Civil Rights of the 1960s essays

Civil Rights of the 1960s essays During the 1960s many civil rights movement swung into full gear. Many civil rights activists started to meet and discuss future strategies for civil rights protest. Many activists also started to form groups to help fight against racial discrimination and segregation. Many of these groups chose to use nonviolent resistance in their protests like sit-ins. In 1960 some 50,000 students, both African American and white, were involved in sit-in protests. The leaders of these sit-ins later founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or the SNCC. The students in these protests were tested by white students. Onlookers taunted the demonstrators and dumped food and drinks on them. When the white mob became physical the local authorities gave little assistance. Despite such thing the students were still committed and the tactics proved to be effective. The success of the student sit-ins help to start the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In December 1960 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in bus stations was illegal. The CORE leaders planned to send Freedom Riders on bus trips through the South. By doing this they hoped to draw attention to violations of the Supreme Court ruling. When the Freedom riders entered the South violence erupted in Alabama. A mob firebombed one of the buses and on another a man was beaten so bad that he suffered brain damage. The police sent no officers to aid the Freedom Riders. Finally, President John F. Kennedy sent federal marshals to protect the riders. By early 1963 President Kennedy was able to claim that in the past year, segregation in interstate commerce had ceased to exist. The Freedom Riders courage and commitment to nonviolence helped advance their efforts to end racial segregation but, it remained in many areas of southern life like schools and other public areas. In 1962 the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, obtained ...