Friday, December 22, 2017

Some Of The African American Civil Rights Movement Facts

By Catherine Graham


Racism was a disease for a very long time in the USA. It may have gone down with time, but before the 1950s and 60s, it was very wide spread. This is around the time when African Americans started standing up for themselves and fighting for their rights. Evidently, they were successful. The article below touches on some of the African American civil rights movement facts.

Before world war two, blacks were given the lowly jobs that did not pay very well. In the 1940s, the black people threatened to demonstrate by marching to washing ton DC if job equality would not be implemented. In 1941, the then president, allowed military jobs among other posts to be free for Americans of all races.

Rosa Parks was the first ever black American to resist the Montgomery bus system. This was a system that required the black people to seat at designated seats at the back of the bus. However, in 1955, Rosa defied this law. She took one of the seats in front of the bus and refused to get up even after a white man got on the bus and could not find a seat. She got arrested.

There were also schools set aside for black people and for white people. However, the supreme court ruled against this kind of segregation in 1954 which proved truly that people have moved on with this kind of selective life. In 1957, nine black students were to report to central high school for education where they went and found a screaming mob and a guard awaiting them. They were denied access but came back two weeks later and were allowed to go in.

In 1960 black people were not allowed to eat in the same places as the white people. Four students went into the wool worths lunch counter and refused to leave until they would be served. The next day, hundreds of other black people joined in the cause. The demonstrations carried on for days until the lunch counters some them too. The four students were the first to be served at the place they first stood their ground.

In 1963, the biggest demonstrations of all took place led by Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, and Bayard Rustin. There was a turnout of about 200,000 people both black and white, and they matched through Washington DC to show solidarity on each other. The highlight was when Martin gave his speech that was an inspiration and whose famous line, I have a dream has been used till now.

At some point, 600 hundred people walked in protest after a white police officer killed a black human activist. The people matched towards the state of Alabama but were barred at Edmund Pettus bridge by the state police. They insisted on trying to get through, but they were beaten up and tear gas thrown at them. They were later rushed to the hospital.

Even after voting being made legal in 1957 in the USA, black people in the southern states still experienced challenges. The white people would put really difficult or impossible questions on the literacy tests just to fail them.




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