The Civil Rights Movement Of The South - 2132 Words

The civil rights movement in the South was a time of blood, tears, and victory for the African American Community. While it was a victorious time when it came to end, it came with a price. Thousands of Americans stood in harms way in order to ensure that one day race would have nothing to do with whether or not somebody could use a public restroom, sit and have a cup of coffee or be able to vote for a candidate they believed would be the right choice to help serve their country. There was a long list of people who tried to stand in the way of the African American community getting the rights and freedom that they deserved. Everyday they endured ridicule and were turned away from things that Americans now take for granted. One of the†¦show more content†¦By 1957 it was documented to believe that the Klan membership had doubled as up to 50,000 joined, forming more than five hundred local ‘Klaverns’ with up to twenty five to one thousand members in each. The Civil Rights movement started to go into affect in the mid 1950s with Martin Luther King Jr. silently protesting along with the non-violent acts of civil resistance. As the movement became stronger so did the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the South, meeting the protesters with fiery crosses, and threatening letters and when the KKK felt that there message wasn’t heard they used tactics of harmful and deadly repercussions. As civil rights activists got stronger and gained more followers, death threats rose. By the early 1960s activists were heading up and down the South, hosting voting and registration campaigns to help the African American community participate in the local politics and help them set up places to register in small town communities. As the registration accelerated so did the Klan in the South, the FBI was able to determine around five hundred members prompting to help increase the rise in the Klan terror around 1961. The Klan rose back up with new members joining in bigger packs as the civil rights movement became stronger. Law enforcement and business owners through out the