Question

How did the civil rights movement begin?

Answer 1

@SeaTurtle113

Answer 2

Within a year after Brown, more than 500 school districts had desegregated. But in some areas, leaders vowed resistance. The issue reached a crisis in Arkansas. The governor ordered the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from enrolling at Little Rock's Central High School. A federal judge ordered the governor to admit the students. When he refused, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to allow the stu­dents to enter the school. Meanwhile, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It gave the Attorney General greater power to push desegrega­tion in schools.

Answer 3

I don't think this has the answer for it right ?

Answer 4

what I found about tis online: The civil rights movement began in various ways. First it was during Lessy v. Ferguson case. This was to keep black people from white people and since black people were not slaves any longer they started demonstrations. Then there was the murder of Emmett till and people started to demand for justice and freedom. Finally, ala, who was a member of the NAACP Rosa parks refused to give her seat to a white passenger at the front of the 'coloured section' of a bus. After this she was arrested and black community launches a bus boycott that lasted more than a year.

Answer 5

Sorta depends on what you want to call the beginning. The abolitionists before the Civil War were working for civil rights. So Fredrick Douglas? or John Quincy Adams before that. Or do you want to start during Reconstruction?

Answer 6

Yea Reconstruction, Civil Rights in America, congress etc... @wwhitlock
Start from wherever you like...

Answer 7

The Civil Rights movement began as a reaction to slavery at first. So the answer to how it began would be that slaves were brought to the Americas. In the 1600s slaves started showing up in the English Colonies.

Quakers and other religious groups were opposed to slavery from the beginning.

The first major resistance to slavery was Slave Riots in New York City in 1712. There where other slave revolts around that time.

The first organization to oppose slavery started in 1775. Benjamin Franklin was president of the organization.

After the Revolution some slave owners freed their slaves in the spirit of the times. The number of free blacks was about 10% o the black population at that time.

Many of the States wrote abolition of slavery into their State Constitutions. And the Northwest Ordinance out lawed slavery in any state that would be formed north of the Ohio and East of the Mississippi.

My reading of the history leads me to think slavery would have died out.Blacks weren't being given all the rights of citizens but the ideas of the Revolution were working there way into the American psyche.

BUT.. Eli Whitney came up with the cotton gin in 1794. Cotton became king in the South over the next few decades and slavery became a huge economic and political issue. It had mostly been a moral or idealogical issue before.

The whole abolition movement is the civil rights movement before the Civil War. So I'm skipping most of that. You probably know the highlights of that movement.

The end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution and Republican control of Congress and the Presidency, offered some hope that we were on the road to equality. The former Confederates definitely were not on board, but Federal troops occupying those states and the Freedman's Bureau were producing some positive results. The first law referred to as civil rights acts started appearing about that time.

BUT... The presidential election of 1876 happened. Democrat Tilden and Republican Hayes were in a hotly contested battle. It came down to how the electoral college votes in Texas, Florida and South Carolina were going to be counted. Those were the only states that were still occupied by Federal troops.

It ended up that Republican leaders were willing to sell out one of their founding principles in a back room deal to keep the Presidency.

Hayes became President. The Democrats let the disputed votes go because they got the promise of the end of Reconstruction, the Feedman's Bureau and removal of all occupying troops.

The result was that Democrats could throw out any blacks and Republicans who held office throughout the South with impunity. The KKK had started in the late 1860s and now could enforce any racist laws or practices the Democrats came up with.

One of the first things the unbridled Democrats did was take away all guns from blacks. Then they restricted voting rights with laws and intimidation.

There were some successes. Black colleges were established. Large numbers of blacks were able to escape the oppression and homestead in Kansas. Federal laws and Supreme Court decisions were still moving towards equality. But they were ignored in many areas.

In 1896, a group in New Orleans thought they had a pretty good case that they'd take to the Supreme Court and get Jim Crow laws struck down. The arranged for Mr. Plessy to ride in a street car in a whites only car. It was a minor offense with a $5 fine. But with financial backing, Plessy refused to pay the fine. It went through the court system and was the hop of many as being a civil rights victory.

However, the court ruled against Plessy and established the doctrine of Separate but Equal.

That added fuel to the fire. Jim Crow laws became more oppressive. Separate facilities for blacks and whites were everywhere in the South.

The Civil Rights movement was mostly non-violent and worked the system as best they could during this time. Organizations like the NAACP, the National Negro Committee and others formed.

There were black celebrities. Booker T. Washington, Jesse Owens, Paul Robeson and others. But they often got better treatment overseas than at home.

World War II got a lot of people thinking about civil rights. The country had no problem drafting black men to do menial jobs in the Army. But when everybody came home they were expected to return to a life of second class citizens.

You could mark that as the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. After the war, Jackie Robinson was brought up to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. That may be hard to give much importance, but baseball was huge in the first half of the 20th century. The Negro Leagues had developed some great players that most people had no idea about.

Then there was Brown v Board of Ed of Topeka that stuck down the Plessy decision. I think that's where you were when I came in. So I'll let you fill in the rest.

Answer 8

Great Job my friend ! @wwhitlock