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significance of civil rights movement essay

Civil Rights Movement Essay

significance of civil rights movement essay

The Rise Of The Civil Rights Movement

segregations. Out of the numerous elements that arose in the 1960s, there are three movements that truly affected the American society. Firstly, the rise of the civil rights movement was greatly influenced by racial discrimination of colored people in the South. Secondly, the women’s movement aimed to convince the society that women are capable of achieving and maintaining higher waged job like males. Lastly, the gay rights movement aimed to gain acceptance and stop discrimination of homosexuality. The most

The Folk Music Of The Civil Rights Movement

Response Paper #4 The folk music of the Civil Rights Movement “came out of tradition, common experience, and generations of resistance” (Dunaway 2010: 140). The songs used throughout the movement derived from the shared experiences and struggles of African Americans while connecting “the gentle, idealistic world of folk music and the integrationist world of civil rights” (Dunaway 2010: 145). Songs, such as “We Shall Overcome”, were put through the folk process, where a song is passed on and alterations

The Civil Rights Movement And The Civil Rights Movement

out to guarantee the equal rights of citizens. It decrees, “No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property...nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Despite this written assertion of seeming equality for all citizens, various groups faced hardships and discrimination in the century following the Fourteenth Amendment's ratification. This amendment would continuously interpreted and reinterpreted as social movements cited it as cause for their

Voices Of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a horrible time for blacks in America during the Civil Rights period of time. During the Civil Rights period, segregation was forced toward the blacks’. In their powerful book of Civil Rights era testimony, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s, Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer including firsthand accounts describing the Freedom Riders. As Freedom Riders began to ride the busses the whites protested at the Montgomery

The Impact Of Protests And Social Movements In The Civil Rights Movement

Will protests and social movements be what they are today if media wasn’t such an influence? “Social movements are groups of individuals that focus on a certain situation that has specific political or social issues, that they wanted to change” ( McLeod, 2011). Social movements use the media to express concerns and provide evidence to communicate their points of concern and interest. Various blogs such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are primary sources that organizations use to advertise and

Social Movements : Black Civil Rights

Social movements are vital to the establishment of our societies, and they way we are governed. Social movements help the less privileged band together to create a stronger voice among a sea of political correctness and unlawfully rule that the public supposedly have to abide by without question. Movements create this new form of platform that, if done successfully, are able to create a worldwide frenzy where people from across all walks of life, including politicians, academics, the less fortunate

The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a time when minorities banded together to stand up for racial inequality. Many African Americans faced discrimination from white people, causing a series of protests throughout the country, including the Walk on Washington, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and other demonstrations to show the country of the injustices. During this time, the active voices that demanded to be heard came from a wide variety of people. The mixture of individuals that stood up, spoke and fought

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was a series of sit-ins, boycotts, freedom rides, and marches. They were all used as ways to peacefully protest the fight for freedom and equality for all. These events took place to try and stop the discrimination and racism of all people but especially people of color. A major leader and influencer of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement was Martin Luther King Jr., whom along with many others, participated in many of the peaceful protests and marches put together

The Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. changed history not only for African American’s, but for all who live in the United States. Martin was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child Martin attended many public segregated schools throughout Georgia until he graduated at the age of fifteen. Following high school, Martin Luther King Jr. attended many colleges such as, Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University. While studying

The Civil Rights Movement : The Key Events In The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement marked a very important period of time where groups of people worked to end discrimination and racial segregation against African Americans. The Civil Rights movement began on December 1st ,1955 when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery Alabama. Parks stated in an autobiography, “I had no idea that when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to segregation laws in the South

The Civil Rights Movement : A Timeline Of The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a pivotal time in American history, leading us toward the acceptance and advancement of African Americans in society, and eventually the same for other minority groups. The movement as a whole spanned from around the beginning of the 1950’s to around the beginning of the 1970’s. All across the nation, African American people fought for their rights through numerous protests and boycotts. Some notable events are the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and

Civil Disobedience In The Civil Rights Movement

United States' laws and morals through civil disobedience. Their courage in standing up to injustices of the society they were mired within fundamentally affected their community and country in the best possible way. Civil disobedience has been responsible for some of the most important steps forward in our nation's history, and will continue to be a positive force for change well into the future. The greatest example of this came during the Civil Rights movement. Beginning with Rosa Parks' gallant

