This movement had the sole purpose and goal for integrating equity among blacks and whites under the law. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement, many leaders arose out of this time of changing. As to how, throughout this time there were numerous protests and the boycottings of theaters, restaurants, and buses alongside other segregated areas throughout the country.
Since before the movement began there was the abolition movement, which ended slavery, but for blacks, there was segregation and discrimination was left after it. With segregation, many public areas were separated throughout the country between blacks and whites. Where these blacks were seen as the inferior among whites due to much discrimination and had lesser the state of life, but the change was to come. As blacks begun to retaliate against these prejudice and discriminating laws placed against them.
Leaders
One of these activists of change from a great many is the very prominent Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Who went on to fight for this change in the manner of peaceful protests, even with multiple attacks made on him, he still commenced his nonviolent ideal, and used many speeches and written works such as his works of, “I Have a Dream”, from the march on Washington and, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, with many others to name. Furthermore, in 1955 Rev. King Jr. also participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott as one of the leaders, in which him and others who followed his model never rode on a bus that allowed segregation for 381 days in total until the Supreme Court decided to distinguish the idea of segregation on buses. Also, he established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, which still tries to advance the civil rights movement in the peaceful ways by that of Martin Luther King Jr. with his advocacy of the Memphis Sanitation Worker Strike to protest the horrid conditions and inadequate payments which black workers suffered under and would be successful but would be his last one as to his assassination by James Earl Ray. But his legacy still lives on.
However, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t the only influential activist of the time, there was also the great Malcolm X of the time, who went on to pursue the goals of the civil rights movement in violent ways for which he said was only self-defense. As Malcolm X believed in the proposition that blacks should fight for their civil rights in any certain way, while also supporting each other.
Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam since he adopted the name of Malcolm X after becoming muslim and joining the Nation of Islam, as he saw his previous last name of, “Little” as the label of a slave. Throughout his time as an activist, Malcolm X used his speeches and the tone in it to get through to people and would be known by the quote, “By Any Means Necessary”. Later on Malcolm saw that in his own opinion Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam had not adequately supported the Civil Rights Movement as he had become much more outspoken in the movement. During 1963, after President John F. Kennedy was brutally assassinated, his remarks on it led him to be silenced for 90 days as he said, “[Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon”. But Malcolm presumed that it was for another reason, the fact that Muhammed saw that Malcolm was becoming too powerful. Afterwards, he ended his ties with the Nation of Islam, he created his own religious organization, the Muslim Mosque, Inc. While, he later created the Organization of Afro-American Unity after his trip to Mecca, where he returned as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, which focused on racism as the great predicament and advocated blacks. And yet, he was assassinated at 39-years-old by three members of the Nation of Islam while promoting his own organization in New York City, but his work would influence everyone and advance the civil rights movement.
In addition, there were also other leaders, such as the founders of the NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Ida B. Wells, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling, Oswald Garrison Villard, Lillian Wald, and Archibald Grimké. Also, it is America’s largest and oldest civil rights organization after being created in 1909. There were also others such as the Black Panther Party, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, the Little Rock Nine, Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, Harry T. Moore, A. Philip Randolph, and many others to go on about. Altogether, there were many leaders who arose out of the struggle in the Civil Rights Movement.
Great Impacts
Firstly, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, where in 1954 Supreme Court justices voted unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination based on color, religion, race, gender, or nationality, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in which racial discrimination in voting is prohibited. Alongside this was when Black History Month was introduced officially by President Gerald Ford calling for the people to realize the impact of blacks on American History from its previous state as Negro History Week. Simply, much change has come from the Civil Rights Movement with its many leaders that have helped to advance the entire nation.
Essentially, the Civil Rights Movement was a time of great change with many leaders across its entirety. Since the nation has advanced the once very much discriminative and segregated country to one with great equality for all its people in its laws, no matter their race, religion, gender, nationality, and color.
