The American
Civil Rights Movement
STOP
Then and Now RACISM
FREEDOM
EQULITY
African American Civil Rights Movement
African Americans are one of the largest many of
ethnic groups in the United State. During the 1950s and
1960s, African American people were facing inequality.
The segregation between colored and whites forced the
black people to do the civil rights movement.
The civil rights movement was a political movement for
justice and equality for colored people that took place
mainly in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Civil Rights Act ended segregation in public places,
banned employment discrimination on basis of race,
providing greater access to resources for women and
religious minorities.
Emmet Till
In 1955, a young African American boy named Emmet
Till was kidnapped and brutally murdered by two whites.
He travelled from his home in Chicago to Mississippi to
stay with his uncle’s family. While he was visiting his
relatives in Mississippi, he went to the grocery store.
Two white men whose names were Carolyn Bryant and
Roy Bryant accused Till of having whistled at a white
woman in a grocery store. Till had been brutally beaten,
shot in the head and dumped his dead body in the
Tallahatchie River.
The Death of Emmett Till encouraged African Americans
to join the Civil Rights Movement out of fear.
Rosa Park and the Montgomery Bus
Boycott On December 1 of 1955, an African American seamstress
Rosa Parks was commuting home from her job at a local
department store by bus. She was seated in the front row
of the “colored section.” When the white seats filled, the
driver asked Rosa Park and three other black people to
vacate their seats.
Park refused it whereas the other black riders complied.
For this reason she was arrested and fined $10, plus $4
in court fees.
Rosa Park’s arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott,
during which the black citizens of Montgomery refused
to ride the city’s buses in protest over the bus system’s
policy of racial segregation. Eventually the bus boycott
ended successfully. This was the time where the civil
rights movement began.
Brown v. Board of
Education
In 1954,a little girl whose name was Linda Brown, a
third grader was refused to enroll at Sumner
Elementary which was attended by white children.
This case was named after a lawsuit filed in 1951 by
NAACP lawyers against the Topeka, Kansas school
district on behalf of Linda Brown and her family.
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) a
unanimous Supreme Court declared that racial
segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The
Court declared “separate” educational facilities
“inherently unequal.”
In the end, the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown
v. Board was a major step forward in civil rights
movement.
Trayvon
Martin On February 26, 2012, an African American boy whose name
was Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighbourhood
watchman George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.
When police arrived, he found Martin dead and Zimmerman
on the ground, bleeding from wounds to the head and face.
He told the police that he had to shoot the unarmed 17
years old Trayvon for self defense during a physical
altercation. The police took Zimmerman into custody, but he
was shortly released with no charges filed.
Trayvon Martin's death and the acquittal of George
Zimmerman sparked the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Black Lives Matter
Movement
Black Lives Matter started in 2013 as a messaging
campaign with the use of a hashtag #BlackLivesMatter
in response to the 2012 acquittal of George
BLACK
Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. STOP
LIVES
KILLING
US
MATTER
The movement seeks to attain racial justice that is
treated fairly for African American people and those
people who identify as black. Over the next several
years, this movement became the subject of
demonstrations of national and even international
protests toward Black Communities.
Charlottesville Car
Attack
On August 12, 2017, the man who name was James
Alex Fields drove his car with a high speed into a
crowd of anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville. He
killed one person and injured 35 people during his
car attack.
Heather Danielle Heyer was the only person killed in
the attack and died at the University of Virginia
Medical Centre.
Fields was sentenced to life in prison plus an
additional 419 years in July 2019.
The Civil Rights Movement Reduced Inequality or
Not
In the final analysis the equality for black people has not reduced yet. But
compared to early 19 century black people's lives, modern black people's
lives are much better now such as voting rights and gender equality.
By the late twentieth century, people worldwide began to organise around
issues of racial justice. Yet racism and racial violence persists as a powerful
force shaping the lives of many people across the global. A lot of civil rights
activists were killed during the movement.
For the latest news, human rights activists and community leaders in
Colombia have been killed because of their work to protect ancestral land
rights given to Black communities of the Pacific coast of the country. These
tragic deaths are a terrible reminder that there is still much to do to attain
racial equality and justice for all.
• RESOURCES
1. Emmet Till
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till
2. Rosa Park and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott
3. Brown v. Board of Education
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka
4. Trayvon Martin
https://www.britannica.com/event/shooting-of-Trayvon-Martin
5. Black Lives Matter
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Lives-Matter
6. Charlottesville Car Attack
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736915323/neo-nazi-who-killed-charlottesville-protester-is-sentenced-to-life-in-pris
on
7. Colombian human rights activists
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61238539
