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The African-American Civil Rights Movement

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Instances of resistance to the government’s laws have happened in all different eras of histories around the world. In the United States of America, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights grants citizens with various rights. Amendment I allows the American people to protest against the government if they feel like it is taking away their rights to religion, the free exercise of their religion, freedom of speech, and the press. The dissatisfaction of the government led to numerous cases of civil disobedience. Peaceful resistance can be demonstrated throughout the various protests in America, such as the Boston Tea Party, women’s suffrage movement, and the African-American Civil Rights Movement, which positively impacted the free society. The beginnings …show more content…
A Declaration of Sentiments was drafted for the convention, calling for the “right [of women] to the elective franchise” (Winslow). At the time, women did not have the same rights of men. In 1869, the disagreements split the movement into two groups, using different methods to get their points across to the government, keeping the resistance divided until 1890, when they were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. States began granting the right to vote for women, the first being Wyoming in 1869 (Weiser). Congress eventually passed the amendment and on August 26, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified and women were granted the right to vote, leading the start of equal rights for both …show more content…
One act that brought attention to the issue was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama. The incident started December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman and active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was asked by to sit at the back of the bus and give her seat to a white male, required by a Montgomery ordinance at the time (“Montgomery Bus Boycott”). When she refused to move, she was arrested and fined. E.D. Nixon and Jo Ann Robinson pushed for a boycott of the bus system that began on December 5. African-Americans organized carpools and black taxi drivers charged the same amount as the bus fares, while others simply chose to walk. On June 5, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that the segregation law violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal rights and protection to all citizens, regardless of race. The boycott ended December 20 (“Overview”). Martin Luther King led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 focusing on the employment discrimination and civil rights abuse inflicted on colored people. An estimated 250,000 people showed up, who supported the cause for equal opportunities, gathered on the mall stretching from the Lincoln to the Washington Monument (Bennett). Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech that gave hope to the nation that

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