their culture or society. In the United States in the 1960s, this zeitgeist changed...

Regrettably, the Jim Crow Laws do still have an impact today. Although the substantive laws themselves have long since been repealed, their animating spirit still plays a depressingly prominent...

Malcolm X is often associated with violence. However, that view is not entirely accurate. Malcolm X certainly had a more aggressive view regarding African-American civil rights than Martin Luther...

Both the March on Washington and the Birmingham campaign of 1963 were mass demonstrations for civil rights. They were both intended to gain national attention for the cause, and they were both...