The Civil Rights Movement Essay

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The Civil Rights Movement “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This was a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. Even one hundred years after slavery was banned, African Americans were still being treated unfairly. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most famous leaders of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. The Civil Rights movement was a movement of African

The American Civil Rights Movement

Has someone ever told you that you were not allowed to do something that others had the right to? Maybe it was your parents, your boss, the government, but you thought you had just enough right as anyone else did? Well, during the 1960’s not everyone had the same rights. During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans were fighting for equality. They didn’t want “separate but equal” they wanted full equality for their people. This caused many riots throughout the US. When we look at riots we

The Civil Rights Movement, also known as the American Civil Rights, was a mass movement during the 1950s and 1960s. It was one of the most intricate social movements of mankind. The Civil Rights Movement was a period where African Americans did not have the same equal rights or treatment as the whites. Instead, African Americans were segregated from whites by not going to school together, having to sit in the back of the bus, not being able to move freely, or not having the right to vote. Over the

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The Civil Rights Movement The 13th amendment, passed on the first of January, 1865 abolished slavery throughout America. Although African Americans were considered free after this amendment was approved, they still had a long and arduous struggle to absolute freedom. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was frequently used throughout many of the Southern and Border States. Schools, bathrooms, libraries, and even water fountains were segregated. Though there were some

The Importance Of The Civil Rights Movement

community. The one thing that did not leave and still is around was racism and hatred. This is where the Civil Rights movement became a change and a start for the freedom of the African American community. The Civil Rights movement was more than just a movement it was a revolution; it was a change, it was justice for the African American community. Many African Americans did not share same rights and privilege as the white-community had, African Americans did not get to drinking from the same water

Civil Rights Movement Expansion

Expansion of the Civil Rights Movement During the expansion of the civil rights movement, rising tensions and increased hostility led to unpleasant situations for racial groups. The civil rights movement was a time in history where African Americans tried to eliminate discriminatory practices. Thousands of people joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his nonviolent fight for equality for African Americans. Efforts by the Greensboro Four, students who sat in at an all-white lunch place waiting to be

Essay on The Civil Rights Movement

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African-American Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, the focus will be on the main activists involved in the movement such as Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks and the major campaigns of civil resistance. The Civil Rights Movement refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights in Southern states.African-Americans were able to gain the rights to issues such as equal access to public transportation, right to vote

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The civil right movement refers to the reform movement in the United States beginning in the 1954 to 1968 led primarily by Blacks for outlawing racial discrimination against African-Americans to prove the civil rights of personal Black citizen. For ten decades after the Emancipation Proclamation, African-Americans in Southern states still live a rigid unequal world of deprive right of citizenship, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. “Jim Crow” laws at the

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The Civil Rights Movement: a Struggle for Equality

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Racism, segregation, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, socioeconomic inequality

W.E.B. Du Bois, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Henry MacNeal Turner, John Oliver Killens

Civil rights movement was a struggle of African Americans and their like-minded allies for social justice in United States that came to national prominence during the mid-1950s. The purpose was to end legalized racial discrimination, disenfranchisement and racial segregation in the United States.

“Jim Crow” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century with a purpose to separate Black people from white people. Black people couldn’t use the same public facilities as white people or go to the same schools. Although, Jim Crow laws weren’t adopted in northern states, Black people still experienced discrimination.

Forms of protest and civil disobedience included boycotts, such as the most successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956) that lasted for 381 days in Alabama; mass marches, such as the Children's Crusade in Birmingham in 1963 and Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina and Nashville sit-ins (1960) in Tennessee.

The Great March on Washington was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr., who delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

On July 2, 1964, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history".

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally and Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room’s balcony on April 4, 1968.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. It prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, and national origin.

The 20th-century civil rights movement produced an enduring transformation of the legal status of African Americans and other victims of discrimination.

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The Importance Of The Civil Rights Movement History Essay

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Introductory Essay: Continuing the Heroic Struggle for Equality: The Civil Rights Movement

significance of civil rights movement essay

To what extent did Founding principles of liberty, equality, and justice become a reality for African Americans during the civil rights movement?

