The Civil Rights Movement was when the black citizens of America revolted against segregation, lead in part by Martin Luther King Jr. He believed, like Gandhi, in fighting in nonviolent ways. But white people used violence and they used it a lot. They joined hate groups, like the KKK or they just treated black people badly. Some people weren't very racist, but they were still discriminatory. Many things were segregated, such as the buses, the water fountains, the restaurants, the stores and even the schools and parks.
Breaking the Barrier
Jackie Robinson was the first domino in the Civil Rights movement. He set a paved road for other black players who followed him into the Major Leagues. The Brooklyn Dodger's manager, Branch Rickey was a "color-blind" man. He did not care about black vs. white players. He wanted his team to do well and to draw lots of crowds. He thought that a good way to do this would be to have the first African American player in the Major Leagues. He set out to find that player. This player that he was searching for was Jackie Robinson. Robinson wanted to fight for his beliefs and he was a spectacular ball player out of University of California at Los Angeles. He had a hot temper that had gotten him in trouble in the past, but Branch Rickey told him that he would have to control that temper to succeed, and he did. First, Jackie Robinson was sent to the Montreal Royals, the minor league team of the Dodgers, to begin the season. Clay Hopper was a prejudice man, and he did not want Robinson on his team. Hopper eventually came to appreciate Robinson and thought he was a "real ballplayer".
April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers for the first time. He was struck out four times, and fared no better the next day. There were doubts about him and the rest of the black ballplayers watching in the Negro Leagues. Things changed in Philadelphia when the Dodgers played the Phillies, whether good or bad is debatable. The Phillies' manager, Ben Chapman, showed his very racist personality. He yelled curses and racist remarks and encouraged his team to do the same. Jackie said that he "could scarcely believe my ears," and his coach was just as overwhelmed. He was only verbally abused, pitched were throwing at his head, people were sliding into his legs, hard. His teammates, even the ones who didn't like Jackie, came to his defense. They taunted the Phillies, and all the other racial teams later that year when they tried to taunt Robinson. All of the racism actually brought the Dodger team together and soon Robinson began hitting the ball. He hit the ball above average, but his speed on the base paths were what made him special. He stole the most bases in the National League. He won Rookie of the Year as his Dodger team won the National League pennant. Robinson had paved the road, and others were soon to follow as the domino effect of civil rights began to play out.
Brown v. Board of Education
Linda Brown, the seven-year-old that this whole case was named after
Linda Brown was a seven-year-old girl that presided in Topeka, Kansas. She had to cross a railroad then take a rickety old bus to her black school. If there wasn't discrimination, she could go to the nicer school five blocks from her house, but of course she couldn't. Her father, Reverend Oliver Brown didn't think that was fair and wanted to do something about it for his daughter. Due to the horrors of discrimination in the south she had to walk to school and back every single day. He brought this to court and his case became known as the Brown v. Board of Education. But, there is more to it. Other cases are involved in them, and these cases were the first big step for the Civil Rights movement.
Briggs v. Clarendon County
Harry and Liza Briggs lived in Clarendon County in South Carolina. They were upset because the county spent $43 a year on blacks and $179 on whites. They sued the county in the name of their 10-year-old son and the 66 other black students there. Mrs. Briggs immediately lost her job when the case was filed.
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren who made the decision on Brown v. Board of Education
Barbara Johns lived in Farmville, Virginia, and was a junior at Moton High School, a segregated black school. She was angry with her school conditions and wanted them changed. Her school held 450 students when it was made for 200 and the teachers were not paid as well as the teachers at the white school. There wasn't a gym nor a cafeteria. Johns decided that it was time to act. She organized all of the kids in the school to go on strike and they walked out of their classes. An NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) came to see what was going on. He was so impressed that he helped them file a lawsuit against the state of Virginia and stated that segregation be banned in schools.
