How Did Economics Affect The Civil Rights Movement

When people think about civil rights, often they think about segregation in the schools, and having separate drinking fountains and other issues of the time. Economy is not something that people take into consideration when thinking about the civil rights of African Americans. Economics was a big part of their struggle for equal rights. During the 1960's the majority of African Americans struggled economically and often couldn't afford to feed and house their families, they lived in the slums. Civil rights movement activists came up with several different ideas on how to change their economic standing. One way civil rights activists wanted to improve their economic standing was to completely create their own business world. African Americans felt as if they needed to educate themselves to run their own businesses to create a separate economy from the white people. "We have to learn how to own
African Americans were tired of fighting to earn a job in a community where they were unwanted. To conquer their issues they believed they needed to separate themselves, more than they already are separated to create a stable economy for themselves. The second idea the activists came up with is to stop buying goods from the businesses that refused to hire African Americans. The idea behind this one is the economy of those businesses and people running them would fall greatly. This would then, force these companies to hire African Americans get business back and to stop their collapsing economy. African American activists wanted to make a change in the economy for themselves without boycotting and violence. "There is nothing quite so effective as a refusal to cooperate economically with the forces and institutions which perpetuate evil in our communities"(King). Civil rights activists like King himself really wanted to make an impact on the economic and social life of African Americans. Both of these ideas can bring great improvement to the economic issue of African