1950's And 60's The Civil Rights Movements example essay topic

In the 1950's and 60's the civil rights movements were just getting started and every progression that they made they saw as a major victory, but was this just because they had been oppressed for so may years or was it because they were making major progress. In source A it states the number of Negroes in schools with white people in 11 southern states from 1956-1962. It shows that Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia have no Negroes in schools with white children in 1956-1962. In 1956 - 7 the same can be said for Louisiana, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina, which shows that even though the law had been passed for the integration of schools to start in the southern states not very many states had been quick off the mark to force these new laws into practice. The exception to the enforcement of the new laws came from Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas, who had all decided to introduce desegregation to some of their schools no matter how slight it may have been. In between 1957 and 1962 Louisiana, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina decided to follow in Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas footstep and desegregated their schools in the slightest.

Even though the desegregation of schools had only gone up in the slightest this was still a major achievement for all Negroes, considering there had been no change in they way they were treated in over 100 hundred years. Source B show a black student about to enrol in an all white Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas, in September 1957. It shows a white female shouting something at the black student about to enrol, it looks like she is shouting verbal abuse to the girl who from my own knowledge happens to be accompanied by personal state guardsman who are assigned to protect her while she goes to school. The cons to this source are that the girl is getting verbal abuse, but the pro's are that she got the federal governments backing and did enrol in the school. Source C is written by one of the most influential civil rights leader's martin Luther king in 1967.

This speech states that non violent protests such as sit-ins (which led to the desegregation of lunch counters in over 150 cities within a year) Freedom rides (These put an end to inter-state travel segregation) and marches (the Washington march won the passing of the most powerful civil rights law in a century) where the way to get negroes treated equally to white people and this way they would get what they wanted with a minimal loss of life. The good point that this source makes is that black people had accomplished a lot in the 50's and 60's. But it also makes a point of saying that some black people do not believe that they have accomplished enough in those periods of time, otherwise he would not have had to make the speech in the first place. Source D is a conversation held between 3 young Negro youths about the Detroit riot of 1967. They start their conversation by talking about how pretty it was watching a particular building burn down and that the honkies (White people) couldn't do anything about it, for young youths to be enjoying watching people strain to put out a fire they must have been brought up to hate the people they were watching, they carried on the conversation by talking about how proud they were that they were involved in what was believed then to be the worst race riot of all time and the same view is still believed now. The Detroit riot was ended by National guardsman after the state declared it a state of emergency; in all it took 8000 national guards men to stop the riot.

Source E shows the percentage of black people who voted in 9 different states before the voting rights act in 1965 it also shows the percentage that voted after the voting rights act. According to source E only 6% of the Negroes in Mississippi were voting before the voting rights act but after the voting act 60% of the Negro community were voting in Mississippi. In comparison to the average vote before the voting rights act which was 36%? The average after the voting right was introduced was 58% a very big achievement for all negroes, considering only 20 year before negroes nation wide were not allowed to look white people in the eyes, but now over half of them were voting. In conclusion the civil rights movement had achieved a lot for black people but some of the achievements that they saw as major were not as influential as the civil rights movements had thought at the time.