Civil Rights African Americans, like numerous ethnic groups in the U.S., had a long struggle in gaining their civil rights. When most people think of the Civil Rights Movement in America, they think of Martin Luther King, Jr. Delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, secured his fame as the voice of non-violent, mass protest in the 1960s. But "the Movement" achieved its greatest results, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, due to the competing strategies and agendas of diverse individuals. Even black Americans, the primary beneficiaries of this landmark legislation, did not agree on the tactics that should be used to secure the equal protection of their rights. Several important black leaders shaped the debate over how to achieve freedom and equality in a nation that had long denied them their civil rights. Martin Luther King, Jr. first came to national prominence through his leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56. This mass protest helped desegregate public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. A gifted preacher and committed pacifist, King thought that non-violent, direct action against racial segregation provided the best means of securing the full integration of blacks into the mainstream of American life. As he wrote in his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," "I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek." The connection between means and ends was not lost on a competing voice in the debate over civil rights. Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention (NBC) from 1953 to 1982, argued that black Americans could not afford to use methods that would "substitute panic and anarchy in the place of law and order." In particular, Jackson thought that civil disobedience undermined the very goal of the Civil Rights Movement, the full protection of the law for all citizens. Jackson argued that a more constructive, less provocative; means should be pursued by black Americans to promote progress in a nation with a white majority. Partly as a result of this disagreement, in 1961, King and others broke from the NBC to form the Progressive National Baptist Convention. It was precisely the white population of America that Malcolm X took issue with in the years he served as chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam (NOI). Also known as the Black Muslims. Believing that blacks were God's chosen people, Malcolm X preached that they should separate from whites. He believed that they were destined for divine punishment because of their longstanding oppression of blacks. The son of a Baptist minister, and avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X was no stranger to civil rights activism. As he once remarked, "You don't integrate with a sinking ship." While serving time in prison he became influenced by the teachings of NOI leader Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X alleged that whites had proven they were long on professing and short on practicing their ideals of equality and freedom. As a result, Malcolm X thought that only a separate nation for blacks could provide the basis for their own self-improvement and advancement as a people. It was not until his pilgrimage to Mecca before he gained new outlook on integration and a new hope for the future. Many other events throughout the south contributed to raising awareness on a national level of the ongoing civil rights struggle. In February of 1960, four college students in Greensborough North Carolina entered the local Woolworth's department store and sat down at a lunch counter reserved for "whites only." After being refused service they returned for the next five months and repeated the spectacle until Woolworth's finally relented and changed their policies. In the summer of 1964 civil rights activists established freedom schools across Mississippi. Their purpose was to try to end the political displacement of African Americans by encouraging students to become active citizens and socially involved within the community. In 1960 the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was established. It was "dedicated to replacing the culture of segregation with a "beloved community" of racial justice and to empowering ordinary blacks to take control of the decisions that affected their lives" (Foner 773). In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) initiated the Freedom Rides. Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated south and challenged the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions. Many leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era. They risked, and some of them lost, their lives in the name of freedom and equality. It is within these noble actions that all races; black, white, and brown, should derive the courage to practice racial equality.

Work Cited
Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York: Norton, 2012. Print.