events and people of the civil rights era

(pictured above is rosa parks)

In class we were taught by half the class about some of the major events and people of the civil rights era.

The first event was Bloody Sunday. This is during one of the marches in March 7, 1965. KKK members hid on one side of the bridge and while the marchers went and crossed the bridge police attacked and killed many marchers. The next event talked about was the Montumary Bus Boycott which was December 5,1955. This boycott was lead by Martin Luther King was the head of this. This boycott lead to the US supreme court ordering integration on the bus system. Next was the Greensboro lunch sit in was in 1954. this sit in protested segregation and these students sat at a lunch counter of a restaurant. During this protest many protesters were arrested because they said that by sitting at the counter is was making people not order food therefore they were losing money. Than the freedom riders happened. This is when a mixed group of black and whites got on a bus and drove down south to help with voting rights and to end segregation and support the case of Brown v Board. They started by getting a grey hound bus, when they arrived in Virginia thing started to get very violent and the others protested against the freedom riders. In Alabama there was a huge riot where the protesters who were against the freedom riders set the bus on fire. The people and the bus drivers all got scared so after this the freedom riders stopped their mission.

Some of the major people in the Civil Rights Era were Bayar rustin, Rosa parks, Malcolm X, Emmet Till, and Medgar Evers.

Bayard Rustin was the man who taught MLK about Ghandhi's principles. He was a non violent protester. Rosa Parks moved to Montgomery joined movements against segregation. She refused to get up out of a seat that was for a while person. This started the Montgomery bus boycott. For not getting up for a white person the police arrested her. Malcolm X aka Malcolm Little converted to Islam and became a minister. His message about the movements against anti segregation was less violence more peaceful. Malcolm X worked along side MLK also, however Malcom X was assassinated while he was giving a speech. Emmet Till was a black boy who was kidnapped and brutally abused and murdered. His mom decided that during emmet's service she will have an open casket to show who horrible things the white people were doing. This became international news very quickly and it did not give America a good facade. Medgar Evers wanted to desegregate The university of Mississippi, he became the first black field secretary. He was shot shortly after getting his new job. However, after he was killed his brother became the first town mayor of a mixed race town.