Was the Black movement for the Civil Rights marching according to the beat of the same drummer?

Essay by george75University, Bachelor'sB-, April 2006

download word file, 11 pages 3.0

Introduction:

The thesis of this paper is going to revolve around the importance of

the individual sections within the Black Civil Rights movement. This

paper will make an attempt to shed light on their interconnectedness

or, on the other hand, the different perspectives, which sew a great

deal of mistrust and animosity into, what might have been considered

by the majority of people as a coherent movement with set political

agenda and well-thought out objectives. By taking a closer look at the

most important Black performers that were shaping the future American

society this paper will try to portray not only the major cleavages

within the respective groups but also the reason why the movement

shifted from non-violent sit-ins to more assertive and aggressive ways

of advocating their claims. The studied organizations existing at the

beginning of the 1960's are the following: Southern Christian

Leadership (SCLC) and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC).

History and milestones

----------------------

There is a common ground for all three of them, in a sense that they

were founded out of a need to materialize the gains Black movement got

in the 1950's through the very important Supreme Court's rulings. One

of them concerned the school segregation case, which was struck down

by the Topeka ruling in 1954. The court's decision officially did away

with the "Separate but Equal" doctrine in public education. In 1956

the doctrine was undermined by another key decision delivered by the

Supreme Court in the wake of the Montgomery bus boycott, which

followed the arrest of a prominent NAACP member Rosa Parks. It was

herself who unleashed the boycott by refusing to yield her place to a

white person on the bus on December 1, 1955. Although the gains of the

Montgomery Bus Boycott were small compared with the gains...