Bolling v. Sharpe
This case was considered to be a "companion case" with the Brown v. Board of Education. In 1949, a group of parents from the Anocostia neighborhood in Washington D.C. formed a consolidation committee. They petitioned to get the new John Phillip Sousa school integrated. The school board denied the petition but the parents still attempted to get 11 black students admitted to the school. They were again denied but this time they brought it to court. James Nabrit filed a lawsuit against the school for the students, named Bolling. The difference between this and the others was that Bolling v. Sharpe argued that the law of segregation was unconstitutional where as the others were argued against the idea of "seperate but equal" and that the black school were not equal.
The Little Rock Nine
After the Brownv. Board of Education most schools in the south were still segregated, and in a county in Virginia, public schools closed for five years rather than integrate. Then nine students, known as the Little Rock Nine, broke the color barrier in schools in 1957 when they enrolled Little Rock Central High School. Enrolling wasn't a problem. It was getting into the school which was.
In 1957, after the rest of the Little Rock board and Virgil Blossum the Superintendant had given the go ahead, the NCAAP enrolled nine students into the Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. This was the start of what was going to be a gradual integration process for the school. The high school was one of the best public high school in the United States and had a great facility and gave excellent education so the NAACP chose students who had good grades and attendance. Those students were Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Borwn, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Pattillo.
Little Rock expected little problem with the integration problem, after all the city had a good record with race relations. Some people in Little Rock decided that they didn't want integration. Many of these segregationist's threatened to not allow the students inside. The governor Orval Faubas had the National Guard come in. They didn't guard the students. They didn't allow them to go inside. People threw rocks at them. Others called them horrible words. Many shouted to lynch them. Elizabeth Eckford was forced to go against the mob on her own because she hadn't recieved the message that they were supposed to enter together. She was spat on and her new dress destroyed. A friendly stranger eventually had to help her home. A black reporter/ former marine was hit with a brick. It was disaster, and a disgrace to the United States.
Eisenhower had to take sides and fast because mob rule was not something he liked. He sent in federal troops to protect the students. They escorted them to and from school every day with machine guns and army jeeps always around. By the end of the school year Ernest Green was the first black student to ever graduate from the Central High School. He had started integration for the blacks.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King had many titles, he got many degrees, but historians remember him as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
King was well educated, his preacher of a father made sure of that. He has the title of a doctor because he went through college thinking he would be a doctor. When picking tobacco during the summers of World War II he learned that he wanted to be a minister with his talent for speaking. He then went to Crozer Seminary school to learn about speaking. There he learned of Gandhi and his nonviolent ways of fighting the government. He received a Ph. D in Boston when he wanted to get more degrees. This now made him Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He went into preaching, fighting injustice and segregation, starting in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King was eventually assassinated fighting for his rights.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was an African American women who lived in Montgomery, Alabama. She was well known in the black community and with the NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People). In the south, segregation was everywhere, including on the buses. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or they could get arrested. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks decided that she didn't want to sit in the back of the bus. Just recently she had taken a course in "race relations" and learned the tactic of civil disobedience that Gandhi had used in India. She put this new tactic to work and defied James Blake's (the bus driver) orders to sit in the back and was arrested by the police who were called in. This was not the first time civil disobedience was used on buses. In 1946 Irene Morgan, 1955 Sarah Louise Keys, and 9 months before Parks in the same bus system, Claudette Colvin had also refused to move. She was found guilty on December 15 and was fined four dollars but she appealed. These had all been courageous acts but Parks is the most remembered because her
Rosa Parks under arrest
arrest spurred another great example of civil disobediance by the African Americans; the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Martin Luther King Jr. and others riding a bus.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was led by Martin Luther King Jr. The entire black population of Montgomery didn't ride the buses for 381 days. This was lead also by E. D. Nixon who had been looking for the right case that could go all the way to the Supreme Court to ban segregation. Claudette Colvin was going to be the candidate until he learned she was pregnant (she was only 15). After her came Rosa Parks and he used her case to go through. He also personally elected Martin Luther Jr. to lead the Boycott and agreed on having the Montgomery Improvement Association be the sponsoring association. Another person who helped get the boycott started was Jo Ann Robinson of the Woman's Political Council in Montgomery. She printed out fliers on the night of Park's arrest that said the following:
"Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday."
