How did people feel about the civil rights movement?

Answer 1

The reaction of mainstream society changed over time and was very different in different regions. Many conservative Americans were shocked by the Civil Rights Movement and felt it was a betrayal of their values. Some extremists bombed churches and killed leaders of the Civil Rights movement.

Many Americans were initially unsure of the Civil Rights movement and its leaders. After Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech, which was very emotional and captivating, large numbers of white Americans began to support the Civil Rights movement. There were still huge numbers who did not.

Some supported the Civil Rights movement from its first inception. Some of the earliest leaders within the NAACP and similar organizations were white. Young people who became adults in the 1960s and 1970s nearly all supported civil rights.

Answer 2

The question as phrased requires a plural answer, but I can only speak for myself and the experience that was mine. I was born in 1955 in south Georgia. My parents were not wealthy or anything close to it, but we had what we needed. My father sold insurance, my mother stayed home with the kids. (I was #4)

We always had a black girl or woman that helped my mom around the house. There was even a time when we had three (more kids then) and there was one girl that only 'took care' of the kids. We were very close to our mom, but with so many kids, washing, cleaning, even playing with us was a lot for one woman. The young black girl that I grew up knowing was called Bunny. I don't remember her real name, my parents do. She was great. Very patient. You can imagine with rambunctious kids, especially my older brother and I. Bunny worked for my mom for about 3 years before we moved. When we moved, we all cried. She loved us, we loved her.

Both of my parents grew up passing many hours in company of black people. My mom's dad and brother hired black men to help on the farm. My uncle especially had one father/son team that were as good as farmers as there were in the county, my mom says. The father was called Gator, a nickname from somewhere, but my uncle respected his judgment and had him oversee two farms. Gator owned his house on my uncle's farm, owned his own car. He would go to town on business for my uncle, this what my mother tells me, and the storeowners would treat him as a regular customer, but she said many didn't like it. This was south Georgia, after all. Not everybody was raised to respect what a man did more than what he looked like.

Schools were segregated of course everywhere in the mid-late fifties, so my exposure to black children my age was practically nothing. I did come to know the ladies that cooked for my grandmother in the restaurant she and her husband owned. I remember Cora May and Maggie. They seemed friendly and pleasant. They certainly tolerated me being in their kitchen, obviously, my grandmother owned the place, but I never felt that they were anything but sincere in our conversations. They would tell me about the foods they were cooking, even let me work the potato slicer once! That was fun.

In that time, African-Americans were generally referred to as 'persons of color,' 'colored people,' 'Negroes,' and sometimes 'black.' Those terms came in and out of use/popularity. They were not used as slurs, not in our house. My parents did not use the term 'n*****.' We were reprimanded severely if we ever did, for we heard it many times at school or on the playground. My parents taught us to respect people older than we were and to watch for what a person did to determine his character and personality.

When the civil rights movement really picked up speed - at least getting into my range of thinking, public opinion was so much influenced by media, even then, and of course people talking to people, taking sides, etc. I started seeing just how large the gap between 'ordinary American' whites and 'ordinary American' blacks at the time was. Huge. The theory of 'separate but equal' had been proven as a failure, schools were de-segregated and now you had first-hand knowledge of the 'race issue.'

By this time we had moved to Charleston, SC. My high school was fortunate. We had very few open fights, like others around us. I think the football team was a big part of that. The team meshed quickly - black players from their school, white players from the school being de-segregated. The team had virtually no black/white problems, but a number of friendships were formed that set the example for the entire school and still exist today, thirty years later.

There was a lot of white public sentiment, I recall, that felt like the courts were taking opportunity away from whites to give to blacks, but it's clear now just how narrow that thinking was. Opportunity can be everywhere, and if you seize it it doesn't stop me from doing the same. Integrating the schools was the obvious move to finally improve the educational possibilities for black kids.

We've come so far since then, at least in years. Martin was shot by a white man. If you push aside the capital offense of murder, and a father/husband taken from his family, you still have such a tremendous act. The impact still hits. Dr. King was clearly a man with a vision of what the social fabric in America could be. If he had lived, I am convinced that far greater advances in society would have come about. There would be far more black doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, teachers, governors...his death was a blow for every American.

Through these years, I have encountered many persons who live outside the south. They comment on the racial struggles, the evidence of continued prejudice. Very often they don't understand the foundational differences, skin color aside, that have proven such effective impediments to success. But, I see signs that things continue to improve.

Dr. King and others fought for respect as persons of character. I was taught at an early age to give that respect to all who deserved it, regardless of color, education, career or social status. I am grateful to my parents for that teaching.

Answer 3

Two things came out of the civil rights movement, the first being a hate of african-americans, the second was the extreme hate of the white man. Down with the whitey.

Answer 4

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