Civil Rights

The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution form what is known as the Bill of Rights. In essence it is a summary of the basic rights held by all U.S. citizens. However, Negro citizens during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950-70's felt this document and its mandate that guaranteed the civil rights and civil liberties of all people; were interpreted differently for people of color. The freedoms outlined in the Constitution were not enforced the same by the government of the United States for the black race as it did for the white race.

"You all treat us so bad," just like we are animals." Those are the words voiced by Mrs. Rosa Parks, a Negro seamstress. Whose refusal to move to the back of the bus and give her seat to a white man, touched off the enormously successful bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama in the winter of 1956. But on a greater magnitude it fueled the Civil Rights movement of the Negro American. This incident almost single-handedly galvanized Negroes to insist on equal rights according