The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement in its c
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The Civil Rights Movement in its contemporary form started in 1955 with an act of mild disobedience by a black woman on a bus in the Deep South. Black leaders developed several strategies over the next few years, strategies that would be successful in changing laws and in getting some of the long-standing discriminatory institutions of the South changed. Between 1954 and 1965, the Civil Rights Movement developed into a major movement for social justice, societal change, and self-determination for millions of black Americans. The tactics undertaken by the movement have ranged from violent to non-violent, with non-violent predominating under the direction of Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers. The movement started first around the busing issue in Montgomery, Alabama, but it was also the culmination of decades of frustration nearly a century after the slave era and after a long history of continuing discrimination and ill-treatment. Black leaders did not care to wait for white hearts to change, so they set out to change them with a program of peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, and similar actions. King developed from a local preacher addressing a local issue into a major civil rights leader known throughout the world. His message of non-violence was important as a basis for the Civil Rights Movement and represented one branch of the development of a black consciousness in America in the 1960s, in opposition to the black nationalism of leaders such as
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of nonviolent protest that Gandhi had used in gaining independence for India could be employed successfully by Blacks in America. He applied this belief to the issue in Montgomery. The black community responded with car pools to bring economic pressure on the bus company, and mass meetings were held at which participants were taught the techniques of nonviolence. The strike lasted a year and caught the imagination of Blacks across the country. The Supreme Court struck down the law under which Mrs. Parks had been arrested and ordered the buses desegregated (Herbers 20-21).
PHILOSOPHY
The blacks in Montgomery were confused by the Gandhian philosophy espoused by King, but there was at the same time no doubting the intense loyalty that he engendered among them. The press singled King out and highlighted him as the personality to watch. Still, his leadership as not a creation of the media but came about because he captured the imagination and devotion of the people and united them in a cause. King has been described as an "accidental" leader given that he did not precipitate the Montgomery bus boycott, nor organized it, nor sought its leadership:
Academic study, not political activism, had dominated his adult life; when h
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Approximate Word count = 2625
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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