Civil Rights Movement

6 Pages 1505 Words

The Civil Rights
Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was a very important point in the history of the United States. The self-proclaimed, “Land of the free” promoted the segregation and mistreatment of the colored people of American whether they be Black, Asian or Hispanic. The Civil Rights Movement was aimed at gaining equality for the Blacks but it came with the added bonus of gaining rights for the other races as well. During this period the eyes of whites and others were opened and started to change the errors in their way. Though the majority might have changed there was still those who believed that all other races were inferior to the White race and treated them poorly and some times just brutally.

Thurgood Marshall was the director of legal defense and the educational fund for the N.A.A.C.P., a lawyer,
Federal Judge, solicitor general and the first African-American Supreme Court Justice in America. He was also one of the best (if not the best) known black Lawyers in the United States. He played a major role in the civil right movement by winning many cases that led to more rights or improved rights for the black race. As Director of Legal Defense, Marshall fought in the majority of the civil rights cases. The most famous of these cases would be the “Brown vs. Board of Education” (1954) which resulted in the “beginning” of the end of segregation in schools and public areas. It was people like Thurgood Marshall that fought for the rights of colored people in the courts.

At the age of 26 Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. became the unofficial leader of the civil rights movement in America. His leadership and efforts for racial equality eventually earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. King’s first taste of the civil rights movement came when Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott when she refused to give her seat up to a white man and was arrested for doing so. With Television being a common...