In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school. In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. On Novemthe Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. Parks’ courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. Parks refused and was arrested.Īs word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement.” Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.
THE ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT MORRIS DRIVER
When a white man got on the bus and couldn’t find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks had complied.
On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with-to defend freedom and democracy in the world.Īs the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.īlack men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment.
Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. They were also discouraged from joining the military.Īfter thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren’t given the better paying jobs. Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants.
WATCH: The Civil Rights Movement on HISTORY Vault Jim Crow Laws They, along with many white Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people-they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States.
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