Sinikiwe Nzuza
(202404199)
Simfundile Noguda
(202407530)
Sboniso Zikalala
(202422882)
Module Code
(HHIS621)
Programme Code
(EDU734)
Essay on the causes, events and consequences of the Civil Rights Movement
The formation of the Civil Rights Movement, led by Martin Luther King Jr., marked a significant
change in the history of African Americans who were marginalised in America during the 1900s.
This essay is going to discuss the causes, events and consequences of the formation of the Civil
Rights Movement.
After the American Civil War, which took place from 1861 until 1865, the US government passed
the 14th and 15th Amendments, granting citizenship and equal rights to former black slaves. In
1866, a white supremacist group called the Ku Klux Klan was formed. This group was a whites-
only group that was totally against Black Americans’ emancipation from slavery and the
government’s decision to grant black people civil rights, they wanted segregation to continue.
When the government continued to grant more Black Americans civil rights, the Ku Klux Klan
became more violent, and house attacks started to occur. Each year, Black Americans lost
about 175 people due to these attacks from 1890 to 1900. The government saw that granting
more civil rights to Black Americans would only lead to a state of crisis, and there would be
another civil war, so the US Supreme Court decided to implement separate, but equal facilities
for Black and white Americans in the country. This law flourished until 1954, but only to find out
that when alone in their space, Black Americans were planning ways that would help them fight
this segregation.
The cause that led to the formation of the Civil Rights Movement was primarily political. After
the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) challenged
segregation in higher education in the nation’s courts and won significant rights for African-
Americans in universities across the country in the Northern States in 1935, the activity
encouraged the formation of the Civil Rights Movement, but it was having a hard as it was faced
with the Ku Klux Klan who wanted to perpetuate segregation. Martin Luther King Junior was a
pastor in the city of Montgomery, which became the centre of the rights movement and his
position as pastor allowed him to take on the leadership role within the struggle as he was able
to see the struggles of his congregation first hand and his position gave him a platform from
which to speak of the injustices he saw. His leadership skills were put into practice when he
was appointed to lead the Montgomery bus boycott. Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King
Junior was not using violence in his resistance, and his leadership skills attracted the attention
of the whole of the USA and the rest of the world.
With Martin Luther King as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement, the events that were aimed
at fighting segregation started, starting with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On 1 December 1955,
Rosa Parks, who was the Secretary of the NAACP, was arrested for not giving up her seat on a
city bus to a white man. Martin Luther King Junior, as the leader of the NAACP, decided to tell his
people to refrain from using public transport and rather walk on foot. The boycott lasted for 381
days, and this posed a severe economic strain on the public transport and the boycott finally
ended in 1956.
Martin Luther King’s ways of resistance inspired students in North Carolina in Greensboro. On 1
February 1960, four students decided to sit down at the ‘whites only’ lunch table at Woolworths
and order coffee. They were refused service, but said they would stay in their seats until they
were served. Before the white Americans knew, each day, a lot more students joined the four,
and this ended up spreading to other ‘whites only’ restaurants. This lasted for more than a year,
and businesses were losing more than a third of their income. In 1961, many restaurants finally
decided to desegregate. The sit-ins were a success, and they led to the formation of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Another event against segregation was the activity of the Freedom Rides. In May 1961, African-
American and white volunteers sat next to each other on public buses as they travelled from the
North to the South. When they reached Alabama, white mobs burned one of their buses while
the police stood by and looked on. Despite the imprisonment of some of the Freedom Riders
and the violent treatment they received, they did not stop. The violence was televised
internationally, embarrassing the government of the US. As a result, the government decided to
ban segregation on all interstate transport.
The other event resisting the rule of segregation was the Birmingham Campaign. On 2 May, one
thousand children gathered in churches and began the “Children's Crusade”. 600 children were
arrested and imprisoned, and fire hoses and police dogs were deployed on the marchers in
what became known as Double-D day. The images of this day were televised, and this again
embarrassed the country. On the 11th of May, it was announced that segregation would end.
Even though the campaign was a success, the segregationists did not give up; they bombed
Martin Luther King’s church and the house of his brother and killed four African American girls.
The Black American resistance against segregation continued. In August 1963, Martin Luther
King organised a march to the Lincoln Memorial. The march had six aims: civil rights legislation,
a federal works programme, the right to vote, integrated education, better housing and better
employment opportunities. Over 400,000 people joined the march, and Martin Luther King
delivered his speech, “I have a dream”.
The last event of the Civil Rights Movement in their struggle against segregation was the Selma-
Montgomery march. On February 18th, white segregationists attacked a group of demonstrators
and killed a young African-American demonstrator. In response, King and the movement
planned a march from Selma to Montgomery. On Sunday 7 March, a group of 600 people set out
on the march, but were attacked with whips, batons and tear gas. After the violence was
captured on international television, the country was seen as a bad place. The march became
more violent to such an extent that a young white prime minister, James Raeb, was beaten to
death. President Johnson backed the march and pledged his support, sending US Army troops
to protect them.
Summarily, the formation of the Civil Rights Movement, which had many goals, fighting the
segregation policies and racial injustices that were happening in the USA, had many successes.
This includes the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965. The
movement had a major impact on American history, and as a result, in 2008, the USA had its
first black president, Barack Obama.
