McGovern Library: Martin Luther King, Jr. : The Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights in America

What was the Civil Rights Movement?

"The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many white Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades." (Civil Rights Movement from History.com)

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, resulting in her arrest and igniting the movement. At the time, segregation said that blacks and whites were to be separated on buses, with black at the back. When a white man was unable to find a seat (because the whites only section was filled), Parks and two others were ordered to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested. Her arrest incited the Montgomery Improvement Association (led by Martin Luther King, Jr.) to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, which lasted 381 days.

Brown v. Board of Education

This 1954 landmark case was heard and ruled on by the United States Supreme Court. It was decided that segregation in public schools was illegal. In September of 1957, nine black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, arrived at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to become the first colored students to attend the formerly segregated school. Blocking the entrance of the school were the Arkansas National Guard (on order of the Governor) and a large mob. The nine students left, trying again to enter the school a few weeks later, having to be removed from the school because of violence against them. The nine students were finally able to attend the formerly all white school after President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the students to and from classes. These students brought attention to the issue still facing segregated schools in the south.

March on Washington

On August 28, 1963, one of the most famous civil rights movement events took place. Organized by civil rights leaders, more than 200,000 people congregated in Washington D.C. for a peaceful march and the goal of forcing civil rights legislation. The highlight of the march was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream".

Bloody Sunday and the March from Selma

March 7, 1965 turned violent for peaceful demonstrators as they marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the killing of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by state and local police. The marchers refused to stand down and moved forward, resulting them being viciously beaten and teargassed.

Source

History.com. (2009). Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement.

Protests and the Civil Rights Movement

Books about the Civil Rights Movement

And Justice for All by Mary Frances Berry
Call Number: Main Collection JC599.U5 B45 2009
Publication Date: 2009
This book is the first history in forty years of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The author, who has been member of the commission for more than twenty years and chairperson for more than a decade, describes its founding in 1957 by President Eisenhower in response to the burgeoning civil rights protest.
The Bill of the Century by Clay Risen
Call Number: Main Collection KF4749 .R57 2014
Publication Date: 2014
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history. This one law so dramatically altered American society that, looking back, it seems preordained -- as Everett Dirksen, the GOP leader in the Senate and a key supporter of the bill, said, "No force is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." But there was nothing predestined about the victory: a phalanx of powerful senators, pledging to "fight to the death" for segregation, launched the longest filibuster in American history to defeat it.
Children of Fire by Thomas C. Holt
Call Number: Main Collection E185 .H57 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Renowned historian Thomas C. Holt challenges this form to tell the story of generations of African Americans through the lived experience of the subjects themselves, with all of the nuances, ironies, contradictions, and complexities one might expect.
Judgment Days by Nick Kotz
Call Number: Main Collection E847.2 .K67 2005
Publication Date: 2005
Opposites in almost every way, mortally suspicious of each other at first, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., were thrust together in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Both men sensed a historic opportunity and began a delicate dance of accommodation that moved them, and the entire nation, toward the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
March: Book One by John Lewis; Andrew Aydin; Nate Powell (Illustrator)
Call Number: Teufel Collection - Non-Fiction 741.5 J597m Book 1
Publication Date: 2013
This graphic novel is Congressman John Lewis' first-hand account of his lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis
Call Number: Main Collection F334.M753 P3883 2013
Publication Date: 2013
The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement and presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks.
Separate and Unequal by Steven M. Gillon
Call Number: Main Collection HV6477 .G56 2018
Publication Date: 2018
The definitive history of the Kerner Commission, whose report on urban unrest reshaped American debates about race and inequality In Separate and Unequal, historian Steven M. Gillon offers a revelatory new history of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders--popularly known as the Kerner Commission.