Module: Civil Rights Lesson 1: Taking on Segregation By: Jenny Zhang

The Movement Spreads Changing the World with Soul Force Martin Luther King Jr. called his brand of nonviolent protesting a “soul force.” His teachings come from many different people. He learned from Jesus to love one’s enemy. From the writer Henry David Thoreau, he took the concept of civil disobedience (the refusal to obey just a law). He also learned from labor organizer A. Philip Randolph how to organize massive demonstrations and from Mohandas Gandhi, to resist oppression without violence. He claimed that these demonstrations would help to eventually win. King held high with his philosophy, even when a wave of racial violence swept through the South after the Brown vs. Board decision.

The Movement Spreads From the Grassroots Up After the bus boycott ended, King came together with ministers and civil rights leaders to discover the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957. The purpose of this was “to carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of a second-class citizenship.” The SCLC planned to stage protests and demonstrations throughout the South. In April 1960, Baker helped students at an African American University, organize a national protest group called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC. These students risked a great deal but the SNCC still hoped to harness the energy of these potential student protesters and would soon create one of the most important student activist movements in the nation’s history.

The Movement Spreads Demonstrating for Freedom The SNCC adopted some of King’s ideas, but the members had their own idea, Many people called out for a more confrontational strategy and wanted to set out the reshape the civil rights movement. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) staged the very first sit-ins or sit-downs in Chicago of 1942. These tactics brought attention to this movement whilst applying economic pressure. Sit-ins also started to block business at the stores. In response to these protests, the police was called and had the counter seats removed however, the movement continued and spread to the North. Alliances likes SNCC, the SCLC, CORE, and the NAACP would prove crucial in the fight to end segregation. For the rest of the 1960s, many Americans came together to convince the rest of the country that black and whites deserve equal rights.

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