The Movement, as it was called during the 1950s and 1960s consisted of courageous AfricanAmerican men and women but also by college students and religious leaders all of whom were of a different race. These activists of change and equality exercised the tactics of legal challenges, civil protests including sitins, marches, and freedom rides, and other initiatives in their efforts that AfricanAmericans would receive equal opportunity and protection in the United States. Tens of thousands of people of all races risked their lives, with hopes of building a union for racial equality that could not possibly be ignored. The ...view middle of the document...
”1 Martha Biondi proficiently explored a wide range of topics in her study. Some of which are employment, housing, segregation in schools and public
accommodations, and political participation. I think her opinion regarding the fight for racial justice was
1
Martha Biondi, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003),16.
1
about group rights and racial equality, not simply the integration of people. Biondi goes on to say that “Civil rights, meaning the right to due process and equality before the law, was an important goal throughout the movement. But the struggle for black right and equality did not begin in the quest of Civil Rights alone.”2
The fifties and sixties was such an historic time for African Americans all around the world. This was the time we saw the rise of Dr. martin Luther King Jr, the nonviolent protest movement and the Rosa Parks stance in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. It is my belief that the war veterans sparked the start of the Civil Rights Movement, they began a revolution that changed history in the United States. Author John Dittmer stated that “for 30 years although civil rights occurrences in Mississippi had been closely identified with the NAACP. The association did not actually become an active presence in Mississippi until after WWII.” 3 Throughout the fifties and sixties the NAACP played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement, some of their most significant achievements were coorganizing the 1963 March on Washington, and successfully lobbying for legislation that resulted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Act.
There were many prominent members of the NAACP who remarkably changed the era of the Civil Rights Movement which ultimately changed the fate of the African American people forever. Rosa Parks, a strong independent black who refused to give up her seat to a white man, this refusal resulted in the Montgomery bus boycott which lasted a year. According to the authors of the book Women and the Civil Rights Movement “Although black women in the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and
2
3
Biondi, To Stand and Fight,16.
Dittmer, John, Local people: the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi. (University of Illinois Press, 1995, c1994.), 29.
2
60s changed and influenced the movement, there aren’t a lot of books that show illustrate their roles and contributions who struggled with the men, for equality and social justice in America.”4 I don’t think this was the case for Rosa Parks, over the next halfcentury, Parks became a nationally recognized symbol of dignity and strength in the struggle to end racial segregation. I think the three female authors would be very proud ...