Rights Movement Essay, Research Paper
One Person’s Belief: The Story of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement
“My feets is weary, but my soul is rested.” This quote summarizes how Rosa Parks felt after her victory for the advancement of African Americans in society. Rosa Parks’ simple act of protest galvanized America’s civil rights revolution. Mrs. Parks is best known for her refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
The civil rights movement originates back to the Reconstruction Era of 1865 to the 1890’s. It had its roots in the Constitutional Amendments enacted during this period. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment expanded the guarantees of federally-protected citizenship rights, and the Fifteenth Amendment barred voting restrictions based on race. Reconstruction radically altered social, political, and economic relationships of blacks in the South and in the nation. Former slaves participated in civic and political life throughout the South and for the first time in the South, a system of universal free public education was available.
The blacks’ new vision of citizenry competed with the Democratic Party’s politics of “redemption,” which promised the restoration of white superiority and “home rule” for Southern states. As Democrats regained control of state governments throughout the South, the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante groups sought to drive blacks from political life through a relentless campaign of fraud and violence. A combination of municipal ordinances and local and state laws mandating racial segregation ultimately permeated all spheres of public life. The Supreme Court, in rulings such as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), upheld the South’s “new order,” which essentially nullified the constitutional amendments enacted during Reconstruction.
By the dawn of the new century, government and politics had become, as one historian observed, “inaccessible and unaccountable to Americans who happened to be black.” During the age of Jim Crow, black rallies were a part of everyday life. While the rudiments of citizenship expired, black protest against new laws segregating streetcars spontaneously erupted in locally organized boycotts in at least 25 Southern cities from 1900 to 1906. Some boycotts lasted as long as two years, but these protests failed to stem the tide of segregation. Meanwhile, lynching and other forms of antiblack violence and terrorism reinforced legal structures of white domination.
Black leaders and intellectuals continued to debate a broad range of political strategies. There was, for example, the accommodationism and self-help advancement by Booker T. Washington and others, the civil rights protests advocated by Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois, and the nationalist and emigration movements promoted by leaders such as Henry McNeal Turner. These overlapping and sometimes contradictory approaches revealed the tensions and challenges inherent in what often was a daunting effort: how to build and sustain black communities amid the crushing environment of white racism while envisioning a way forward.
During this period of white racism, many groups were formed to help and protect African Americans such as the NAACP. During the war years, NAACP membership soared to nearly 400,000 nationally, and the rate of growth in the South surpassed that in all other regions. Having reported 18,000 members in the late 1930s, the NAACP claimed 156,000 members in the South by the war’s end. In the years to come the NAACP will prove to be quite successful and help lead many boycotts which will eventually lead to the end of segregation.
During the 1950s the struggle against Jim Crow in the South remained distant from national issues and concerns. Meanwhile, whites responded to the steady migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities by extending patterns of racial segregation and black exclusion in housing, employment, and education.
The foundation of the Civil Rights Movement remained anchored in the cumulative gains of the NAACP legal campaign and its extensive network of branches. Southern NAACP leaders, however, faced a broad defense of the racial status. In 1951 the Christmas Day assassination of Harry T. Moore, a leading NAACP organizer in Florida, and his wife inaugurated a decade of white terrorism and state-sponsored repression that heightened in the aftermath of the Brown decision.
On December 1,1955, Rosa Parks, a local NAACP leader in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to surrender her seat on a city bus to a white man. This action, and the mobilizing work of the Women’s Political Council, sparked a boycott of Montgomery buses that lasted for 381 days. Local black leaders elected Martin Luther King Jr., the new 26-year-old minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as head of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), the organization that led the boycott and sued to end segregation on the buses. Hundreds of African Americans, mostly women, walked several miles to and from work each day; as one woman commented, “My feet is tired, but my soul is rested.” This dignified protest contrasted with the city’s efforts to intimidate the MIA leadership through indictments, injunction, and the bombing of King’s house, and it attracted the attention of the national and international media.
