Communications Between Races : The Civil Rights Movement

Process Paper

What is the key to understanding? Is it knowing what our predecessors were thinking? Or is simply just trying to put ourselves in their places. Whatever the case may be, understanding our history is vital in the progression of civilization. In an era when color was everything, understanding our history is what makes life in America today-so beautiful.

During the time of the Civil Rights Movement, the blacks wanted to be free, but the whites wanted to suppress them. The whites were willing to go to any lengths to campaign their ideas of white supremacy. From research it can be learned, that from that movement, to some - it was more than a movement, it was a war for freedom. “ I lived in a time when the white man was our ruler, but he could not suppress me any longer. I refused to get up for that white man, he and I were not seen as equals from societies eyes, but god gave us both red blood in our veins.” (Rosa Parks: Autobiography pg. 23) Rosa Parks was just one of the many powerful spirits that lit the way for many to freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was probably the most influential during this time period. He touched people of all kinds. Blacks, whites, and people of all races were inspired by the way King could move his audiences. Even John F. Kennedy was seen walking down the street with King listening to a personal sermon. Although Kennedy was only president for a little over one-thousand days before he was assassinated, perhaps the most important of his achievements was his support for civil rights and his effort to move the United States away from racial segregation and toward freedom and equal rights for all Americans. Kennedy and King had the same “dream”.

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