Unit 10 By: Bennett Huddleston, Andrew Zucker, Mark Carter, and Michael Noteboom

Question 4 “The chief impetus for the civil rights movement came from African Americans, not from elected officials.” Assess the validity of this statement by analyzing THREE of the following:  Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka  Montgomery bus boycott  Little Rock crisis  Sit-ins  Civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960

Thesis The chief impetus for the civil rights movement did not come from elected officials. It came from African Americans. This is shown in events such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Montgomery bus boycott, and sit-ins.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. The plaintiffs were 13 Topeka parents on behalf of their twenty children. The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. Separate elementary schools were operated by the Topeka Board of Education under an 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka The court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of This was a major victory of the civil rights movement. This case existed because regular people wanted change, not elected officials.

Montgomery Bus Boycott The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a huge event in the Civil Rights Movement. It was a protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was spurred by the arrest of Rosa Parks, an African American woman who refused to surrender her seat to a white man.

Montgomery Bus Boycott The boycott lasted 20 days and led to a court decision that the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. This victory was made possible not by elected officials but the common men and women who participated in the boycott.

Sit-ins Sit-ins were a very important part of the nonviolent strategy of civil disobedience and mass protests during the civil rights movement. Sit-ins also very clearly show why the chief force of the civil rights movement was African- Americans. Without massive participation, a sit-in accomplishes nothing. But during the civil rights movement, sit-ins were very popular and very effective.

Conclusion These events clearly show that the chief impetus for the civil rights movement was African Americans. The mass participation and support supplied by African Americans was essential to the civil rights movement.