Essential Vocabulary

Continuing the heroic struggle for equality: the civil rights movement.

The struggle to make the promises of the Declaration of Independence a reality for Black Americans reached a climax after World War II. The activists of the civil rights movement directly confronted segregation and demanded equal civil rights at the local level with physical and moral courage and perseverance. They simultaneously pursued a national strategy of systematically filing lawsuits in federal courts, lobbying Congress, and pressuring presidents to change the laws. The civil rights movement encountered significant resistance, however, and suffered violence in the quest for equality.

During the middle of the twentieth century, several Black writers grappled with the central contradictions between the nation’s ideals and its realities, and the place of Black Americans in their country. Richard Wright explored a raw confrontation with racism in Native Son (1940), while Ralph Ellison led readers through a search for identity beyond a racialized category in his novel Invisible Man (1952), as part of the Black quest for identity. The novel also offered hope in the power of the sacred principles of the Founding documents. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun , first performed in 1959, about the dreams deferred for Black Americans and questions about assimilation. Novelist and essayist James Baldwin described Blacks’ estrangement from U.S. society and themselves while caught in a racial nightmare of injustice in The Fire Next Time (1963) and other works.

World War II wrought great changes in U.S. society. Black soldiers fought for a “double V for victory,” hoping to triumph over fascism abroad and racism at home. Many received a hostile reception, such as Medgar Evers who was blocked from voting at gunpoint by five armed whites. Blacks continued the Great Migration to southern and northern cities for wartime industrial work. After the war, in 1947, Jackie Robinson endured racial taunts on the field and segregation off it as he broke the color barrier in professional baseball and began a Hall of Fame career. The following year, President Harry Truman issued executive orders desegregating the military and banning discrimination in the civil service. Meanwhile, Thurgood Marshall and his legal team at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meticulously prepared legal challenges to discrimination, continuing a decades-long effort.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund brought lawsuits against segregated schools in different states that were consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , 1954. The Supreme Court unanimously decided that “separate but equal” was “inherently unequal.” Brown II followed a year after, as the court ordered that the integration of schools should be pursued “with all deliberate speed.” Throughout the South, angry whites responded with a campaign of “massive resistance” and refused to comply with the order, while many parents sent their children to all-white private schools. Middle-class whites who opposed integration joined local chapters of citizens’ councils and used propaganda, economic pressure, and even violence to achieve their ends.

A wave of violence and intimidation followed. In 1955, teenager Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was lynched after being falsely accused of whistling at a white woman. Though an all-white jury quickly acquitted the two men accused of killing him, Till’s murder was reported nationally and raised awareness of the injustices taking place in Mississippi.

In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks (who was a secretary of the Montgomery NAACP) was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus. Her willingness to confront segregation led to a direct-action movement for equality. The local Women’s Political Council organized the city’s Black residents into a boycott of the bus system, which was then led by the Montgomery Improvement Association. Black churches and ministers, including Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, provided a source of strength. Despite arrests, armed mobs, and church bombings, the boycott lasted until a federal court desegregated the city buses. In the wake of the boycott, the leading ministers formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) , which became a key civil rights organization.

significance of civil rights movement essay

Rosa Parks is shown here in 1955 with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the background. The Montgomery bus boycott was an important victory in the civil rights movement.

In 1957, nine Black families decided to send their children to Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to prevent their entry, and one student, Elizabeth Eckford, faced an angry crowd of whites alone and barely escaped. President Eisenhower was compelled to respond and sent in 1,200 paratroops from the 101st Airborne to protect the Black students. They continued to be harassed, but most finished the school year and integrated the school.

That year, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act that created a civil rights division in the Justice Department and provided minimal protections for the right to vote. The bill had been watered down because of an expected filibuster by southern senators, who had recently signed the Southern Manifesto, a document pledging their resistance to Supreme Court decisions such as Brown .

In 1960, four Black college students were refused lunch service at a local Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they spontaneously staged a “sit-in” the following day. Their resistance to the indignities of segregation was copied by thousands of others of young Blacks across the South, launching another wave of direct, nonviolent confrontation with segregation. Ella Baker invited several participants to a Raleigh conference where they formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and issued a Statement of Purpose. The group represented a more youthful and daring effort that later broke with King and his strategy of nonviolence.

