This shows us the determination of the government to achieve equal rights for black people as they are willing to use their army to protect black children from the violence of white protesters.
A black lady called Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery in the 1950’s because she refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man as she had been on her feet all day and was tired. The police were called and she was arrested. When Martin Luther King heard about Rosa he wasn’t happy and arranged a bus boycott. Instead of using the bus service, the majority of black bus users abandoned busses and had car pulls or walked instead. By the end of the year the bus company had gone bankrupt.
By means of peaceful protests blacks had achieved equality by working together on their peaceful protests. Martin Luther King had come to lead the civil rights movement. Throughout the 1950’s improvements were being made but very slowly. Now the decision was VIOLENCE OR NON-VIOLENCE.
In the 1960’s Martin Luther King organised sit-ins. These were organised to stop segregation in restaurants, schools etc. The news spread around America and influenced 70,000 people to take part in theatres, cafes, cinemas, etc. The black protesters were attacked and put into prison. Jail cells were filled with black protesters, more and more protesters were arrested until the court couldn’t cope with the number of prisoners.
Due to peaceful protesters the media were attracted to the news so more and more people heard about the protests and saw the white people as aggressive as they used violence and racism to remove them from segregated areas. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was established.
In the 1960’s the congress of racial equality organised the Freedom Riders. They were organised to test the laws which banned segregation on interstate busses and trains. The march set off from Washington and headed off to New Orleans. They soon discovered that they weren’t welcome anywhere.
Birmingham was the most segregated city in the United States. All public facilities were segregated despite the civil rights act of 1957. Martin Luther King ordered another peaceful protest, this time in Birmingham to increase the pressure on the government to change the laws. Once again the black people were beaten up by why white people who don’t like the idea of desegregation. President Kennedy decided to get involved. He introduced new laws which demanded that there would be an end to segregation.
Once again the black protesters used the media to get their point made clear and show that they weren’t doing anything wrong, and still violence was used against them.
In 1963 MLK organised a march on Washington to put more pressure on the government, and put the civil rights movement in the headlines. Blacks feared that the new civil rights act would not be passed so they had to give the government added pressure.
King gave his “I have a dream” speech which touched the hearts of many black and white Americans. More and more people supported the civil rights movement which gave them a better chance of gaining them.
The new President, Lindon B Johnston, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ordered desegregation in public places i.e. busses parks, hospitals, theatres and colleges. This is what the black people had been aiming for for yeas and finally they got what they wanted. Segregation was ended but they still didn’t have the right to vote.
Despite the civil rights act of the 1964 many states in the south still made it hard for for black people to vote. State Governments like Alabama tried to use every way possible to prevent black people from voting. They put strict rules on who could vote. In order to vote a person should be grammatically correct, their spelling must be correct, and not dotting an (i) would disqualify a black person from voting- this would not effect a white persons vote.15,000 black people lived in Selma Alabama but due to these strict rules only 325 black people were allowed to vote. MLK visited Alabama and yet again was met with violence. This was his aim. If he could show people that white people were violent towards black people, people would notice that blacks do nothing wrong and receive violence.
Within 3 years of the Civil Rights act, the majority of black people eventually had what they wanted, the right to vote.
Overall I think that black people were right and should have fought to get what they wanted. The Civil Rights Act was very successful in obtaining the vote for black people between 1955 and1965 because they worked hard to gain the vote for blacks when they didn’t have to. They managed to protect the lives of innocent black people and showed their determination to do what was right. Also it ordered desegregation so black people no longer had to use inferior facilities and they had a better education.