How Did John Lewis Affect The Civil Rights Movement

The Greensboro Four stayed at the restaurant until closing time. Each day they came back with more and more people. The First Greensboro Sit-In took place at Woolworth’s. “The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African-American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service.” (“Greensboro Sit-In”)

African Americans tried many ways to gain equality from boycotting, sit-ins and marches, but not many people would listen to them. In document four it shows over 200,000 Americans that gathered in Washington in the late summer. They gathered there for a march. Their signs included many goals that they wanted to achieve. They wanted to end segregation for all, decent housing and a good pay for everyone.

This paper will discuss, what was the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)? The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee was an organization that was formed to give young blacks a platform to have their voice heard during the civil rights movement. The SNCC was an organization that was founded by black college students, which was started in Greensboro, North Carolina, by Ella Baker, in 1960. Ella Baker helped to form the SNCC because she thought the leaders of the Southern Christian Leaders Conference (SCLC) led by Dr. Martin Luther King, was out of touch with black youth.

Protests, Marches and Civil disobedience which produced disruption and life-changing dialogue between insurgents, Government, and Political officials. Including Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, whom due to political instability granted the Politically endorsed concessions that gave Blacks Full Citizenship as voters, as well as ended Jim Crow and Segregation. To quell protests the Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities that were boycotted or Protested in often had to respond to the demands of Black Protesters. As previously mentioned protests and civil disobedience, consisted of Bus Boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama.

Among all the civil right leaders on the March on Washington D.C only one is a living today still fighting for equality. John Lewis was an iconic civil rights leader during 1960’s in the fight for civil rights for black people and desegregation of the south. Lewis started on a small farm in 1940’s where he tended the chickens as a young boy. As Lewis grow up he had to go through life changing that open his eyes to the injustice around him, without this moments he would not have become the great civil right leader he is today. Some of those memorable pivotal turning Lewis had to go though were the journey to Buffalo he took with his uncle Otis, listening and engaging with Mather Luther King, the pressure of stacking up to civil right speaker

He used this election as a way to protest the racial prejudice he found inside the organization. This peaceful protest formed the Negro American Labor Council in 1959. Randolph also began to put his time into broadening civil rights work. In 1957 Randolph formed a prayer pilgrimage to draw attention to the desegregation of schools in the south, that was yet to be enforced. To accompany his other organized marches, at the end of the 1950s, he led the Youth Marches for Integrated Schools.

These included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was founded in Atlanta in 1960, the Atlanta Student Movement, which organized sit-ins and protests in the city. And the Sibley Commission which gathered Georgia residents together to discuss desegregation and report back to the governor. The images in (Doc 6) show a group of African American students participating in a sit in at a whites only. John Sibley recommended that “the state accept the federal decision to desegregate the schools despite the commissions findings” (Doc 4) This was important at the time since most of the Sibley commission and John Sibley at the time were for

Influenced by King’s faith and tactics, many civil rights student-led activist groups were formed such as the SNCC. A core goal of the SNCC was to promote nonviolent protesting methods using religion as its base (SNCC, Doc A). The SNCC led various voting campaigns in the South, all led by students who shared a common belief. CORE was another group formed by students back in 1942. In the late 50s and 60s, they arranged or participated in some of the most pivotal peaceful protests such as the Freedom Rides and other bus boycotts (O).

But right now let's just focus on what John Lewis did and what he was. John Lewis was the student of the nonviolent coordinating committee. This means he was in charge of making plans to keep the United States nonviolent. "Do we have the courage? Do we have the raw courage to at least make a down payment on ending gun violence in America.”

In 1963, as one of the "' Big Six' leaders of the civil rights movement," the events of the "March on Washington" were planned (John Lewis 5). Even though the Civil Rights Act had become a law, it did not help with the treatment of African Americans. To combat this Lewis led a "march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama," where he got severely beaten (John Lewis 6). Even though he got beaten and cursed at, Lewis later went on to join the House of Representatives in 1986, where he continued to fight for voting rights. On July 17, 2020, he would die of stage four pancreatic cancer.

provocative quotes, and speeches that he made like I Have a Dream. King also inspired several non-violent protests such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) the youth black also initiated a silent protest at Woolworth Store Chain in Greensboro, North Carolina. It started with four freshmen students who simply sit-in at the store, they ordered at the counter and waited to be served, but they are ignored until the establishment closed. Later, more students in Nashville, Tennessee joined the protest, they also sit-in and endured the harassment and negligence, some of them are arrested, but other students will simply take their place to sit-in in more stores and businesses, but during 1960 their hard work paid off when some of the establishment simply respond to serve them to avoid sales loss and incidence of harassment.

In March of 1965, during the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, protestors were attacked by white law enforcement with batons and tear gas, and one man was killed. A week later, President Johnson gave a speech addressing Congress. He began his address by condemning what happened in Selma, Alabama. A short five months later, on August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices that were practiced in many southern states after the Civil

The SNCC was a group of young black college students who wanted a change in how they lived their day-to-day lives. The way that they managed to do this is by doing sit-ins, this is where the students would sit in a whites only restaurant or café and wait until they got served. By doing this these college students were able to integrate most restaurants that would only serve white people. Their next plan was to integrate other places as well where colored people couldn’t be served. The SNCC made a very strong impact on the civil rights movement.

African American leaders got together and they all decide that until something was done about the laws of segregation all of the african americans would be starting a boycott in the montgomery bus system. The African Americans did not ride the buses for 381 day the people walked everywhere they need to go. As hard as it was for the people they kept going to continue the movement for their rights. The people finally got what they deserved equal rights the United States Supreme Court Ruled that that the Jim Crow Laws were unconstitutional. Rosa boycott was able to bring freedom to the people of the

The new laws that the government had set in place made lives for black people very difficult at the time. When this law was put in place, the differences between blacks and whites were very clear. Whites got preferential treatment, just for being white whereas blacks had to struggle with daily