His 145 - Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

HIS/145

Civil Rights Movement

Rosa May Parks, a young black lady who is said to have started it all. Some actually refer to her as the "Mother of the civil Rights Movement," without her it's wondered if the world today would be as peaceful and prejudice free as it is, for the most part. The bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 is when and where many say it all started. Rosa May Parks started it all when she refused to move to the back of the bus to sit in the "colored" seats. When Parks was forced off of the bus, literally, the black community gathered around her and boycotted the bus system. Motivated by this and the ongoing discriminatory laws the black community gathered and began to organize and direct their efforts to try and bring change to these discriminatory laws.

The Boycott that started it all put one of the greatest black ministers of all time on the national stage, Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a leader in the entire ordeal along with other religious leaders and civil rights activists and they soon adopted a strategy of "nonviolent resistance" to try and fight against discrimination and racially biased laws. The Civil Rights Movement had a purpose; the main goal was to protect voting rights for black Americans and to end segregation that was created by law. According to the New York Times a statement by the press was made regarding Martin Luther King Jr. it stated "The leadership that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left to guide the non violent civil rights movement prayed today for "strength to keep us together". "We do not understand," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said in a prayer. "We want to go some place, but you have taken our legs from us, and now many of us are lost".

So was there change right off the bat? Many would say no, the Civil War passed, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were passed and finally it seemed as though some real progress was beginning to be seen regarding black Americans having rights. One reason for this is that after the Civil War many people in the South still had the same train of thought as they did before, their attitudes did not change immediately. So where did television come to play? The South could be considered pretty much secluded from the rest of the country at this time, much of the Civil Rights abuse remained within the South since no one outside of the South knew enough about what was going on to do anything. However, in the 1960s just about every home in America owned a television set. In the summer of 1963 the power of the media was used to the fullest extent and put to the test by the leaders of the Civil Rights movement and just about every home