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Civil Rights Movement

Thaya Cuevas
Political Power in America
11/2008

The Civil Rights Movement

Injustice is everyone’s concern and due to the civil rights movement era from 1955-1965 we have seen the change that had to occur, from having to change laws to accept human beings for just that, being human. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, guaranteeing basic civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, after nearly a decade of nonviolent protests and marches, ranging from the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott to the student-led sit-ins of the 1960s to the huge March on Washington in 1963.
Pressures had been building in Montgomery for some time to deal with public transportation that treated blacks as second-class citizens. Those pressures were increased when a 15-year-old girl, Claudette Colvin, was arrested on March 2, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. Colvin did not violate the city bus policy by not giving up her seat, she was not sitting in the front seats reserved for whites, and there was no other place for her to sit. Even under the double standards of the bus seating policy at the time, blacks sitting behind the white reserved section in a bus were only required to give up their seats to whites if there was another seat available for them. But despite the legal aspect of her refusal to give up her seat, Colvin was still convicted. Some of the city’s black leaders thought that they had missed an opportunity for more serious action following the Colvin arrest. So when Parks was arrested a few months later, the stage was already set for a boycott. So when the day came that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, because she was tired and just wanted to go home she sparked the beginning of a boycott that was just waiting to happen. America has change dramatically because of the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement. The struggles that took place not only effected laws, but also...