Civil Rights Movement and How It Influenced My Life

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s—How it Influenced My Life

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was a highly energized and intrinsically motivated interest group that sought for equality for the negro race in all aspects of society. Their daily existence was fraught with oppression which saw them being “denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities and subjected to insults and violence”. Despite these hardships, they “could not expect justice from the courts”. They were also discriminated against with regard to “housing, employment and education” (JFK Presidential Library, (n.d.). This paper focuses on some of the educational challenges that African-Americans faced during the Civil Rights Movement, how my life would have been different had the movement not played the role it did, how it influenced my career choice and finally how different the world would have been had the movement not existed.

There are two specific incidents that come to mind in relation to the issue of segregation in schools—the 1960 student sit in at Woolworth in Greensboro, North Carolina and the 1962 Ole Miss attempt to bar James Meredith from matriculating.

In the 1960 incident, four black students had the gall, the audacity, the temerity to sit down at a Woolworth lunch counter and ask to be served. Their requests were refused and they in turn refused to leave their seats. Within a few days, approximately 50 other students willingly joined in the protests and in a few weeks, sit ins had become a growing fever in over 65 cities in 12 states involving over 50,000 students. (JFK Presidential Library, n.d.). It was a peaceful way of voicing their disillusionment with the system with the hope that it would bring about change. Needless to say, no one listened and segregation in schools continued.

In 1962, James Meredith, Jr. an Air Force veteran, made four attempts to matriculate at the University of Mississippi, affectionately referred to as Ole Miss. Four...