Many people believe Rosa Parks’ decision to stay seated on the bus did not officially start the civil rights movement but perhaps it occurred in 1949 when a black professor Jo Ann Robinson absentmindedly sat at the front of a nearly empty bus, then ran off in tears when the bus driver screamed at her for doing so. Or maybe it started in the early 1950s when a black pastor named Vernon Johns tried to get other blacks to leave a bus in protest after he was forced to give up his seat to a white man, only to have them tell him, “You ought to knowed better.”
The story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is often told as a simple, happy tale of the “little people” triumphing over the seemingly insurmountable forces of evil. The truth is a little less romantic and a little more complex.
The simple version of the story leaves out some very important people, such as Jo Ann Robinson, of whom Martin Luther King, Jr., would later write, “Apparently indefatigable, she, perhaps more than any other person, was active on every level of the protest.” She was an educated woman, a professor at the all-black Alabama State College, and a member of the Women’s Political Council in Montgomery. After her traumatic experience on the bus in 1949, she tried to start a protest but was shocked when other Women’s Political Council members brushed off the incident as “a fact of life in Montgomery.” After the Supreme Court’s Brown’s decision in 1954, she wrote a letter to the mayor of Montgomery, W.A. Gayle, saying that “there has been talk from 25 or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses.” By 1955, the Women’s Political Council had plans for just such a boycott. Community leaders were just waiting for the right person to be arrested, a person who would anger the black community into action, who would agree to test the segregation laws in court, and who, most importantly, was “above reproach.” When fifteen year old Claudette Colvin was arrested early in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat, E.D. Nixon of the NAACP thought he had found the perfect person, but Colvin turned out to be pregnant. Nixon later explained, “I had to be sure that I had somebody I could win with.” Enter Rosa Parks.
On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a city bus and sat with three other blacks in the fifth row, the first row that blacks could occupy. A few stops later, the front four rows were filled with whites, and one white man was left standing. According to law, blacks and whites could not occupy the same row, so the bus driver asked all four of the blacks seated in the fifth row to move. Three complied, but Parks refused. She was arrested.
When E.D. Nixon heard that Parks had been arrested, he called the police to find out why. He was told that it was “none of your damn business.” He asked Clifford Durr, a sympathetic white lawyer, to call. Durr easily found out that Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. Nixon went to the jail and posted bond for Parks. Then he told her, “Mrs. Parks, with your permission we can break down segregation on the bus with your case.” She talked it over with her husband and her mother, then agreed.
That night, Jo Ann Robinson put plans for a one-day boycott into action. She mimeographed handouts urging blacks to stay off the city buses on Monday, when Parks’ case was due to come up. She and her students distributed the anonymous fliers throughout Montgomery on Friday morning. That evening, a group of ministers and civil rights leaders had a meeting to discuss the boycott. It did not go well. Many ministers were put off by the way Rev. L. Roy Bennett took control of the meeting. Some left and others were about to leave.
When the boycott began, no one expected it to last for very long. There had been boycotts of buses by blacks before, most recently in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1953. On Thursday, December 8, the fourth day of the boycott, King and other MIA officials met with officials and lawyers from the bus company, as well as the city commissioners, to present a moderate desegregation plan similar to the one already implemented in Baton Rouge and other Southern cities, including Mobile, Alabama. The MIA was hopeful that the plan would be accepted and the boycott would end, but the bus company refused to consider it. In addition, city officials struck a blow to the boycott when they announced that any cab driver charging less than the 45 cent minimum fare would be prosecuted. Since the boycott began, the black cab services had been charging blacks only 10 cents to ride, the same as the bus fare, but this service would be no more. Suddenly the MIA was faced with the prospect of having thousands of blacks with no way to get to work, and with no end to the boycott in sight.
