Civil Rights Movement Essay Research Paper Imagine

Civil Rights Movement Essay, Research Paper

Imagine that you are in Alabama, it is a hot afternoon and you are sweating profusely. You go to board a train to go visit some relatives. You can imagine yourself feeling the cool air rush around you as you sit in the luxurious train car: But wait, because certain laws call for separate cars for passengers of different races you must board the rear train cars that are cramped, filled with sounds of crying babies, and the temperature in the train car seems to be higher than the temperature is outside. It does not sound so ‘cozy’ does it. That scenario happened many times a day for blacks during the fifties and sixties. Blacks everywhere got fed up with being treated as if they were inferior and slaves, and banded together to form a movement. Not just any kind of movement, but a movement that would see victories as well as violence and death. That movement was the Civil Rights Movement.

The Civil Rights Movement had a major goal, and that goal was to end discrimination based on race, creed, color, and gender, and to put an end to segregation. Its’ supporters aimed for equality of all people and for the integration of society. The previously mentioned goals were achieved by many different means. The movement had its share of leaders, events, and strategies that helped to reach its’ goals. There was a fair share of success and failures that accompanied the Civil Rights Movement. Throughout the rest of this paper all will be discussed thoroughly.

The Civil Rights Movement had its’ fair share of leaders, however Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were the two most prominent figures during the era. “Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’s childhood’s had a powerful influence on the men and their speeches” (Clark 15). Malcolm X was raised in poverty and received little schooling. He was educated up until the eighth grade. Malcolm X was the victim of domestic violence as a child. His father beat him along with his mother and the rest of his siblings. His house was burned down by the Ku Klux Klan, and later his father was killed in a trolley accident. People believe that the trolley incident was just a cover up for the Klan’s lynching of Mr. Little. (Malcolm’s last name was originally Little, but he changed it because he thought that it was a slave name. He then chose the letter X instead.) His mother later suffered a mental breakdown and Malcolm, along with the other children, were sent to foster homes. Later on in life Malcolm began to commit burglaries, and even turned to using drugs. In 1946 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. In prison he converted to the Lost-Found Nation of Islam. Malcolm was paroled in 1952 and began preaching as an Islamic minister. He preached about black nationalism, and separatism between whites and blacks. Malcolm X’s speeches were delivered in an angry tone and the audience then began to feel hatred of white Americans. Later, he broke away from the black Muslim party because he realized that they were misleading him by saying that segregation was the only way to go. In 1964 Malcolm X took a pilgrimage to Mecca, as every Muslim does in their life time. When he returned his racist beliefs towards whites had changed considerably. No longer was he against black and white integration, he now wanted the two races to be able to live together in ‘harmony’(Hampton 131).

Martin Luther King Jr. was raised in a middle-class family in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up with strong values and received a good education. At age 15, Martin Luther King Jr. attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was named class valedictorian. At age 18 he was ordained as a Baptist minister. In 1955 he was named president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the MIA was in charge of the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1957 King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC was an organization to challenge racial segregation. King organized peaceful demonstrations and was thrown in jail. In 1964 he received the Nobel Prize for peace. (Hampton 107).

The two men differed in their beliefs. King wanted gradual, peaceful change, integration of blacks into everyday society, and equality of all people. He was similar to Mohandas Gandhi in his quest for freedom, both urged followers to seek non-violent methods to achieve equal rights. Malcolm X was more of a radical. He wanted immediate action and immediate change. Malcolm X believed that conditions would change only through violent acts. He told followers to use any means necessary to stand up for their rights and what they believed in (Clark 39).

Both of the men had their differences, but they also shared some similarities. Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were powerful speakers and motivated listeners all over the world. Both men fought for justice and wanted to achieve the same goal, that goal was equality amongst all races.

Many different strategies were used to achieve the goals and aims during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1960 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized sit-ins, rallies, and freedom marches. These were meant to be peaceful events, however they often turned violent and the authorities often broke them up. “Patterning its techniques on the nonviolent methods of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, the movement spread across the nation, forcing the desegregation of department stores, su