The black American’s fight for better civil rights was a long and hard one. Before Martin Luther King took command of the Civil rights movement, little was being done to help improve them. However, organisations such as the NAACP were fighting for greater rights, for example the Brown V Topeka case, in which it was argued that Linda Brown should be sent to her nearest, school, which was a few blocks away, instead of the all blacks school, which was several kilometres away.

The court case was won and it was declared on May 17th 1954 that segregation no longer had any place in the field of public education; this was one of the first major strikes against de-segregation and formed a basis for the rest of the movements.

Other examples include, the fiasco at Little Rock school, where the governor banned the black students (nine in total) from entering the school using the national guard

When Martin Luther King was elected the head of the Civil Rights Movement, things really began to kick off, compared to the earlier examples which made some but little difference, as even the president was unable to push forward bills of de-segregation and equality as they were blocked by his own party, meaning that the president could do little more than sit an watch, as his bills of anti-lynching, were thrown out.

King revolutionised the art of protestation and under his guidance achieved the previously impossible, and he began to secure them a definite improvement, through Kings uses of peaceful protests he manage to abolish the hated literacy tests that had been erected in a legal way to stop Black Americans from voting, in the years that followed the number of registered Black people rose significantly, compared to earlier years. He also secured more jobs for black Americans, as what started out as the “Freedom Riders” plea for de-segregation on buses turned into a year long protest that began to encompass the entirety of the civil rights movement. However the changes made were not perfect, the number of white voters was still on average higher that blacks by 20% and the poverty numbers were still based mostly on Black people.

Even as early as 1942 people were fighting for equality and for greater civil rights, the sit-in technique was not new as far back as 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality sponsored sit-ins in Chicago with a lasting effect that made people finally take notice of the fact that more and more public places were becoming desegregated.

Before this, although the army had become desegregated, black people still felt despised and hated by the white populous, therefore Blacks developed a slogan, named “Freedom at Home and Abroad” in direct reference to the racism they faced upon their return. The main weapon of the black people in retaliation was their process of non violent marches, under King, these made the most difference, as he managed to gather up hundreds of thousands of supporters, the most famous of which was the march to Washington, which was composed of about 250,000 supporters and roughly 70,000 white supporters. As well as the non-violent methods used by Kind, there were also organizations such as the “Black Muslims” who had no qualms about which method was used in order to achieve their goal, there teachings attracted thousands of young frustrated Blacks They were lead by Malcom X for a while, until he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and became enlightened and forsook the organisation and begin to preach teachings of peace and tolerance. Because of this he was murdered by members. Yet in the short time that he abandoned the Black Muslims, he managed to turn many followers with him.

As well as the Black Muslims the “Black Panther” group also used violence in order to achieve their goals of complete independence from the White people.

In conclusion the black Americans used many methods groups and ideas in order to secure their civil rights which has only really succeeded in the recent weeks of 2009 during which the election of the first Black President, will have completed the dreams of Martin Luther King, Elijah Mohamed and all the others who fought for equality.