Tag Archives: Martin Luther King

BIRMINGHAM

The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the  (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama, the most segregated city in the US in 1963

Organizers, led by Martin Luther King used non-violent direct action tactics to defy laws they considered unfair. King led a massive protest in Birmingham that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. After the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, high school, college, and elementary students were trained by SCLC coordinator James Bevel to participate, resulting in hundreds of arrests and an instant intensification of national media attention on the campaign. The campaign used a variety of nonviolent methods of confrontation, including sit-ins at libraries and lunch counters, kneel-ins by black visitors at white churches, and a march to the county building to mark the beginning of a voter-registration drive.To dissuade demonstrators and control the protests the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugine Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs on children and bystanders. King was among 50 Birmingham residents ranging in age from 15 to 81 years who were arrested on April 12, 1963. It was King’s 13th arrest.

While imprisoned for having taken part in a nonviolent protest, Dr. King wrote the now famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Posted in 1960-1968, June 21 assignment, Midterm Exam Review | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

In June 11, 1963, during a national television address about civil rights, John F. Kennedy stated: “We preach freedom around the world…, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other, that this is a land of the free except for Negroes?” (Foner 921) Kennedy was killed few months after this presentation without enacting his civil rights bill, in which, among other points, he proposes the right to vote to blacks. One hundred years before Kennedy’s speech about civil rights, Abraham Lincoln expressed in his last public address his support to black suffrage. Like Kennedy, Lincoln was assassinated few days later.  

 After many years of struggle and opposition to the idea of giving blacks the same rights that whites enjoyed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a major conquest that black people needed in order to fortify their participation in political life. Therefore, from my point of view, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most important legislation of that time. Not only presidents or politicians like Robert Kennedy were assassinated, but also popular African American civil rights activists like Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed.

Posted in 1960-1968, June 14 assignment, Political history, Social History | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

The most important change in the 1960s must be the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement started in the early 1940s; however, its important milestone was established in the 1960s. Martin Luther King was one of the major civil rights leaders in the period of 1960s. On August 23, 1963, Martin Luther King addressed a famous speech called “I Have a Dream”   which aroused all attentions from the public and the government toward civil rights. “I have  a dream that one day [in]this nation… all men are created equal…I have a dream that my children will one day … not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…”

Martin Luther King was getting closer to his dream after his speech. In July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, which prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin in school, employment, institutions……etc.  The Civil Rights Act was significant in the 1960s because it overruled the Jim Crow laws, which supported “separate but equal ” status for black Americans since 1876, and set up new equal standards that influence the life of Americans all along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4AItMg70kg

The pictures below show the difference before and after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Posted in 1960-1968, Cultural History, June 14 assignment, Political history | Tagged , , | 2 Comments