Civil Rights Era
Introduction
As African Americans sought to forge themselves as a people in the leviathan of slavery, in the process expanding democracy for all Americans, the concept of freedom has been central to the struggle. Though freedom has meant different things at different times to different people, it has nonetheless been the golden thread in the tapestry of African American history. In the 1960s, "freedom now" was the ringing cry of the civil rights movement. Two of its principal expressions were the "Freedom Riders"—black and white young people who rode integrated buses throughout the segregated South in 1961, and the "Freedom Summer"—the legendary summer of 1964, when several hundred northern college students headed southward to work with local black leadership and SNCC activists to help register voters in Mississippi. "Free at last," the phrase used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the climax of his "I Have a Dream" speech of 1963, sadly also became his epitaph.
In pursuit of freedom, African Americans have frequently differed in their views concerning timing, strategies, and tactics. At certain historical moments, some have placed more emphasis on racial assimilation within the existing social order, others have advocated the creation of separate institutions, and still others have insisted on changing the social and economic foundations of the society in which they found themselves. But within this rich diversity, the voices from the pages of black history have produced a common cry of freedom—a freedom to live and pursue their grandest hopes for themselves and their children, to serve others, and to build a nation dedicated to justice.
NAACP chief Executive Roy Wilkins presents the Freedom Bell Award to Federal Judge Thurgood Marshall.
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Contemporary African-American History really begins with two significant events. The first event was a legal victory. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the legality of racially segregated schools in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Finally, over 90 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans could demand of the federal government their constitutional right to a quality education for their children, without the barriers and material inequities of Jim Crow.
The second event occurred on December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, a respected seamstress and an NAACP local activist, refused to relinquish her seat to a white man while riding on a segregated public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. On the following Monday, December 5, over 95 percent of all blacks refused to ride the buses. These and other key events during the era of the Civil Rights Movement set the stage for a historical period that transformed American society. In the text and accompanying materials presented in this resource, you will gain an understanding of these events and their significance as part of American history.
Related Resources
Interview with Manning Marable and Leith Mullings