In contrast, Malcolm X became a leading spokesperson for the Nation of Islam (NOI) who represented Black separatism as an alternative to integration, which he deemed an unworthy goal. He advocated revolutionary violence as a means of Black self-defense and rejected nonviolence. He later changed his views, breaking with the NOI and embracing a Black nationalism that had more common ground with King’s nonviolent views. Malcolm X had reached out to establish ties with other Black activists before being gunned down by assassins who were members of the NOI later in 1965.

In 1961, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) rode segregated buses in order to integrate interstate travel. These Black and white Freedom Riders traveled into the Deep South, where mobs beat them with bats and pipes in bus stations and firebombed their buses. A cautious Kennedy administration reluctantly intervened to protect the Freedom Riders with federal marshals, who were also victimized by violent white mobs.

significance of civil rights movement essay

Malcolm X was a charismatic speaker and gifted organizer. He argued that Black pride, identity, and independence were more important than integration with whites.

King was moved to act. He confronted segregation with the hope of exposing injustice and brutality against nonviolent protestors and arousing the conscience of the nation to achieve a just rule of law. The first planned civil rights campaign was initiated by SNCC and taken over mid-campaign by King and SCLC. It failed because Albany, Georgia’s Police Chief Laurie Pritchett studied King’s tactics and responded to the demonstrations with restraint. In 1963, King shifted the movement to Birmingham, Alabama, where Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor unleashed his officers to attack civil rights protestors with fire hoses and police dogs. Authorities arrested thousands, including many young people who joined the marches. King wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” after his own arrest and provided the moral justification for the movement to break unjust laws. National and international audiences were shocked by the violent images shown in newspapers and on the television news. President Kennedy addressed the nation and asked, “whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities . . . [If a Black person]cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?” The president then submitted a civil rights bill to Congress.

In late August 1963, more than 250,000 people joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in solidarity for equal rights. From the Lincoln Memorial steps, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. He stated, “I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

After Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, President Lyndon Johnson pushed his agenda through Congress. In the early summer of 1964, a 3-month filibuster by southern senators was finally defeated, and both houses passed the historical civil rights bill. President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, banning segregation in public accommodations.

Activists in the civil rights movement then focused on campaigns for the right to vote. During the summer of 1964, several civil rights organizations combined their efforts during the “ Freedom Summer ” to register Blacks to vote with the help of young white college students. They endured terror and intimidation as dozens of churches and homes were burned and workers were killed, including an incident in which Black advocate James Chaney and two white students, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Mississippi.

significance of civil rights movement essay

In August 1963, peaceful protesters gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to draw attention to the inequalities and indignities African Americans suffered 100 years after emancipation. Leaders of the march are shown in the image on the bottom, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the center.

That summer, Fannie Lou Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) as civil rights delegates to replace the rival white delegation opposed to civil rights at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Hamer was a veteran of attempts to register other Blacks to vote and endured severe beatings for her efforts. A proposed compromise of giving two seats to the MFDP satisfied neither those delegates nor the white delegation, which walked out. Cracks were opening up in the Democratic electoral coalition over civil rights, especially in the South.

significance of civil rights movement essay

Fannie Lou Hamer testified about the violence she and others endured when trying to register to vote at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Her televised testimony exposed the realities of continued violence against Blacks trying to exercise their constitutional rights.

In early 1965, the SCLC and SNCC joined forces to register voters in Selma and draw attention to the fight for Black suffrage. On March 7, marchers planned to walk peacefully from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. However, mounted state troopers and police blocked the Edmund Pettus Bridge and then rampaged through the marchers, indiscriminately beating them. SNCC leader John Lewis suffered a fractured skull, and 5 women were clubbed unconscious. Seventy people were hospitalized for injuries during “Bloody Sunday.” The scenes again shocked television viewers and newspaper readers.

significance of civil rights movement essay

The images of state troopers, local police, and local people brutally attacking peaceful protestors on “Bloody Sunday” shocked people across the country and world. Two weeks later, protestors of all ages and races continued the protest. By the time they reached the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, their ranks had swelled to about 25,000 people.