An empty bus during the boycott
The people of Montgomery listened. They didn't take the bus for 381 days. It lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 20, 1956. The buses weren't making enough money and many were shut down. The black community was organizing carpools, getting cheaper rides from black taxi's walking, some black servants were even driven by white owners to work, some rode bikes, some rode horse drawn buggies, and some people even rode mules. The sidewalk during rush hour was full of walking, singing blacks. The whites of the White Citizen's Council struck back with anger and violence. Martin Luther King's house was firebombed, as were four Baptist churches. King and others were even arrested for hindering a bus by not taking it. They were in prison for two weeks.
On June 4, 1956 the segregation was judged unconstitutional by the local district judge but it was appealed and the boycott remained going on. Finally on November 14, 1956 the Supreme Court reached the same decision the the bus segregation was indeed unconstitutional. King capped off one of the first major victories with a dazzling speech encouraging whites to abide by this new law. On December 20, 1956 the boycott officially ended.
Bull Connor helps the Civil Rights Movement
As in most of the southern cities, the Klu Klux Klan had a large influence over the elections. A member of the KKK, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor was elected to a police chief position in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a great believer in racial segregation.
In the summer of 1952 when all of the public facilities (pools, playgrounds, gold courses) were supposed to integrate the cities leaders decided to shut them down rather than integrate. It was very very hot that summer and the black population was in deep in their civil rights movement and decided to do some marching. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Birmingham to help out with the civil disobidence effort. Bull Connor threw the marchers in jail, including King. King wrote famous letter while in jail describing the unjustness of the segregation laws and why his people were marching. To see a letter go to the following link: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Black leaders knew that more marchers were needed to make an impact so they went to the schools and got students to help them marching. Girls ages 13-18 were some of the first to repond. Rev. James Bevel organized all this like he had done in Nashville, Tennessee for another demonstration. First 600 children were arrested for marching then 1,000 were attacked with dogs and firehoses the next day. TV cameras were watching though and soon the whole world knew just how bad the segregationists were.
March on Washington
After everything that happened in Birmingham the leading black parties wanted to use A. Pilip Randoph's idea and have a march in the capital, Washington D.C.. They were waiting on Congress to sign a Civil Rights Bill and wanted in some way to be able to push Congress into signing it. The march was to be held August 28, 1963 and most were hoping for 100,000 people to come. Bayard Rustin was the organizer of this campaign that was going for four things: Passage of Civil Rights Bill, no more job Discrimination, integration of schools by New Years and a job training program. Many different forms of transportation were used, bikes, 21 trains, 2,000 buses, to carry 250,000 people that showed and 80,000 cheese sandwiches that had been made for the event. Everything was well planned and it was a great day. In the end, Martin Luther King Jr. came up and delivered his speech. He gave his most famous "I have a Dream" speech that day, speaking from how he felt.
See: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
This is an example of a civil rights protest
Alabama MarchersThe Civil Rights Act was passed and discrimination was mostly finished, but many blacks in the south still couldn't vote. In Selma, Alabama, it was very bad and King and his party were called in to help protest. This was Bull Connor's hometown and not a very nice one. King and others marched and protested but it return got violence and broken bones from the police. The police beat and whipped many marchers. Jimmy Lee Jackson's grandfather's was 82 years old and beaten. Jimmy Lee and his mother tried to help him, Jimmy was shot dead. The civil rights leaders decided that they were going to "get killed or we were going to be free." and they decided to walk to Montgomery, the capital. 600 marchers weren't able to leave Alabama when policemen with tear-gas bombs and billy clubs blocked the end of Edmund Pettus Bridge leading out of Selma. TV was watching though and everyone felt pity and anger toward the blacks and the policemen. King called in ministers and clergymen to march with them and many white ministers came. A Nobel peace prize winner, Ralph Bunche came along with James Reeb and minister.
