Civil Rights Movement

Although the civil rights movement was now ten years in, the fight for equal rights continued to dominate the everyday lives of each man, woman, and child, both black and white, throughout the south. With nonviolence as the strategy, authorities struggled to keep blacks from going in the court house to register to vote without any kind of forceful removal. The black still kept strong, waiting in line as long as it took just for the right to vote; they showed dedication, strength, and determination.

This was the 1960’s, in Dallas County, Alabama were 50% of the people here were black and of the blacks who were able to be registered to vote only 1% were. After watching the video, “Eyes on the Prize- Bridge to Freedom”, I now have a greater amount of respect for all those people who fought in Selma and all the people who came from near and far to march alongside of some of the greatest names in the Civil Rights Movement as they marched from Salem, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, the state capitol. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader of the movement march and was a member of the SCLC, Southern Christian Leadership Conference. MLK has a certain characteristic about him that spoke and motivated people but kept them calm and patient at the same time.

Anyone who took part, in any way, in fighting for equal rights is a hero in my eyes. I would never be able to stand up, speak out, and protest, while my fellow activists were being severely beaten, poisoned with tear gas, and in some cases killed. In the video they talked about two school girls who march alongside their family, teachers, and Martin Luther King, Jr., himself, these girls were only 8 years-old at the time. Could you image being 8 years-old, seeing all the horrible things that were going on in those years, that both of these girls saw? I know that I wouldn’t be able to fathom the horror. The girls, Sheyann Web and Rachael West, were part of the first attempt to march to Montgomery, Alabama. This...