Two days later, King led a symbolic march to the bridge but then turned around. Many younger and more militant activists were alienated and felt that King had sold out to white authorities. The tension revealed the widening division between older civil rights advocates and those younger, more radical supporters who were frustrated at the slow pace of change and the routine violence inflicted upon peaceful protesters. Nevertheless, starting on March 21, with the help of a federal judge who refused Governor George Wallace’s request to ban the march, Blacks triumphantly walked to Montgomery. On August 6, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act protecting the rights to register and vote after a Senate filibuster ended and the bill passed Congress.

The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act did not alter the fact that most Black Americans still suffered racism, were denied equal economic opportunities, and lived in segregated neighborhoods. While King and other leaders did seek to raise their issues among northerners, frustrations often boiled over into urban riots during the mid-1960s. Police brutality and other racial incidents often triggered days of violence in which hundreds were injured or killed. There were mass arrests and widespread property damage from arson and looting in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago, and dozens of other cities. A presidential National Advisory Commission of Civil Disorders issued the Kerner Report, which analyzed the causes of urban unrest, noting the impact of racism on the inequalities and injustices suffered by Black Americans.

Frustration among young Black Americans led to the rise of a more militant strain of advocacy. In 1966, activist James Meredith was on a solo march in Mississippi to raise awareness about Black voter registration when he was shot and wounded. Though Meredith recovered, this event typified the violence that led some young Black Americans to espouse a more military strain of advocacy. On June 16, SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael and members of the Black Panther Party continued Meredith’s march while he recovered from his wounds, chanting, “We want Black Power .” Black Power leaders and members of the Black Panther Party offered a different vision for equality and justice. They advocated self-reliance and self-empowerment, a celebration of Black culture, and armed self-defense. They used aggressive rhetoric to project a more radical strategy for racial progress, including sympathy for revolutionary socialism and rejection of capitalism. While its legacy is debated, the Black Power movement raised many important questions about the place of Black Americans in the United States, beyond the civil rights movement.

After World War II, Black Americans confronted the iniquities and indignities of segregation to end almost a century of Jim Crow. Undeterred, they turned the public’s eyes to the injustice they faced and called on the country to live up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and to continue the fight against inequality and discrimination.

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Impact of Civil Rights Movement Essay

Introduction, the impact of the civil rights movement, works cited.

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More than five decades have passed since the monumental occurrences of the Watershed Civil Rights Movement (CRM) of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. This period was marked with events that challenged racial prejudice against African-Americans before and after the start of the twentieth century. The Black Americans agitated against inequality, oppressive laws and racial segregation that was rampant across the United States.

Martin Luther King, among other personalities, organized mass protests and gave major speeches calling for allowing African American equal access to basic rights and privileges. These events culminated in the constitutional and legislative changes that guarantee equal rights and access to privileges to all Americans, regardless of skin color or race. While equal rights for all were fought for during the civil rights movement, its impact on the Black American community still remains debatable.

The African-Americans were at the center of the civil rights movements in the US. Their struggle for their rights culminated into the legislation that helped them gain social, economic, and political equality in the American society. The fight for political rights was one of the most critical platforms for the mass movement in the 1950s and 1960s (D’Angelo 533).

In the 1870s, the American constitutional amendments granted the right to vote to all Americans irrespective of gender, color, and race. This amendment did not ensure that minority groups could vote since many states especially in the south, adopted different techniques to block the Black Americans from exercising their political and constitutional rights.

The freedom to vote for all Americans became central in the civil rights movements, and one of its successes was the legislation that culminated in the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It prohibited discrimination along race, color, and language lines. The Act and its subsequent amendments also provide other jurisdictions that protect voting and political rights of minority groups in the United States (D’Angelo 537).

The major impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was a product of the modern civil right movement, is the dismantling of the obstacles that Black Americans encountered in exercising their constitutional right for voting. Its first achievement was that Black Americans enjoyed the possibility to be registered as voters in the country. Secondly, the Black Americans participated freely in elections. The number of registered Black American voters has increased over the years.

Furthermore, the Voting Rights Act encouraged political participation of Black Americans. The number of the Black candidates who contest for political seats in the country has significantly increased over the years. The number of African American representatives in cities and towns across the country has also grown.

