Landmark judicial decisions and a now famous bus boycott resulted in the civil rights movement gaining unprecedented strength and momentum in southern states in the 1950s. In 1954, with Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that the segregation of public facilities was unconstitutional. In 1955, the Court ordered the desegregation of public schools, though it did not set a deadline for this process. Three years after Brown, nearly all southern schools remained segregated. The NAACP decided to push the federal government to enforce the 1955 Supreme Court order to desegregate public schools, focusing on an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. In September 1957, nine black teenagers enrolled in Central High School. Angry mobs, encouraged by the Arkansas governor Orval Faubus's defiance of the federal government, surrounded and threatened the students. Ultimately, President Dwight Eisenhower reluctantly ordered the National Guard to protect them. The efforts to integrate Central High School made headlines around the world.
In early December 1955, after the arrest of the seamstress and local NAACP secretary Rosa Parks for refusing to …show more content…
King found ideas for a national integrationist movement in philosophy, Christianity, and the example of the nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi, whose principles of nonviolent civil disobedience shaped a movement that won India's independence from Great Britain in 1948. King and other civil rights activists developed a strategy to oppose racial segregation by nonviolent means, which they believed would win sympathy for their cause and ultimately create a racially integrated society, a peaceful and just "beloved community." The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), established in 1957, united black churches, historically a source of inspiration, community support, and activism, to achieve racial
In early December 1955, after the arrest of the seamstress and local NAACP secretary Rosa Parks for refusing to …show more content…
King found ideas for a national integrationist movement in philosophy, Christianity, and the example of the nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi, whose principles of nonviolent civil disobedience shaped a movement that won India's independence from Great Britain in 1948. King and other civil rights activists developed a strategy to oppose racial segregation by nonviolent means, which they believed would win sympathy for their cause and ultimately create a racially integrated society, a peaceful and just "beloved community." The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), established in 1957, united black churches, historically a source of inspiration, community support, and activism, to achieve racial