Civil Rights in the Sixties

Civil Rights in the Sixties Paper

Vincent L Smith

University of Phoenix

Ron De Luca

5 April 2011

Civil Rights in the Sixties Paper

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Civil Rights in the Sixties by covering three major topics: Public opinion and the media coverage of the civil rights struggle, Martin Luther King Jr. and the nonviolent movement, and finally Malcolm X and the changing nature of the movement in the late 1960’s. In the early part of the sixties two prominent groups were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC.) The SCLC had already had a variety of efforts going on in public facilities, transportation, and schools. One of the greatest known boycotts took place in Montgomery Alabama and was considered victorious after Rosa Parks refused to move to the rear of the bus, when the public transportation of Montgomery Alabama was boycotted for a year.

Martin Luther King understood that the media would help in shaping public opinion that in turn shape law in our democracy. The news media covered Dr. King’s activities and the powerful responses that those activities drew. The medias began to show the whole country how the law was applied or misapplied in the South, and public opinion began to change. In the early sixties riveting images of Birmingham Police Commissioner Bull Connor’s officers using dogs and fire hoses to attack defenseless blacks to include woman and children lead to the 1964 Public Accommodation Act, which basically states “All people shall be entitled to full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, and facilities”.

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