The unprecedented elections of President Barrack Obama as the first Black American to hold the oval office in 2008, and his re-election in 2012, underscore the impact and the significance of the civil rights movements for African Americans. It is important to note that the political representation and participation of the Black people has greatly increased since 1965, when the Voting Rights Acts was enacted.

Education was also an important issue at the center of civil rights movements in the United States (D’Angelo 225). The Black Americans used the civil rights movement to fight for the right to a decent and equal access to education. Before and after the establishment of the Civil Rights Movement, a wide-scale of educational segregation along racial lines existed (D’Angelo 225). There were strictly White and Black learning institutions.

The access to certain schools was denied to the African Americans. The White schools had better facilities and could only admit the students of the European origin. At the same time, the Black tutors could not be allowed in the White institutions. The Black students also could not share buses with the White students.

The landmark Supreme Court ruling in “Brown v. Board of Education” outlawed education racial segregation (D’Angelo 230). This ruling established the precedence for the removal of barriers that prevented the African Americans from getting equal rights to education as the Whites.

The court ruling allowed the Black Americans to access public schools. Furthermore, it helped the African Americans access learning institutions with good facilities and gain admission to higher level colleges, which they were previously prohibited from attending.

However, it is critical to acknowledge that this had a limited impact on education segregation of the Black Americans (Rothstein 2). The segregation against the African Americans still exists today in different forms because it is still strongly embedded in the education structure of the country. Most of the schools that Black American students attend today are still economically and socially isolated.

This denies the children from the African American families’ access to quality education as compared to the Whites who are empowered economically. In addition, socio-economic hard-ships such as inadequate housing, unemployment, and discriminative criminal justice systems limit the children and youth in terms of education opportunities (Rothstein 2).

Finally, racial imbalances that existed between various districts as a result of the educational system factors contributed to the persistent racial separation in the sector (Rothstein par. 3).

One of the most successful features of the civil rights movement was the demand for economic justice (Wright par. 3). It is important to note that the movement was anchored on the demands of the Black Americans right to equal treatment on an economic dimension.

The Africans were constantly denied getting decent jobs (Wright par. 4). They were also restricted from accessing high-paying and skilled work. Through the boycotts of business organizations that declined to employ the Blacks in the South for several years, a federal legislation was enacted in 1964. It outlawed employment discrimination.

Following the enactment of the federal legislation, more Black workers were employed in the south by 1970. The number of the hired Blacks increased tremendously after the 1970s. However, it is important to note that the population of the Blacks has also raised significantly since then. According to Austin (3), the percentage of unemployed Blacks in the United States is twice that of the Whites (Austin 3).

Mishel (13) points out that the rate of unemployment within the Black Americans who complete high schools was 8 per cent compared to 4.5 per cent of the Whites (Mishel 13). In addition to these, the Black people still receive low wages as compared to the White people. This is confirmed by the minimum wages that have been extended to occupations predominantly done by the Blacks (Rothstein 2). The opportunities of employment for the Black people have been limited over the years.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s had a profound effect on the history of the American society. It culminated in the landmark legislation that guaranteed equal rights and privileges for races and colors. Its impact on the Black Americans is still debated today. Even if the Black people are enjoying various rights and freedoms today, the effect of the movement has been limited.

The political representation can only be viewed in the areas where the movement has had a significant influence within the country, which is now being ruled by the first African American President. Currently, most colored individuals are enjoying voting rights and representation in the state governments. However, they have gained less in terms of economics because the rate of unemployment within the Black community is significantly high.

Austin, Algernon. “ The Unfinished March: An Overview ”. Economic Policy Institute 2013 Report , 2013. Web.

D’Angelo, Raymond N. The American Civil Rights Movement: Readings & Interpretations. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2001. Print.

Mishel, Lawrence, Josh Bivens, Elise Gould, and Heidi Shierholz. The State of Working America . 12 th Edition. Ithaca, New York: An Economic Policy Institute book, 2012. Print.

Rothstein, Richard. “ For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since ”. Economic Policy institute , 2013. Web.

Wright, Gavin. “The Stunning Economic Impact of the Civil Rights Movement”. Bloomberg, 2013. Web.

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