The Civil Rights Movement Essay

Submitted By student10134
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Pages: 3

The Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement is a very diverse subject. There are many different opinions on this subject and many political changing events follow this movement. Some of the struggles during the civil rights movement were covered through the media in such a fashion that it could have gone either way. I found an article stating, and I quote “Majority Queried In Times Survey Say, Negro Movement Has Gone Too Far, But Few Intend To Change Votes.” –New York Times (Sept. 21st 1964). Now another person questioned in this poll, and I quote “That many neighborhoods have always been known as ‘tough’, but they were white tough neighborhoods, if you know what I mean.” He added, “It was tough to a point, and no more. Now with colored it is a different kind of toughness, it is fear I guess.” I feel like with this last comment that this man had said, it is absolutely true of how the public viewed the civil rights movement, it was a fear, a fear of uncertainty of how to live with each other after being segregated for so long. In during this time the term ‘white backlash’ was used as a term used to give an indication that their voting habits were affected by the changes that has occurred in the civil rights act.
Martin Luther King Jr. displayed a method of non violent protests which he referred to as a method of peaceful protest by oppressed people. From the article I read I quote “In a classical non violent situation the oppressed engage in mass demonstrations or in one or more forms of civil disobedience so as to cause the oppressor to retaliate. The object is to plague the oppressor by filling up the jails or cause him to engage in violence on the streets.” The Negro community also stated that the bringing of violence to themselves was to take it from the jail cells and the dark ally’s out to the open for the whole world to see. This non violent protest method that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had used during this civil rights movement was probably one of the most powerful tools in this time and gave him a tremendous advantage when the public actually seen how blacks were treated in the south. Being spread through media and television now the once topic that was not to be discussed had finally had light shed upon it. “Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in the Noble Peace Prize. Negros of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that non violence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later,