Racial discrimination against blacks is a problem that has existed in America

for its whole history. Slavery, then segregation, and now, though it still exists, it has
more or less disappeared from the average Americans life, and exists only on the
news. Notable incidents, like the Ferguson riots, remind us about what we believed
was just an already solved problem is actually not completely finished. Today, we
see what happened in our past as a mistake, a blemish on the American Dream that
has been erased. Many gave their lives for this equality, and it would be disgraceful
to forget their sacrifice.
The injustices done against blacks were large, numerous, and serious. First of
all, for the longest time, blacks were unable to vote. This was later fixed, when the
white primary and the voting tax were abolished, but the literacy test was still a
large part of it, and many organizations like the KKK wanted to stop blacks from
voting through threats and murders. There was also a larger evil: segregation.
Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior-Malcolm X.
Though the doctrine was Separate but Equal, things that were separate were not
always equal. Things for blacks were often much lower quality than the things that
belonged to whites. Education, public facilities, restaurants, seating areas, housing,
these are areas in which whites had it much better than blacks. Sometimes, blacks
couldnt even get those things. There was also a lot of racism and hate of blacks.
Later, when segregation was abolished, a six year old black girl attempted to go to
a white school. She was attacked by crowds of white people, and had to receive
bodyguards, and learn in a different classroom than the other students. The fact
that crowds of ordinary people could attack a six year old child attempting to go to
school just shows the racial tension of the time. They were victims of police
brutality, lynching, unfair treatment, being attacked by mobs, and being arrested by

police for committing no crime at all. If a white was to do the exact same thing, they
wouldnt even get a look from a police officer.
The Civil Rights Movement was the blacks, fighting back for their freedom.
Many violent acts were committed by blacks against whites, trying to get the full
extent of their freedom. People like the Black Panthers, an organization not afraid to
resort to chaos. Formed in 1966, the Black Panther Party, or BPP, was an
organization made to combat the U.S. government. The BPP wanted a revolution,
where blacks would be rising up, straight to the top. (Got the guts, got the glory.)
They went the distance, and they werent going to stop, because theyre men, with
the will to survive. They had the Eye of the Panther its the thrill of the fight, rising
up, to the challenge of their rivals! (Im going to stop now.) As I was saying, they
would be rising up, and trying to get civil rights through chaos and fear. At first, they
armed citizens and had them patrol the street, in an attempt to combat police
brutality and murder. They later went on to having shootouts with the police,
through which many police officers and panthers both were injured. BPP protests (of
the slightly peaceful kind) usually went well, because all of the Panthers were
armed, and werent breaking any laws, so generally it would be a bad idea to
attack. Though many riots or attacks were in self defence, there were many times
that it was an outright murder or ambush. Because of the general craziness of the
movement, the FBI got involved. In a program called COINTELPRO, they attempted
to create rivalries between the BPP and other violent civil rights groups, such as the
Blackstone Rangers. They also threatened many members of the party, to get them
to stop. The FBI was met with some success, but the BPP continued after their
involvement.

There were many more nonviolent protests, and they really met with much
more support than the violent protests. The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Congress of
Racial Equality were all organizations formed to stop racial discrimination through
peaceful protests. The SCLC was founded by Martin Luther King Jr., and it used
nonviolence and peaceful protests to get what it wanted. These protests were met
with violence by whites, which only served to create more publicity for the
movement. As a matter of fact, the movement almost completely revolved around
violence on the part of whites, because the truly peaceful protests that went
without violence were among the least successful protests there were. A more
famous movement was the Rosa Parks Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which the SCLC
staged Rosa Parks famous refusal to sit in the back of a bus because a police officer
told her to. The SCLC used this to bring the civil rights movement more attention.
There was also the famous March on Washington, where the SCLC went onto the
Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I have a Dream speech.
They organized many boycotts, peaceful gatherings, sit-ins, and marches. Lyndon B.
Johnson and his Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on July 2, 1964, one
year after the March on Washington.
The majority of the civil rights movements took place in the South. Georgia is
in the South, so there were a lot of protests that went on in Georgia. Albany was one
of the most famous Georgia cities to receive recognition, because Martin Luther
King Jr. wanted to help the movement there. There was a mass protest, in which
around 1,200 black protesters were arrested. Though the attempt to desegregate
Albany failed, it brought national attention to the city, and it certainly helped. In
Savannah, W. W. Law convinced the leaders there to desegregate the city, and then

he simply returned to life as a postman. But, the fact was, there was a mass exodus
of blacks to the North, where there was usually a lot less segregation. Blacks also
moved to areas like Atlanta, where they formed 60% of the population. In rural
areas, white supremacy was much stronger than in the urban areas, probably
because there were fewer blacks that would fight back. Though Atlanta was The
City Too Busy to Hate, that was just a slogan invented by the Atlanta government
to keep protesters out. Atlanta was actually pretty late when it came to
desegregation, and there were many more cities that desegregated before Atlanta.
Walter White was born in Atlanta on July 1, 1893. Though he is light-skinned,
he actually is an African-American, because of his grandmother. Walter White
helped to end discrimination against blacks by investigating lynchings, writing
books, working as executive secretary in the NAACP, and cooking meth. As an
NAACP investigator, he looked into lynchings, and because he looked white, he was
able to get responses from white people better than if he was completely black. He
investigated 40 lynchings and 8 race riots, before people found out he was AfricanAmerican and had to take his meth and get out of town before the racists got to
him. Later, he became the executive secretary of the NAACP, and fought legal
battles for blacks. As he later aged, he had a divorce, married a second white wife,
and died of a heart attack on March 21, 1955. He was 61.
Organizations like the SCLC still exist today, and have helped stop
discrimination against all people, not just blacks. The SCLC later attempted to help
the poor. The NAACP is helping to stop discrimination against gay couples. The
SNCC helped the feminist movement. CORE is helping to spread awareness of
malaria in Africa. There was supposedly a New Black Panther Party that was made
in 1989, though many try to deny its existence. Though all of these people still exist

today, they have failed to fully eliminate racism in the U.S. The Three-Fifths
Compromise is still in the Constitution, we had those Ferguson riots, the KKK has a
fancy new website, and dont even get started about the internet. The black
population is still considerably smaller in the rural areas of Georgia, and the
average incomes for blacks are less than those of whites, even today.
The civil rights movement was a movement for blacks to gain equal rights
with whites. Through violence or nonviolence, they worked to achieve this goal in
many different ways. It wasnt just a couple of people in the civil rights movement,
it was a whole country, making it one of the most successful movements in history.

Citations
"RACE - History - Post-War Economic Boom and Racial Discrimination." RACE History - Post-War Economic Boom and Racial Discrimination. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar.
2015.
"Malcolm X." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
"The Black Panthers." The Black Panthers. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
"Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)." Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC). N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2015.

"Walter White (1893-1955)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr.
2015.