Whites tried to end the boycott in every way possible. One often-used method was to try to divide the black community. On January 21, 1956, the City Commission met with three non- MIA black ministers and proposed a “compromise,” which was basically the system already in effect. The ministers accepted, and the commission leaked (false) reports to a newspaper that the boycott was over.
Despite all the pressures to end the boycott, blacks continued to stay off the buses. One white bus driver stopped to let off a lone black man in a black neighborhood. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw an old black woman with a cane rushing towards the bus. He opened the door and said, “You don’t have to rush auntie. I’ll wait for you.” The woman replied, “In the first place, I ain’t your auntie. In the second place, I ain’t rushing to get on your bus. I’m jus’ trying to catch up with that nigger who just got off, so I can hit him with this here stick.”
On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal court’s ruling, declaring segregation on buses unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was officially over. Blacks returned to the buses on December 21, 1956, over a year after the boycott began, but their troubles would continue long after the boycott ended.
It is said that everything that happens, happens for a reason. It was in Rosa Parks’ destiny to ride that particular bus that day and stand up for what she believed in. She did not know what effects it would have on society, she just simply did what she felt was right. Rosa Parks’ simple decision to remain seated on the bus eventually led to the disintegration of institutionalized segregation in the South, ushering in a new era of the civil rights movement.
Bibliography
i dont have a bib
Другие работы по теме:
Civil Liberties Essay Research Paper Civil LibertiesThe
Civil Liberties Essay, Research Paper Civil Liberties The term civil liberties refers to the “freedoms that individuals enjoy and that governments cannot invade”. These rights include a persons freedom of speech and religion.
Civil Rights Essay Research Paper The Bloody
Civil Rights Essay, Research Paper The Bloody Civil Rights It all began in 1875 when the beginning of Civil Rights in American Society began to take place. With the end of the Cold war, came the question of inequality. Who had the right to run the country? Who made the rules? Who enforced equality and the right of all people?
In The Name Of The Father Essay
, Research Paper In the Name of the father Too what extent, if any, do repugnant acts of terrorism justify restrictions on civil liberties as counter measures to terrorism?
Civil Rights Essay Research Paper If it
Civil Rights Essay, Research Paper If it weren t for the past, where would we be today? If it wasn t for the trials and tribulations of are ancestors would we have our freedom? These questions could be answered with a simple yes or no, but the eyes of most people it means hope, hope for a life of equal opportunities as any other race.
Reform In The Spirit Of Conser Essay
, Research Paper Reform in the Spirit of Conservation The creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Civil Works Administration revolutionized the U.S. federal government by redefining its roles in the lives of its citizens. Prior to the Great Depression and Franklin D. Roosevelt s resulting New Deal, the federal government had taken no responsibility in the employment or welfare of U.S. citizens.
Legends Of Heroes Essay Research Paper
“Legends Of Heroes” You always hear about the people who do wrong, hurt others, take advantage, rob and steal. But they are the minority. There are people considered heroes who are everyday real people who step up to the challenge and help others when they’re needed. You also always hear or once heard stories that contain a hero called legends.
Black Civil Rights Essay Research Paper More
Black Civil Rights Essay, Research Paper More than a hundred years ago the Europeans brought slaves to North America. The blacks found themselves in the midst of prejudice whites with no way out.
Birth Of A Nation Essay Research Paper
How the South was portrayed and why the Civil War was a tragedy There are two sides told in every story. In D.L. Griffin s Birth of a Nation the story is told through the eyes of two families, the Camerons who are from the south and the Stoneman s who reside in the north. The notion of this film was pro-south during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period and was such a tragedy because war isn t a glorious.
Eyes On The Prize Essay Research Paper
This week, we saw the documentary Eyes on the Prize: Volume 1 . There was two parts to the documentary: Awakenings, and Fighting Back. In 1955-1956, there was a boycott of public transportation in effect because of the segregation. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested by Montgomery police for violating a local segregation ordinance by refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man.
