Abolitionist Movement Significance

After America was founded in 1776 many people decided to colonize and live in this unfamiliar land. The land already had their own natives, but most of the travelers that colonized there did not respect or care about them or their land. The people wanted to make this land their property and country. To have a strong country people needed power and one thing that made that power more accessible was enslaving the natives and making them their property. Enslaving natives later become part of their culture and it later spread to enslaving African-Americans. African-Americans were seen as people that were stronger and more hard working than the Native Americans. This led to African-Americans getting captured and being sent to America to work.

One method that was used to advance the cause of Civil Rights was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in the year 1955. On December 1st, Rosa Parks was arrested “after refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man” (New York World-Telegram and Sun). The community boycotted the bus system until December 20th 1956, when Browder v. Gayle took effect. In Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated buses were unconstitutional. By boycotting the buses, the people put pressure on the community and the legislators.

Since the Supreme Court case of Plessy Vs Ferguson way back in 1892, which ruled the separation of blacks and whites constitutional as long as all public facilities provided were “separate but equal,” the United States had been segregated. As with all other public facilities at the time, the busses in Montgomery Alabama were also subject to this segregation, and it wasn’t until 1956 with the beginning of what became to be known as the “Montgomery Bus

supremacist group. The arrests largely brought an end to the busing-related violence. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a very important and vital part in the civil rights movement for many reasons. First, it was the one of the first mass protests on civil rights in the U.S. The Montgomery bus boycott set the stage for other large protests outside the court system to bring fair treatment for African Americans. Second, Martin Luther King came up as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also.keeping true to his commitment to nonviolent protest. Shortly after the boycott' s end, he

Another significant event was the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6, which was sparked by Rosa Parks, a member of the NAACP, and highly respected in the local community. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white man when the bus driver demanded it. She was thrown off

The Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s birthed the most prominent figures in the battle against racism in the United States. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. are immortalized as the men who stood up and spoke out during the most crucial time in US History for African American activism. Though often brought up in the same vein, the two had complete opposite ideology about how to reach equality. Their influence created many prominent groups in the 60s against mistreatment of African Americans, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). According to the name of this group, they were a nonviolent team of young black activists that stemmed from MLK’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Apparent in their name, they shared the same peaceful approach as MLK, but over time and as the hardships of the movement began to callous the young group they shifted towards the ‘by-any-means-necessary’ approach of Malcolm X. Through the excerpts in “Takin it to the Streets,” one can see the stark difference between Malcolm X’s more aggressive approach, MLK’s loving approach, and the SNCC shifting its views over time but always maintaining a steadfast commitment to the cause and a youthful bravado.

“Jim Crow” laws dictated that a black person must surrender their seat to a white person if there were no other seats available, and stand at the back of the bus. In December 1955; Rosa Parks refused to do this, and was arrested and fined $10. Her friends and family, led by Martin Luther King (who would later become leader of the Civil Rights Movement), immediately started a twenty-four hour bus boycott in response, and found it so successful that it was decided they would continue until the bus company agreed to seat customers on a first-come basis. Many black people became involved with the boycott, and as black passengers made up 75% of the bus company’s business it proved to be enormously damaging. The boycott attracted more black people to the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the main leaders in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott was started because Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and got arrested for not getting up. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted for 381 days and put many businesses and bus lines under a great burden from the lack of travelers. The bus boycott finally paid off in November of 1956 when the Supreme court ruled that segregated seating on public bus lines was unconstitutional and that African Americans should be able to sit wherever they wish

The start of King's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and was jailed. Community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and asked King to be the leader. The organization would urge blacks to boycott the buses and use other means of transportation. The boycott lasted 381 days. On November 13, 1956 the Supreme Court declared that Alabama's bus segregation was unconstitutional and on December 21, 1956 buses were desegregated. (Michael).

In the sweltering summer of August 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave hope to a nation. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was created to “free” Negro slaves a century prior, Negros still were not free. Negros were prohibited to do several things that a free American should have the rights to achieve. In the early 1950’s, many African Americans displayed a sense of discontent.

Due to that success the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr., planned a permanent boycott until their demands were met. They asked for courteous treatment, seating on a first come, first serve basis, and black bus drivers for mostly black bus routes. Businesses and private homes started to feel the effects of the boycott. Whites started to fight back. Blacks were arrested for walking the streets. Dr. King's home was bombed. The boycott lasted eleven months before there were any positive results. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Alabama buses was unconstitutional. The boycott was an astounding success and it brought Dr. Martin Luther King to prominence. 1

In this book, King is clearly speaking to a contemporary and mostly white audience. And the bulk of the book is devoted to answering the titular question. Time and again he steps out of the narrative to rebut various criticisms from contemporaries who said that his movement was too militant, too extreme, too impractical, too disorganized, too out-of-touch with ordinary people, too disengaged from the political process. The year 1963 marked the 100-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King asks two questions: why should we wait for emancipation? And aware of what White Americans were doing to Black Americans, "What is the Negro doing for himself?  (King p. 8) Martin Luther King concludes by pointing out the importance of expanding on the current campaign, what his hopes are for the future, why he wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, why the campaign was the right thing to do, why America was a better place in January of 1964 than it was in January of 1963, and why America can't wait any longer to be wholly free. King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks

The movement, using the slogan “Black Power,” followed the teachings of Malcolm X, an African American leader who died the same year and who promoted that African Americans separate from white society in favor of forming their own community. The Black Panther Party, a militant organization that viewed themselves as soldiers warring against the white hierarchy, arose from such ideals. Despite the challenge that “Black Power” proposed to the nonviolent movement, civil rights activists continued persevered in finding the end of black discrimination legally. They found success in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which both contributed to legally naming minorities as equal citizens, as well as protecting the same from discrimination. Although the strength of the civil rights movement dissipated after the 1960s, activists continue to make efforts to end entirely the racial discrimination within America’s economic and social policies.

Nearly three centuries ago, black men and women from Africa were brought to America and put into slavery. They were treated more cruelly in the United States than in any other country that had practiced slavery. African Americans didn’t gain their freedom until after the Civil War, nearly one-hundred years later. Even though African Americans were freed and the constitution was amended to guarantee racial equality, they were still not treated the same as whites and were thought of as second class citizens. One man had the right idea on how to change America, Martin Luther King Jr. had the best philosophy for advancing civil rights, he preached nonviolence to express the need for change in America and he united both African Americans

Though the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1965 marked the end of slavery in the United States, African-Americans would not see anything resembling true freedom from the segregation and isolation imposed by slavery until very recently, and only after decades of difficult struggle. Some of the most important achievements occurred during the 1960s, when a generation of African-American leaders and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and the Freedom Riders, fought against some of the last vestiges of explicit, institutionalized segregation, discrimination, and isolation in order to attain equality and civil rights. Only by examining the treatment of African-Americans throughout America's history can one begin to understand how the the ending of slavery, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and the contemporary issues facing the African-American community are inextricably linked. In turn this allows one to see how rather than existing as a single, identifiable turning point in the history of civil rights, African American's struggle for equality and an end to isolation must be considered as an ongoing project.