Compare And Contrast The Reconstruction And The Civil Rights Movement

Both the reconstruction and the civil rights movement periods are important in the history of the united states because they try to explain how different races, sexes, religious groups, and people from different countries came about to acquire their rights. The reconstruction period specifically focuses on the period after the civil war whereby both the southern and the northern states were looking forward to being united once more. The reconstruction period lasted between 1861 to 1867 (Horton and Blight). On the other hand, Civil Rights Movement era is the period through which some grievances were being addressed either through violence or nonviolence means after the reconstruction period. It is believed that some grievances were not satisfactorily addressed during the reconstruction period and thereby giving birth to the civil rights movement. This period occurred between 1954-1968, practically in the southern states of the United States of America (Zelm). This paper will …show more content…
This period encompasses the strategies that were undertaken by various groups and social movements whose goals were geared towards racial segregation and discrimination, especially against African Americans. This involved nonviolent and even violent mass movements of people, especially in the southern states, which were still practicing racial discrimination and white supremacy over other races. The civil rights movements had various practices included civil resistance, extreme civil disobedience, and crisis situations (Wright). Different stakeholders who included the federal government representatives, activists, local government, and business fraternity among others had to respond when called upon to address the highlighted inequities faced by African Americans. Civil Right Movements were characterized by sit-ins, marches, boycotts and other non-violent