Nikki Giovanni Essay Research Paper Nikki Yolande
Nikki Giovanni Essay, Research Paper Nikki (Yolande Cornelia) Giovanni has made an enormous impact on African American literature. She uses her own experiences to write wonderful poetry. In the poem “Nikki-Rosa,” Nikki Giovanni writes the opposite about her growing up in her family.
Alexander Crummel Unsung Hero Essay Research Paper
Alexander Crummel:unsung hero As we look back on the history of African-Americans we all can recall the names of Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Also in our history are the unsung heroes that don t get talked about much. That s why I decided to take a moment to look back at
The Shawl Essay Research Paper The ShawlThe
The Shawl Essay, Research Paper The Shawl The plot of this story does not adhere to the conventional plot line. I feel that the Shawl’s plot came to early. Magda dies to early in the novel. I would have wanted her to be living just a little while longer so that we can build some sort of relationship with her. In my opinion, all we know of this fifteen-month-old baby is what Rosa tells of her daughter.
How Racial Situation Has Changed Essay Research
Paper The racial situation in America had changed since Richard Wright’s time. Although, racism will always be around it has greatly improved. Through education and voice many people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks contributed to the improvement. They are the ones that help make a difference.
Segregation Essay Research Paper Segregation was a
Segregation Essay, Research Paper Segregation was a very controversial topic among both blacks, and whites. There was segregation in schools, transportation, and in voting. Segregation, what was it like? When a black man walked into a restaurant and was refused services just because of the color of his skin.
The Revolt Of Mother The Power Of
Decision Essay, Research Paper The Revolt of Mother: The Power of Decision Decisions shape our lives. In history , the decisions of leaders and generals have changed the course of mankind. In today’s world , multi-billion
Bios On Civil Rights Leaders Essay Research
Paper Bios of Important Civil-Rights Activists Martin Luther King Jr. He was born on January 15, 1929 at a family home in Atlanta Georgia. King’s grandfather was a Baptist preacher. His father was pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. King earned his own Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozier Theological Seminary in 1951, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Boston University in 1955.
Civil Disobedience Essay Research Paper Thoreau was
Civil Disobedience Essay, Research Paper Thoreau was once sent to jail for refusing to pay his taxes and I support this episode of civil disobedience as justified. Thoreau did not pay his taxes because he objected the use of the revenue to finance the Mexican War and enforcement of slavery laws. He did not request for his money to be used for the enforcement of slavery laws, therefore felt he had the right to protest and act out civil disobedience.
Rosa Parks Essay Research Paper On December
Rosa Parks Essay, Research Paper On December l, 1955, Rosa Parks got on the bus because she was feeling tired after a long day at work. She was sitting in the middle of the bus, which she wasn’t allowed to do. After a while a white man got on the bus and told her that her and some other people to get up because the white part of the bus was full.
Chivalric Heroism Essay Research Paper Rosa Parks
Chivalric Heroism Essay, Research Paper Rosa Parks: Angry Bus Rider Rosa Parks was tired. She’d just spent all day sewing and pressing clothes at the Montgomery, Alabama, department store, where she was a tailor’s assistant. Her feet, neck and shoulders ached as she arrived at her bus stop to go home. The thought of standing during the ride did not sit well with her, so she let one crowded bus go by.
Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay Research Paper During
Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay, Research Paper During the first half of the twentieth century segregation was the way of life in the south. It was an excepted, and even though it was morally wrong, it still went on as if there was nothing wrong at all. African-Americans were treated as if they were a somehow sub-human, they were treated because of the color of their skin that somehow, someway they were different.
The Civil Rights In The 1950
’s And 60’s Essay, Research Paper (1) Trumans civil rights committee: In 1947 Trumans Civil Rights Committee recommended laws protecting the right of African Americans to vote and banning segregation on railroads and buses. It also called for a federal law punishing lynching. He issued executive orders ending segregation in the armed forces and prohibiting job discrimination in all government agencies.(2) Brown V. the Board of Education (1954): In 1954 the Supreme Court made one of the most important decisions in its long history.