Reeb and others were from out of town and ate in a black café. When they came out, they were clubbed to death. This gained the attention of Lyndon B. Johnson, the president, who quickly and purposefully sent a voting rights bill into Congress. He spoke on Television that night and spoke the famous words We Shall Overcome. The African-American citizens had come a long way in ten years, but now they had won.
A reaction to a movie about The Civil Rights Movement that we watched in class:
After watching the movie on racial injustice and prejudice in Social Studies class, I have many things to say. First off, I think it’s important to get out that what these African-Americans had to go through was terrible. No one should be persecuted for something such as what they look like, or how they were born. No one should have to go through getting beaten and threatened, and the people who did these terrible things got off easy, which is a disgrace to the people who died for their rights. With that said, I believe that something the film came off saying to me was that all white people were either extremely racist, to the point of killing an innocent African-American, or fighting for the civil rights of colored people. It kind of came off saying, to me, that there was no middle stance, or there were no white people who were unsure on what they wanted to happen. Another thing that kind of irked me was how they only re-told the major events for, or moderately important to major events against African-Americans, but only in the south. The entire movie basically told me “In the deep south this happened” or “In Birmingham, Alabama, this happened”, but it didn’t say much about what was going on in the midwest, or the north, or anything. I know most of the racial injustice took place in the south, but the movie could’ve at least told us a little bit about what was happened in the other regions of the United States, which I think could’ve been easier to relate to for us, living in Maine, rather than the deep south. One thing that I can applaud this movie for is showing actual footage from some of the protests. I think that we need to see what went on in its raw, to show us just how wrong it was. And, when the footage was shown, I noticed when some of the state troopers were hitting the protesters, they didn’t fight back. They just tried to protect themselves, and they chose the non-violent way out, just like Gandhi did. They were fighting for their rights, and showing the world that things can change without people hitting back, like Gandhi showed the British Empire, as well as the rest of the world. In conclusion, I think that this movie was a very good snapshot into the time period and events of when African-Americans were fighting for their rights, but still missing a few key parts in helping me, as a student understand it.
The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was when the black citizens of America revolted against segregation, lead in part by Martin Luther King Jr. He believed, like Gandhi, in fighting in nonviolent ways. But white people used violence and they used it a lot. They joined hate groups, like the KKK or they just treated black people badly. Some people weren't very racist, but they were still discriminatory. Many things were segregated, such as the buses, the water fountains, the restaurants, the stores and even the schools and parks.
Breaking the Barrier
Jackie Robinson was the first domino in the Civil Rights movement. He set a paved road for other black players who followed him into the Major Leagues.
April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played for the Dodgers for the first time. He was struck out four times, and fared no better the next day. There were doubts about him and the rest of the black ballplayers watching in the Negro Leagues. Things changed in Philadelphia when the Dodgers played the Phillies, whether good or bad is debatable. The Phillies' manager, Ben Chapman, showed his very racist personality. He yelled curses and racist remarks and encouraged his team to do the same. Jackie said that he "could scarcely believe my ears," and his coach was just as overwhelmed. He was only verbally abused, pitched were throwing at his head, people were sliding into his legs, hard. His teammates, even the ones who didn't like Jackie, came to his defense. They taunted the Phillies, and all the other racial teams later that year when they tried to taunt Robinson. All of the racism actually brought the Dodger team together and soon Robinson began hitting the ball. He hit the ball above average, but his speed on the base paths were what made him special. He stole the most bases in the National League. He won Rookie of the Year as his Dodger team won the National League pennant. Robinson had paved the road, and others were soon to follow as the domino effect of civil rights began to play out.
Brown v. Board of Education
Briggs v. Clarendon County
Harry and Liza Briggs lived in Clarendon County in South Carolina. They were upset because the county spent $43 a year on blacks and $179 on whites. They sued the county in the name of their 10-year-old son and the 66 other black students there. Mrs. Briggs immediately lost her job when the case was filed.
