Do you agree that Martin Luther King was the most important factor in helping Blacks gain more civil rights in the 1960s?

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Do you agree that Martin Luther King was the most important factor in helping Blacks gain more civil rights in the 1960’s?

After the American Civil war, 1861-1865, there were still problems for Black Americans even though slavery had been abolished. Black Americans in the south were especially affected as this was where many of the slaves had worked. After being freed most stayed, leading to hatred and non-acceptance when Blacks were officially granted equal rights to whites. The southern states were not happy about this and decided to invent a set of laws in the 1890s called ‘Jim crow laws’ that prevented Blacks from having these rights. The Supreme Court ruled that the term ‘separate but equal’ was fair. From 1896, Blacks in the southern states had separate facilities like different wash basins, public toilets and waiting areas. This was justified by claiming that each group had the same facilities, yet this was not always the case. The segregation extended to public transport, juries, neighbourhoods, government, police, law, press courtrooms and even took away their right to vote. The segregation spread to the armed forces and black soldiers were treated differently in the Second World War. When blood transfusions were given to wounded soldiers, blood from Blacks and Whites were kept rigorously separate and Black soldiers rarely made it to the frontline. As a result of the racism, the Ku Klux Klan was born. Founded by racist southern whites, they reigned fear over Black communities, giving Blacks names like “Negros” and committing crimes like kidnappings, tar and featherings, floggings, branding with acid, mutilation and murder, that supported their racist and prejudice views. However, in the 1950’s people began to stand up for the rights of Blacks. Events like the murder of Emmet Till and situation at Little Rock high school began to make a difference. Emmet Till was a 14 year old visiting the south. In 1955, he allegedly said, “Bye baby” to a white girl and later that night the father of the girl killed him. It caused uproar within white and black communities because the murderers were found not guilty by an all white jury and people began to sympathize with Blacks who were so brutally and unfairly treated. At Little Rock high school in Arkansas Black students scheduled to start at the school in 1957 were stopped from going by troops sent by Orval Faubous. President Eisenhower then sent troops to protect them. This again caused uproar, because of the force that was required to make Faubus obey the national law and again there was much sympathy towards Blacks, which assisted their cause. However, this also had a negative effect because many southern rights thought it was highly unfair that they had been forced to integrate their schools. People like Mr. Brown and Rosa Parks also made a difference. In 1954, Mr. Brown tried to force the Topeka board to accept his little girl Linda into a white school. He succeeded and “Separate but equal” was ruled unconstitutional in schools. Rosa Parks was the inspiration of the “Bus Boycott” in Montgomery Alabama. She refused to give up her seat to a white person in December 1955 and was arrested and fined. In retaliation to this, Blacks began a peaceful protest where no Blacks would ride the buses, which went on for a year. Eventually, segregation on public transport was deemed unconstitutional and bus companies were forced, due to huge loss of money to accept Blacks as equals on public transport. The Boycott was a key event not only because it abolished segregation in buses but because it was the event that introduced Martin Luther King as a leader in the civil rights movement as an organiser of the Boycott. Throughout the 1960s he became a very prominent figure in the fight for civil rights.

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However, there is a lot of evidence that doesn’t support the view that King was the most important factor. For example there were many other Black civil rights activists on the scene as well as King in the 1960s, all that arguably had a positive effect on Black civil rights.  

In 1961, a group of young white and black volunteers mainly involved in the two organizations called CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), who organized a “Freedom ride” on interstate buses to tests the Supreme Court decision that interstate transport was to ...

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