Civil Rights Movement Essay Research Paper The
Civil Rights Movement Essay, Research Paper The civil rights movement was a time when a people who where opressed for many years, rose up against the odds and achieved their freedom. An admirable aspect of the civil rights movement was the unachieveable victory that the african americans sought after and made.
Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay Research Paper Montgomery
Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay, Research Paper Montgomery Bus Boycott One of the events that caught my attention from Eyes on the Prize was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Montgomery Bus Boycott gave me a clearer aspect of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. If it were not for this movement there would be a lack of freedom to this day.
The Black Civil Rights Movement Essay Research
Paper The Black Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s was a political, legal and social struggle of the black americans to gain full citizenship rights and to achieve racial equality. The black struggle for Civil Rights was very hard. No group in America has or has had more difficulty assimmilating into the American Culture.
American Black Civil Rights In The 1960
′S Essay, Research Paper American black civil rights The 1960’s were a time of great turmoil in America and throughout the world. One of the main protest issues was black civil rights.
Rosa Parks Essay Research Paper Rosa ParksRosa
Rosa Parks Essay, Research Paper Rosa Parks Rosa Parks is an extraordinary person because she stood up against racism and stood up for herself. It was even harder for her because she is a woman, and in
Women Who Changed The World Rosa Parks
Essay, Research Paper Women Who Changed the World: Rosa Parks There were many women who have changed the world in the fields of math, science, sports, music, writing and leadership. Rosa Parks was a leader to help
Rosa Parks Life And Times Essay Research
Paper Thesis Statement- Rosa Parks, through protest and public support, has become the mother of the civil rights changing segregation laws forever. Life – Rosa Parks was born only a month before world war one started in Europe on February 4, 1913. Parks mother worked as a school teacher in Tuskegee, Alabama.
The Life Of Rosa Parks Essay Research
Paper Rosa Parks is famous for a lot of things. But, she is best known for her civil rights action. This happen in December 1,1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus system. She refused to give up her sit to a white passenger on the bus. She was arrested for violating a law that whites and blacks sit in separate sit in separate rows.
Who Is Rosa Parks Essay Research Paper
Who is Rosa Parks? Rosa Parks is someone who grew up believing people should be judged by the respect they have for themselves and others. (Le Blanc, 190) Rosa Parks is mostly known for standing up for herself and for other all other African Americans when she refused to go to the back of the bus to give up her seat for a white man. (Le Blanc, 190) When Rosa took a stand, she didn?t do it to make her name go down in history.
Rosa Essay Research Paper Miss Catherine oh
Rosa Essay, Research Paper ?Miss Catherine, oh, Miss Catherine, I love this one. It?s definitely my favorite of all your lovely dresses,? Rosa said. Rosa was very pretty really. She stood dressed in Catherine?s white traveling wear. The dress
Martin Luther King And Mass Media Essay
, Research Paper Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Mass Media Martin Luther King Jr. was a very significant and influential man. Though his life was cut short at 39 years old, he left a big mark on today’s society. From the Prayer Pilgrimage of May 17, 1957, an event and a date that marked King’s entr?e into the field of national Negro leadership to the unforgettable March on Washington. (Bennett 10) King was determined to reach his goal, which was to have blacks and whiter united and treated equally.
Rosa Lee Parks Essay Research Paper Rosa
Rosa Lee Parks Essay, Research Paper Rosa Lee Parks This month I nominate Rosa Parks into the Justice Hall of Fame. She was a black civil rights advocate. She was born on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala., and is still alive today. Parks briefly attended Alabama State Teacher College, which is now known as Alabama State University.
Rosa Parks Essay Research Paper Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks Essay, Research Paper Rosa Parks protest stimulated a growing movement to desegregate public transportation and marked a historic turning point in the African American battle for civil rightsAt the end of the reconstruction era, African Americans were considered second-class citizens both economically and politically.