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
Bolling v. Sharpe
This case was considered to be a "companion case" with the Brown v. Board of Education. In 1949, a group of parents from the Anocostia neighborhood in Washington D.C. formed a consolidation committee. They petitioned to get the new John Phillip Sousa school integrated. The school board denied the petition but the parents still attempted to get 11 black students admitted to the school. They were again denied but this time they brought it to court. James Nabrit filed a lawsuit against the school for the students, named Bolling. The difference between this and the others was that Bolling v. Sharpe argued that the law of segregation was unconstitutional where as the others were argued against the idea of "seperate but equal" and that the black school were not equal.
The Little Rock Nine
After the Brown v. Board of Education most schools in the south were still segregated, and in a co
In 1957, after the rest of the Little Rock board and Virgil Blossum the Superintendant had given the go ahead, the NCAAP enrolled nine students into the Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. This was the start of what was going to be a gradual integration process for the school. The high school was one of the best public high school in the United States and had a great facility and gave excellent education so the NAACP chose students who had good grades and attendance. Those students were Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Borwn, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Pattillo.
Little Rock expected little problem with the integration problem, after all the city had a good record with race relations. Some people in Little Rock decided that they didn't want integration. Many of these segregationist's threatened to not allow the students inside. The governor Orval Faubas had the National Guard come in. They didn't guard the students. They didn't allow them to go inside. People threw rocks at
Eisenhower had to take sides and fast because mob rule was not something he liked. He sent in federal troops to protect the students. They escorted them to and from school every day with machine guns and army jeeps always around. By the end of the school year Ernest Green was the first black student to ever graduate from the Central High School. He had started integration for the blacks.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King had many titles, he got many degrees, but historians remember him as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement.
King was well educated, his preacher of a father made sure of that. He has the title of a doctor because he went through college thinking he would be a doctor. When picking tobacco during the summers of World War II he learned that he wanted to be a minister with his talent for speaking. He then went to Crozer Seminary school to learn about speaking. There he learned of Gandhi and his nonviolent ways of fighting the government. He received a Ph. D in Boston when he wanted to get more degrees. This now made him Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He went into preaching, fighting injustice and segregation, starting in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King was eventually assassinated fighting for his rights.
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was an African American women who lived in Montgomery, Alabama. She was well known in the black community and with the NAACP (National Association for Advancement of Colored People). In the south, segregation was everywhere, including on the buses. Blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or they could get arrested. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks decided that she didn't want to sit in the back of the bus. Just recently she had taken a course in "race relations" and learned the tactic of civil disobedience that Gandhi had used in India. She put this new tactic to work and defied James Blake's (the bus driver) orders to sit in the back and was arrested by the police who were called in. This was not the first time civil disobedience was used on buses. In 1946 Irene Morgan, 1955 Sarah Louise Keys, and 9 months before Parks in the same bus system, Claudette Colvin had also refused to move. She was found guilty on December 15 and was fined four dollars but she appealed. These had all been courageous acts but Parks is the most remembered because her"Another woman has been arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to get up out of her seat on the bus for a white person to sit down. It is the second time since the Claudette Colvin case that a Negro woman has been arrested for the same thing. This has to be stopped. Negroes have rights too, for if Negroes did not ride the buses, they could not operate. Three-fourths of the riders are Negro, yet we are arrested, or have to stand over empty seats. If we do not do something to stop these arrests, they will continue. The next time it may be you, or your daughter, or mother. This woman's case will come up on Monday. We are, therefore, asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial. Don't ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. You can afford to stay out of school for one day if you have no other way to go except by bus. You can also afford to stay out of town for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off all buses Monday."
On June 4, 1956 the segregation was judged unconstitutional by the local district judge but it was appealed and the boycott remained going on. Finally on November 14, 1956 the Supreme Court reached the same decision the the bus segregation was indeed unconstitutional. King capped off one of the first major victories with a dazzling speech encouraging whites to abide by this new law. On December 20, 1956 the boycott officially ended.
