Civil Rights

Topic: How and to what extent had black people accomplished a sense of racial pride and unity in the decade 1955 – 1965?

In the decade 1955 – 1965 the civil rights movement gained momentum. Systematic racial pride and unity began to be achieved. Black Americans formed groups to assert their rights for equality. Since the earliest white settlement African Americans had been discriminated against and denied legal freedom and the rights granted to all men under the declaration of independence. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were actively denied to Black Americans.
In 1955, Montgomery, AL had a law, which required black citizens to ride in the back of the city’s buses. On December 1st of that year, Mrs. Rosa Parks boarded a bus and sat in the first row of seats in the black section of the bus. When some white men boarded the bus the driver ordered her to give up her seat and move back. She refused and was arrested.
Leaders in the Montgomery black...