The Civil Rights Movement

The events of World War II largely set the platform for the Civil Rights movement. Demands for soldiers to fight opened up job opportunities at home, and nearly a million African Americans served in the armed forces. This demand for soldiers forced the army to end previous discriminatory policies that kept African Americans from serving in fighting units, and the returning soldiers were determined to fight for their own freedom after defeating facist regimes across the globe. The legal battles of the desegregation campaign were led by the NAACP, which in turn was led by lawyer Thurgood Marshall. In 1938 he structured a team of his best law students and his team won 29 out of 32 cases they argued in front of the Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a milestone win, ending with the Supreme Court striking down segregation in schools as an unconstitutional violation of the 14^th Amendment.

Eighteen months later, in December 1955, Rosa Parks, a NAACP officer, stood up for herself by refusing to give up her seat on a bus which ended with her getting arrested. In response, leaders of the African American community formed a Montgomery bus boycott, and elected the 26 year old Martin Luther King to lead the campaign. King called his brand of non-violent resistance “soul force” and based it on the teachings of Philip Randolph, Henry David Thoreau, Ghandi and Jesus.

After the Montgomery bus boycott success, King founded the South Christian Leadership Conference to carry out non-violent crusades against injustice. They staged protests and demonstrations through out the South, and more committees formed on their own. These included Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). These committees organized the first sit-ins, and through their efforts the dream of racial equality was finally becoming a reality.

By Matt M. and Paris B.