The civil rights movement then developed even further when a young black school girl tried to enrol at an all white’s school in Arkansas along with 8 other students. The state governor refused to let the children enrol and had Arkansas state guardsmen order the children away. The governor claimed this was to “prevent racial conflict”. The federal governor (Eisenhower) ordered the state to let them enrol but the state governor still refused. Eisenhower then sent in 100 paratroopers and 10,000 national guardsmen to ensure that the nine children joined. This was successful but by 1961 there were still no black children attending any white school in Alabama Carolina or Mississippi.
From thereafter black people started to stand up for themselves and realised that major changes needed to be made to the way they were treated. In 1962 a well educated black student called James Meredith qualified to start attending university in September 20th 1962 at a university in Mississippi. The state governor, Ross Barnett said that he and his officials would uphold the segregation laws whatever federal courts said; and refused to let James attend. On the day James was meant to start, the governor barred his way, not letting him in. President Kennedy heard about what Barnett was doing and tried to contact him. This failed so Kennedy placed all of Mississippi’s national guards under his control. And on the 30th Sept, he had a convoy of army trucks drive James to university to ensure that he started. This created riots between the white students as they attacked the 320 marshals with flaming missiles, rocks bricks and acid. The army marshals fought back though with tear gas and came out victorious. James stayed on at the University but was always escorted by federal marshals.
Another similar incident occurred when a young black school girl called Linda Brown had to walk over 20 blocks just to get to school as she wasn’t allowed to attend the “all whites only” school which was closer to her. The school Linda attended was only for black people and was run-down and poor compared to the all whites schools. Her classrooms were shabby and there weren’t even enough books for each child because the Topeka board of education spent more money on the white schools. This angered Linda’s father so he took the board to court. Mr Brown lost his case but appealed with help from the NACCP which made his case reach the US Supreme Court. Mr Brown was then successful and the case ended with chief Justice Earl Warren ordering the Topeka board of education to end segregation within the schools.
The civil rights movement developed even further when Malcolm X became inspired by Martin Luther King’s work and decided to start the black power movement. Malcolm X believed that that black people should fight back and even had ideas about starting his own blacks only state.
Therefore, the civil rights movement developed even further in the 1950’s because black Americans received support from white southerners who became vigilantes to try and stop mob rules such as the KKK in integrated schools. They also received presidential attention in meeting such as the pilgrimage of freedom in 1951 along with support from members of the senate. Senator Lyndon Johnson refused to sign a campaign to keep schools segregated as he thought segregation between schools was wrong and realised that black children were being deprived of an equal education.
Furthermore, the civil rights movement developed in the 1950’s because of the continued discrimination towards black people in America. The discrimination brought about great campaigners such as the NAACP and Martin Luther King. However, the civil rights movement was to develop even further in the 1960’s when Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream“speech.
