Segregation and the Civil Rights Movement
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Malcolm X was an AfricanAmerican Muslim minister and human rights activists who was
assassinated on February 21, 1965 by gun shots. The 1963 March on Washington was critical during
the Civil Rights Movement. Malcolm felt that Martin Luther King was a “chump” since he practiced non
violence and called the march a “farce on Washington” because blacks were excited about a
demonstration run by whites in front of a former president (Abraham Lincoln) who didn’t like blacks
when he was alive. Despite that, King was still able to lead the bus boycott in 1955, give his famous “I
Have a Dream” speech and win the Nobel Peace Prize because he was able to combat racial inequality
through nonviolence. He also became one of the greatest orators of American history. Despite their
accomplishment, their lives were cut short by people who hated what they were doing.
Both King and Malcolm were assassinated (shot) at the age of 39. King was standing on the
second floor balcony of a motel on March 29, 1968 while Malcolm was shot multiple times on stage
right before his would be final speech on February 21, 1965. Their killers were convicted, but riots
occurred after King’s death. There were people like Rosa Parks, though, who lived long enough to see
a change for the better happen during the Civil Rights Movement.
Rosa Parks was a Civil Rights activist and named “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother
of the freedom movement” by the U.S. Congress. In December of 1955, she boarded a bus to head
home after work like she normally would. All the seats in the “colored” section were filed, so she sat in
the whites only section. Eventually, eleven white passengers got on the bus and one man asked her to move. Instead of going to the colored section, she just moved to the window seat next to her and was
arrested for not following the law. Parks wasn’t tired physically. She was tired just tired of giving in.
After the Montgomery Bus Boycott, all busses were desegregated, which allowed all blacks to
sit wherever they wanted on busses. Parks played an important role by bringing awareness to the civil
rights struggle. “I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat I had paid
for….there was time for me to take a stand…” Rosa
Parks, 1992 interview with National Public
Radio. Eventually, in 1964, one year after W.E.B. DuBois’ death, the Civil Rights Act was enacted.
But, unfortunately, before bus transportation was desegregated after the boycott, the Jim Crow laws
included bus transportation.
The Jim Crow laws were a racial caste system in southern and border states that went from 1877 to the mid1960’
s. They were also a series of antiblack laws that became a way of life. Whites
were seen as superior while blacks were seen as second class citizens. Black and white children were
forced to go to separate schools. Black children tended to have schools that were under funded and
didn’t have as many resources as the schools white children were in. Under the Jim Crow laws, blacks
were denied the right to vote even if they were a man (women couldn’t vote until 1920). Blacks who