Civil Rights Essay

The Civil Rights era was the period in time when African Americans were trying to make
it so that they had the same rights as whites. There were many different strategies for this
whether it was with violence or peace. This was to overcome all the racial discrimination that
was happening everywhere in America.

There were many injustices that blacks faced at the time that they were fighting against with
Civil Rights. One of these was segregation. There were separate schools, water fountains, train
terminals, and everything else for blacks and whites. This was able to happen because of the
Supreme Courts separate but equal opinion saying that segregation was fine if everything was
equal quality for everybody, they werent. One of the worst was schools. Georgias state
government paid $190 per white student and $132 per black student. The black schools were
also small buildings with no heat, water, or plumbing. Segregation wasnt the only problem.
There was only jobs and salaries. Blacks were denied many jobs and were often paid less than a
white worker doing the exact same thing. Blacks also couldnt really vote either. They
technically had a right to but there were literary tests they had to go through to vote as well as
there would be threats preventing them from voting.
There were many ways to accomplish the goals that they wanted. The way that everyone
remembers them doing it was nonviolence. Everyone remembers this strategy mainly because it
was the strategy that had the most success. This includes the strategies of protests, sit-ins,
boycotts and marches. These strategies are famous because they were the strategies that Martin
Luther King Jr. used when he fought for Civil Rights. The crowds of people he had fight for
Civil Rights made sure to not get out of control no matter what the police and other onlookers
did to try to drive them off. This included having fire hoses fired at them, being hit with batons,

Civil Rights Essay

and being attacked with batons and being attacked by dogs. Only one of his many marches got
out of control. Nonviolent strategies were able to get the support of many people in America
because these marches were often shown on the news and people saw people just walking along
and getting attacked by police with hoses and batons. This was a very good strategy to get the
rights they wanted.
Not everyone wanted to get Civil Rights this way though. Some of them tried to get Civil
Rights using more aggressive ways. They would have riots and destroy property and try to force
Civil Rights to everyone. Some of them did this because they thought that the peaceful way was
taking too long and others were doing it because they decided that racial equality would never
happened and that there should be black power where they are the top. These riots did not
actually help the Civil Rights Movement, they actually made it worse with more police watching,
businesses staying away, and not winning the support of whites to make it happen. Many rights
happened leaving many people injured and jailed as well as many things destroyed.
Georgia was one of the states that had many events before and during the Civil Rights
Movement that had to do with all this. Many of the laws passed that said that segregation was
illegal were denied being put into law in Georgia by the state government or were just ignored.
Another event that happened was when Martin Luther King Jr. and many others tried to
desegregate the whole city of Albany. They werent able to do this but they were able to
integrate multiple areas. Savannah, Brunswick, Macon, and Rome all had desegregated public
and private facilities because of the anxious city governments giving in to threats that there will
be larger protests if they do not go ahead and integrate.
It wasnt just one or two people that did everything for Civil Rights. There were many
people that helped to get it and Julian Bond was one of them. Julian Bond was born in

Civil Rights Essay

Nashville, Tennessee on January 14, 1940. He helped co-found the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was also the communications director and led student
protests against segregation and Jim Crow Laws. He was the president of the Southern Law
Poverty Center (SPLC) from 1971-1979. He was elected to Georgias House of Representatives
in 1965 and was originally denied his seat in office because of him openly opposing the U.S
involvement in the Vietnam War but was eventually brought back when the Supreme Court said
that they were denying his Constitutional right of freedom of speech. He was also in Georgias
Senate from 1975-1987. He then became a chairman of the NAACP from 1998-2009.
Many of these problems were solved but some of them are still problems today.
Segregation is illegal anywhere in America now as well as Jim Crow Laws and any other type of
racial discrimination. All of the unlawful racism is gone but there is still some in the country that
the government cant do anything about. It also helped all the other minorities in the world
because the laws helped as well as it taught them that a lot of hard work and perseverance can
get you through anything.
This was a major event in American history that finally proved that America was a
liberator country. It was originally hard to believe it as one when there was racial discrimination.
This was able to end and show that if many people work together and work as hard as they can
then they will get what they need. People act like it was King that did everything when it was
actually many people working together to make the world right.

Civil Rights Essay

"Civil Rights Movement." New Georgia Encyclopedia. N.P., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Civil Rights Movement: "Black Power" Era Summary &
Analysis." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2015
"Julian Bond." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.