Civil Rights

1960 sparked the first sit-in to protest at a segregated lunch counters. Four
students from the local college refused to leave Woolworth's counter when they were
refused service because they were black. Eventually this movement gained momentum,
the next day 23 students joined them, 66 the next and by the end of the week they had
more than 1000 supporters. Soon this movement spread to other cities where it became
more effective. Lunch counters were desegregated in123 cities! This also founded the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Then came the Freedom Rides of 1961.
This was the idea that any person could travel anywhere in USA by public transport,
to try to push desegregation of public transport. The first Freedom Ride ended in
tragedy, when seven black and six white Americans used public transport to travel south
from Washington DC to New Orleans. They were attacked by white mobs, including
members of the KKK, and they were stoned and beaten with clubs and other objects.
The buses were burned and the police showed up late and ignored the violence. This
was shown on nightly television and angered many people. Birmingham Alabama was
seen as the most segregated, racist city in all of the United States, and in April 1963,
Martin Luther King planned demonstrations, boycotts and sit-ins to protest
discrimination. He expected a violent reaction and was not disappointed. The police
attacked unarmed, peaceful protesters with high pressure water hoses, cattle prods and
vicious dogs. 900 children were arrested for joining in the protests. These scenes were
also shown on television, which sparked even more anger abroad. On June11th
President Kennedy announced a Civil Rights bill and by the end of the year he
announced that Birmingham's segregation laws would be unconstitutional. On August
28th, 1963 Martin Luther King planned a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington. Over 250,000 peaceful protesters showed up to this highly televised
demonstration. They listened to speeches, including MLK' s famous "I have a dream"
speech.
Opposition to the war in Vietnam arose during a time of unprecedented student
activism which followed the free speech movement and the civil rights movement. The
military draft mobilized the baby boomers who were most at risk, but grew to include a
varied cross-section of Americans. The growing opposition to the Vietnam War was
partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information presented by the extensive
television coverage on the ground in Vietnam. MLK and other civil rights leaders
opposed the war for a couple reasons. For one, the African Americans that were going
to fight in the war were often used as front line infantry. This resulted in many more
casualties.
The southerners that opposed integration feared social and political change, and
often struggled with the fact that their way of life was very good. The "southern way of
life" encompassed a distinctive mix of economic, social, and cultural practices. This
contained implications about the region's racial order, one in which whites wielded
power and blacks accommodated. Centuries of slavery and decades of segregation
cemented a legal and political system characterized by white dominance.

The Civil Rights movement took the form of sit-ins, demonstrations, and marches.
Through which many were publicized on TV. Most Americans were shocked to see how these
activists were treated and as a result many of them became angry and opposed to
segregation. The final straw for segregation was the demonstration in Birmingham in
April 1963. Kennedy knew he would have to act on the issue soon, and he did, with the
Civil Rights bill on June 11th.
.