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Brown v. Board and the NAACP's Toil for Integrated Schools
Before the 1950's, schools operated on a racially separate but equal platform. However, after years of inferiority, many knew this was not true. The NAACP sued through the court system on this idea, and in the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court agreed, finding that separation inherently meant unequal and African Americans were underserved, leading to less opportunity. Through this victory, the organization took down a pillar of racism (Berkin et al., 2015). -
Rosa Parks and the MIA's Fight Segregated Public Transportation
Segregation on public buses was common in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, a well-known and respected resident, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white man. In response, local leaders and MLK Jr. formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and organized a boycott of the city buses. As the boycott lingered, the mayor and police fined carpoolers and jailed participants. However, Parks showed the nation the power of individual action and the horrors of segregation. -
The Greensboro Sit-In - SNCC Battling Segregation in Restaurants
To highlight restaurant segregation, students at A&T College near Greensboro, NC, purchased goods and took seats at the whites-only counter at the restaurant Woolworth. After refusing to leave, the group sat for the rest of the day and repeated the sit-in for three days (Stanford University, n.d.). The campaign received significant media coverage and sparked the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee, which led similar protests throughout the South (History.com Editors, 2023). -
Freedom Riders - CORE Holds SCOTUS to Its Word
After the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, SCOTUS held segregated buses and interstate travel were unconstitutional. The Congress of Racial Equality organized freedom rides through the South to protest the continuing practice by using whites-only restrooms and waiting areas. Along the way, the riders saw unthinkable violence, beatings, and bombings. Finally, international attention and pressure forced the Kennedy Administration to release regulations enforcing the opinion (History.com Editors, 2022). -
The Birmingham Campaign - SCLC Takes on a Web of Segregation
Birmingham, Alabama, had a system of segregation. In 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched a coordinated effort to resist by sit-ins, marches, and boycotts on businesses, among others. The campaign caused swift pushback, causing MLK's incarceration - leading to his Letter from a Birmingham Jail and violence against participants. However, it caused the Birmingham Truce Agreement, resulting in desegregation of some public accommodations (Stanford University, n.d.). -
MLK Jr and Rhetoric That Motivated Grassroots Action
The greatest example of grassroots organization in Civil Rights was Martin Luther King, Jr. A minister who championed non-violent protest, King traveled the nation using his rhetorical powers to spur people to action. King paid dearly for his work, being jailed, bombed, and ultimately assassinated. However, the pinnacle of his life was the March on Washington and his speech that day. To a sea of ordinary people, King spoke of his dream and vision of equality that inspired a generation of people. -
COFO - Freedom Summer in Mississippi
As the Civil Rights Act battled a Southern filibuster, organizers from the Council of Federated Organizations were making plans for Freedom Summer, a plan to unite white and African American college students to go into Mississippi to register disenfranchised voters. Like the Freedom Riders, Freedom Summer saw equally horrific violence and the death of three activists. However, it reinforced the need for voting rights, which had been taken out of the Civil Rights Act (LOC, n.d.). -
The Civil Rights Act
The previous events show the many different people and grassroots organizations that tackled issues of segregation. Sometimes, they would win via the courts, like in the desegregation of schools or busses, but that brought enforcement issues of the Court's rulings. The nation needed laws codifying and covering all areas of equality and ensuring no person could be discriminated against in any realm. On the shoulders of all these before and many others, that is what the Civil Rights Act achieved.