Bull Connor helps the Civil Rights Movement
As in most of the southern cities, the Klu Klux Klan had a large influence over the elections. A member of the KKK, Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor was elected to a police chief position in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a great believer in racial segregation.
In the summer of 1952 when all of the public facilities (pools, playgrounds, gold courses) were supposed to integrate the cities leaders decided to shut them down rather than integrate. It was very very hot that summer and the black population was in deep in their civil rights movement and decided to do some marching. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Birmingham to help out with the civil disobidence effort. Bull Connor threw the marchers in jail, including King. King wrote famous letter while in jail describing the unjustness of the segregation laws and why his people were marching. To see a letter go to the following link: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Black leaders knew that more marchers were needed to make an impact so they went to the schools and got students to help them marching. Girls ages 13-18 were some of the first to repond. Rev. James Bevel organized all this like he had done in Nashville, Tennessee for another demonstration. First 600 children were arrested for marching then 1,000 were attacked with dogs and firehoses the next day. TV cameras were watching though and soon the whole world knew just how bad the segregationists were.
March on Washington
After everything that happened in Birmingham the leading black parties wanted to use A. Pilip Randoph's idea and have a march in the capital, Washington D.C.. They were waiting on Congress to sign a Civil Rights Bill and wanted in some way to be able to push Congress into signing it. The march was to be held August 28, 1963 and most were hoping for 100,000 people to come. Bayard Rustin was the organizer of this campaign that was going for four things: Passage of Civil Rights Bill, no more job Discrimination, integration of schools by New Years and a job training program. Many different forms of transportation were used, bikes, 21 trains, 2,000 buses, to carry 250,000 people that showed and 80,000 cheese sandwiches that had been made for the event. Everything was well planned and it was a great day. In the end, Martin Luther King Jr. came up and delivered his speech. He gave his most famous "I have a Dream" speech that day, speaking from how he felt.See: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
Reeb and others were from out of town and ate in a black café. When they came out, they were clubbed to death. This gained the attention of Lyndon B. Johnson, the president, who quickly and purposefully sent a voting rights bill into Congress. He spoke on Television that night and spoke the famous words We Shall Overcome. The African-American citizens had come a long way in ten years, but now they had won.
A reaction to a movie about The Civil Rights Movement that we watched in class:
After watching the movie on racial injustice and prejudice in Social Studies class, I have many things to say. First off, I think it’s important to get out that what these African-Americans had to go through was terrible. No one should be persecuted for something such as what they look like, or how they were born. No one should have to go through getting beaten and threatened, and the people who did these terrible things got off easy, which is a disgrace to the people who died for their rights. With that said, I believe that something the film came off saying to me was that all white people were either extremely racist, to the point of killing an innocent African-American, or fighting for the civil rights of colored people. It kind of came off saying, to me, that there was no middle stance, or there were no white people who were unsure on what they wanted to happen. Another thing that kind of irked me was how they only re-told the major events for, or moderately important to major events against African-Americans, but only in the south. The entire movie basically told me “In the deep south this happened” or “In Birmingham, Alabama, this happened”, but it didn’t say much about what was going on in the midwest, or the north, or anything. I know most of the racial injustice took place in the south, but the movie could’ve at least told us a little bit about what was happened in the other regions of the United States, which I think could’ve been easier to relate to for us, living in Maine, rather than the deep south. One thing that I can applaud this movie for is showing actual footage from some of the protests. I think that we need to see what went on in its raw, to show us just how wrong it was. And, when the footage was shown, I noticed when some of the state troopers were hitting the protesters, they didn’t fight back. They just tried to protect themselves, and they chose the non-violent way out, just like Gandhi did. They were fighting for their rights, and showing the world that things can change without people hitting back, like Gandhi showed the British Empire, as well as the rest of the world. In conclusion, I think that this movie was a very good snapshot into the time period and events of when African-Americans were fighting for their rights, but still missing a few key parts in helping me, as a student understand it.