Civil Rights Movement example essay topic

The progress toward equal rights for blacks in the U.S. has been going on for over two hundred years. Since the first colonists settled in the Americas, slaves were a common piece of property. This identity as property was reinforced when the United States Constitution counted slaves as 3/5 of a human. After the civil war, a series of laws and the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth amendments tried to set all citizens on the same level. Unfortunately, as a result of Ples sy vs. Ferguson, Jim Crow Laws were enacted as a way of segregating blacks and whites. Then during the middle of the 20th century the second reconstruction began and civil rights movements attempted to fix the problems with racism in America.

This is where controversy started, what civil rights movement was most effective in fighting discrimination. With the facts on hand, one could surmise that civil disobedience had the most positive effect on the civil rights movement. One method, that was somewhat effective, was affecting change through the country's judicial system. People and lawyers tried to repeal unjust law involving discrimination and enact new ones to fight racism or to integrate. One of the most famous cases advancing civil rights was Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education in 1954.

Hailed as the start of the civil rights movement, it said that segregation was inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional. This was preceeded by a less publicized, but similar case (Sweat t vs. Painter) in 1948, saying that segregated law schools at the University of Texas violated the Equal Protection Clause. In 1967, the Loving vs. Virginia case judged that the banning of interracial marriages was also unconstitutional. In a more radically judged decision in Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg school were ordered to integrate schools even where there were no black or no whites. The judicial system was very effective in that it controlled the law of the land, and people could not act against the will of the Supreme Court. It was ineffective too, in that all judges at the time were white and many blacks had poor legal aid.

One of the ways that blacks were able to acheive competent attorneys was through organizations intent upon advancing the civil rights movement. Some of the more well known organizations exist to this day. The SNC C helped blacks in the south by organizing political parties and helping them to get elected into powerful public positions. The NAACP provided scholarships for education and the power of size. Many others from CORE to SCL C fought to help civil rights at every turn.

They united blacks and gave them support; provided legal aid for important cases; and organized actions of civil disobedience. These organizations were very effective since they turned individual people into one powerful tool. Despite its uses, many whites viewed them as racist and bent on destruction and upheaval, eliminating compassion for the cause. Of the techniques used, civil disobedience in arguably created the most compassion for the cause. Some organizations mentioned above tied in with this idea, and a few, like Martin Luther King Jr.'s Freedom Riders were exclusively involved in this.

The goal of the people who followed this credo was to create feelings of anger toward discrimination and compassion for the black cause. The civilly disobedient acts frequently practiced were marches (such as the Million Man March), sit-ins at bus terminals and stores, boycotts, and non-violent demonstrations. When people herd and saw the brutality being inflicted upon non-violent protesters, they realized that there were many unfair laws and unjust actions being committed. Instead of trying to appeal to the sensibilities of blacks who already knew of the un justice, civil disobedience appealed to the white majority which needed to be convinced that blacks deserve equal rights. It was only ineffective in its slow rate of progress and its inability to attract young, angry blacks. All of these methods had one common goal: equal protection for all people under the law.

Each cause had its own way of reaching this point. This discrepancy diluted the cause slowing each one's effectiveness. But at a time when many such groups were 'preaching to the converted', civil disobedience had the allure to make many liberal whites crossover and tip the scales. This forced the country to change its ways. Clearly civil disobedience had the most positive effect on the civil rights movement.