The campaign lasted for over a year, during which time over 85% of Montgomery’s black community boycotted the buses. The boycott hit the bus companies hard and on 21st December 1956 the Montgomery Bus Company desegregated their buses, allowing black passengers to sit wherever they liked.
By 1957, the de facto desegregation of education in the Southern states had made little progress. The 1957 Little Rock Campaign attempted to speed up school desegregation by enrolling nine black students into Little Rock’s all-white Central High School. Local Governor Orval Faubus opposed the enrolment and ordered the National Guard to prevent the students entering the school. However, President Eisenhower ordered Governor Faubus to withdraw the National Guard. Faubus complied but the students were still prevented from enrolling due to the crowds of white racists. Because of this, President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard to protect the black students and as a result, on 25th September the students enrolled at Little Rock Central High School.
Faubus, however, did not admit defeat and backed by white racists in the Arkansas legislature he passed a law giving him the power to close local schools in order to avoid desegregation. As a result 4000 students, black and white, were forced to seek education elsewhere. The NAACP went to court in 1958 and as a result the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal to prevent desegregation for any reason. In June 1959 the schools in Little Rock were reopened and had to accept black and white students.
The Greensboro sit-ins of 1960 shifted the focus of the civil rights movement towards public places such as restaurants, swimming pools and libraries. In February 1960, four local students entered a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat on ‘whites-only’ seats at the counter, refusing to leave until they were served. The protest escalated; 27 students came on the second day and 300 by the fourth. By the end of the week the store was temporarily in order to halt the sit-ins.
The sit-ins were hugely influential and within a week similar protests had occurred in six towns in North Carolina, within a month sit-ins were taking place in six more states. Activists stages ‘wade-ins’ at segregated swimming pools, ‘read-ins’ in segregated libraries and ‘kneel-ins’ at white-only churches. As the sit-in movement spread a new civil rights organisation was formed, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The Freedom Rides of 1961 were designed to turn the de jure victories of Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia into de facto desegregation of interstate transport and interstate transport facilities. The Freedom Rides set to test these rulings by travelling from Washington DC to New Orleans on interstate transport. The Freedom Rides campaign was organised by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). A group of seven black and six white activists from CORE and SNCC set out on Greyhound and Trailways buses on 4th May 1961.
After the Freedom Riders were attacked by racists such as the Ku Klux Klan and were refused treatments by the police and medics, King, who had previously refused to be involved, gave a speech at a rally in support of the Freedom Riders.
The Freedom Riders achieved a significant victory by forcing Attorney General Robert Kennedy to enforce desegregation of the interstate bus services.
Following the Freedom Rides, the SNCC targeted Albany, Georgia, and organised protests to end segregation. Local Police Chief Laurie Pritchett had studied the strategy of the protestors and adopted a new approach designed to deny them media attention. He ordered the local police to treat protestors with respect in public to prevent racist violence. King was arrested during the campaign and there is evidence that Pritchett arranged to have him released in order to prevent his incarceration gaining publicity. Finally, Pritchett made general promises that conditions would improve which led to little concrete action.
The Albany Movement was significant because it showed that peaceful protest did not always bring about change. It led to divisions within the civil rights movement and radicals in SNCC began to talk about using violence to challenge segregation as peaceful protest was less effective.
In 1962 James Meredith attempted to become the first black student at the University of Mississippi. Ross Barnett, the Governor of Mississippi, refused to allow Meredith to enrol. The Supreme Court, however, backed Meredith and President Kennedy put pressure on Barnett to back down and ensure that Meredith was able to take his place at the university. However, Barnett refused to provide Meredith with protection and, as a result, when he arrived on campus he faced a mob of violent white protestors who prevented him from enrolling.
Following the violence, Kennedy sent federal troops to defend Meredith and ensure that he enrolled successfully. However, once again the white protestors acted violently and a riot broke out killing two people. Nonetheless, Meredith was successfully enrolled although many white students shunned him, he graduated with a degree in Political Science in 1963.
The reason that the Montgomery bus boycott and the Greensboro sit-ins were so successful was because of the media attention they had both gained. The Montgomery Campaign was highly significant because it highlighted the importance of media involvement, television reports had portrayed the injustice of segregation to a national and international audience. Nonetheless, media involvement also played a major role in the significance of the Greensboro sit-ins as it allowed the whole of America to witness the level of persecution faced by the protestors. This brought increased support for the civil rights movement. The reason the Albany Movement made such little impact was due to the fact that there was very little to no media attention at all.
The Little Rock Campaign, Freedom Rides and the James Meredith case relied more on the Federal and state authorities. The Little Rock Campaign was significant because it demonstrated the effectiveness of testing Supreme Court Rulings ensuring that the de jure change led to de facto change. The campaign forced Eisenhower to intervene to support desegregation, in this way the campaign gained the authority of the President. The opposition of the State Governor, the Arkansas legislature and the protestors showed the extent to which white Southerners opposed integration. On the other hand, The Freedom Rides and James Meredith Campaigns were significant because they showed that the new President, J.F. Kennedy was sympathetic towards civil rights.
The campaigns from 1955 to 1962 demonstrated the power of the civil rights movement. However the Federal and state authorities remained reactive, responding to demands on a case-by-case basis without committing themselves to ending segregation once and for all. With the exception of the Albany Movement, the campaigns showed that with the involvement of media attention, peaceful protests could be successful and that targeting and focusing on a specific area at a time was very much successful.
by
kenyaolivia (student)
