1955-1964: The Civil Rights Movement

From 1955-1964 the civil rights movement organised a series of campaigns addressing transport, education and the segregation of public places. The civil rights movement rarely called themselves that but simply called themselves ‘the movement’ because it indicated that the goals of the movement were much bigger than civil rights’. Martin Luther King wanted not just the death of legal segregation; he wanted the birth of a ‘beloved community’ in which black and white people were an integral part of one another’s lives. The term implied a journey and a direction and unstoppable momentum. The campaigns included the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956, the Little Rock Campaign of 1957, the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960, the Freedom Rides of 1961, the
Parks’ arrest led to a two-prolonged attack on segregation laws in Alabama. First, the NAACP mounted a legal case to challenge the segregation laws. Secondly, the black people of Montgomery began a campaign of direct action targeting local bus companies. As a result of this, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was established under the leadership of Martin Luther King in order to co-ordinate a boycott of the local buses until segregation was abolished. The MIA worked mainly through black churches and its Christian basis meant that it was committed to non-violent methods. King advocated civil disobedience and direct action, insisting that protest should always be
Activists stages ‘wade-ins’ at segregated swimming pools, ‘read-ins’ in segregated libraries and ‘kneel-ins’ at white-only churches. As the sit-in movement spread a new civil rights organisation was formed, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

The Freedom Rides of 1961 were designed to turn the de jure victories of Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia into de facto desegregation of interstate transport and interstate transport facilities. The Freedom Rides set to test these rulings by travelling from Washington DC to New Orleans on interstate transport. The Freedom Rides campaign was organised by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). A group of seven black and six white activists from CORE and SNCC set out on Greyhound and Trailways buses on 4th May 1961.
After the Freedom Riders were attacked by racists such as the Ku Klux Klan and were refused treatments by the police and medics, King, who had previously refused to be involved, gave a speech at a rally in support of the Freedom