The Civil Right Movement.

1. The Civil Right Movement. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States has been a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The movement has had a lasting impact on United States society, in its tactics, the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and in its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism.

2. Rosa Parks On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama , Rosa Parks, African-American seamstress, left work and boarded a bus for home. As the bus became crowded, the bus driver ordered Parks to give up her seat to a white passenger. Montgomery's buses were segregated, with the seats in the front reserved for "whites only." Blacks had to sit at the back of the bus. But if the bus was crowded and all the "whites only" seats were filled, black people were expected to give up their seats—a black person sitting while a white person stood would never be tolerated in the racist South. Rosa had had enough of such humiliation, and refused to give up her seat. One Person Can Change The World! Rosa Parks 1913-2005

3. Martin Luther King Jr. It wasn't just that Martin Luther King became the leader of the civil rights movement that made him so extraordinary—it was the way in which he led the movement. King advocated civil disobedience, the non-violent resistance against unjust laws: "Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it." Civil rights activists organized demonstrations, marches, boycotts, strikes, and voter-registration drives, and refused to obey laws that they knew were wrong and unjust. These peaceful forms of protest were often met with vicious threats, arrests, beatings, and worse. King emphasized how important it was that the civil rights movement did not sink to the level of the racists and hate mongers they fought against ‘’The Time is always right to do what is right.’’

4. The Little Rock Nine. The Little Rock Nine, as they later came to be called, were the first black teenagers to attend all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. These remarkable young African-American students challenged segregation in the deep South and won. Although Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregation in schools, many racist school systems defied the law by intimidating and threatening black students—Central High School was a notorious example. But the Little Rock Nine were determined to attend the school and receive the same education offered to white students, no matter what. Freedom with a price.

5. Fannie Lou Hamer Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), American civil rights leader, fought in the 1960s for blacks to have the right to vote. She went on to help blacks get elected and to fight against poverty. In most southern states few blacks could vote – despite what the constitution said. In 1923 at age six she started working.  By age 12 her family had saved enough to buy a tractor and rent some land. But then a white neighbor poisoned their cows and they were worse off than before! She got married in 1944. Against her will a white doctor made it so she could not have children!So adopted two girls. ‘’I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.’’

6. Fred Shuttlesworth On December 25, 1956, unknown persons tried to kill Shuttlesworth by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. Shuttlesworth somehow escaped unhurt even though his house was heavily damaged. A police officer, who also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, told Shuttlesworth as he came out of his home, "If I were you I'd get out of town as quick as I could". Shuttlesworth told him to tell the Klan that he was not leaving and "I wasn't saved to run." Fred Shuttlesworth led a group that integrated Birmingham's buses the next day, then sued after police arrested twenty-one passengers. His congregation built a new parsonage for him and posted sentries outside his house. Freedom with a price.

7. Malcolm X Malcolm X impact the Civil Rights Movement by helping to implement laws, he also made America look at how existing laws were routinely ignored. For instance, in numerous speeches, Malcolm X reminded the nation that there were laws that prohibited lynching, raping and killing, yet as he pointed out such laws were rarely enforced such as was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till (14 years of age), along with his cousin Curtis Jones (17 years of age) and not to mention the countless others victims of various lynchings throughout the South. ‘’ The future Belongs to those who prepare for it today’’