History
HistoryRelationship Between Civil Rights Movement and Feminist Agenda
In this Essay I will examine relationship between Civil Rights Movement and how the feminist agenda of second wave feminism. Furthermore, I will explain how women shaped the Civil Rights Movement, and also how they redefined their own feminism because of the ways in which they interacted with the movement.
In 1952, the separate but equal laws were once again challenged in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The case was based on the segregation of educational facilities. The NAACP changed their focus from integrating higher educational facilities to integrated grade schools. After the change, the NAACP stepped in on this case and argued that segregated educational facilities were unequal, degrading to black students, and violated the fourteenth amendment's guarantee for equal protection. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal and did violate the fourteenth amendment. The decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson had finally been overturned and public schools were to be integrated. Brown vs. the Board of Education was a victory for the blacks, however southern whites reacted to the court's decision with extreme racism. There were two major reasons for the civil rights movement one was Impact of WWII and Brown vs. Board of Education.
Females played great role in Civil rights movement. One sit-in involved Anne Moody the author of Coming of Age in Mississippi. During this sit-in, whites at the lunch counter attacked Anne Moody and other activist, but they didn't give up until they were escorted out by the police. This is what happened on the evening of December l, 1955: Parks took the bus because she was feeling particularly tired after a long day at work. She was sitting in the middle section, glad to be off her feet at last, when a white man boarded the bus and demanded that her row be cleared because the white section was full. The others in the row obediently moved to the back of the bus, but Parks just didn't feel like standing for the rest of the journey, and she quietly refused to move. At this, the white bus driver threatened to call the police unless Parks gave her up her seat, but she refused to give up her seat and bus driver called the police and they arrested her. So this respectable, middle-aged woman was taken to the police station, where she was fingerprinted and jailed. She was allowed to make one phone call. She called a NAACP lawyer, who arranged for her to be released on bail.
Word of Parks's arrest spread quickly, and the Women's Political Council decided to protest her treatment by organizing a boycott of the buses. Women designed...
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