Significance of Civil Rights
Significance of Civil Rights
Dr. Joyce A. Baugh spoke about the significance of civil rights and connected each event to her own life story. She was born in Charleston, South Carolina when racism was a huge issue. Baugh started off by talking about how five years before she was born, Brown v. Board passed. She explained that the Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. Then in 1960, Baugh was just seven months old. Sit-ins had begun around this time. She informed us on how four African American men demanded lunch at a front counter in a restaurant. In the 1960’s, only whites could sit at front counters. The men, known as the Greensboro Four, ordered coffee. The lunch counter staff refused to serve the African American men at the counter and the store's manager asked them to leave but the men stayed until the store closed. This became a peaceful protest and by the next day there were more than twenty African Americans sitting at the front counter. Sit-ins spread throughout the south and Baugh mentioned she had a friend whom participated in a 1954 sit-in located in Kansas. Baugh then transitioned her speech to Freedom Riders. Freedom Riders were a group of African Americans and Whites that drove around in a bus, blacks in the front and whites in the back, all across different states. In one trip, they reached South Carolina. The people were so insulted. Once they reached terminals, they were beaten. From this story, she began to talk about a man by the name of Harvey Gantt. Baugh mentioned how proud she was of this man because he was the first African American from her hometown to become mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina in 1983. Gantt had the privilege to serve for two terms. Next, Baugh went back a few years and told us about the Bombing of 16th street in a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was an act of racially, motivated terrorism. This bombing killed four young girls and
Dr. Joyce A. Baugh spoke about the significance of civil rights and connected each event to her own life story. She was born in Charleston, South Carolina when racism was a huge issue. Baugh started off by talking about how five years before she was born, Brown v. Board passed. She explained that the Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. Then in 1960, Baugh was just seven months old. Sit-ins had begun around this time. She informed us on how four African American men demanded lunch at a front counter in a restaurant. In the 1960’s, only whites could sit at front counters. The men, known as the Greensboro Four, ordered coffee. The lunch counter staff refused to serve the African American men at the counter and the store's manager asked them to leave but the men stayed until the store closed. This became a peaceful protest and by the next day there were more than twenty African Americans sitting at the front counter. Sit-ins spread throughout the south and Baugh mentioned she had a friend whom participated in a 1954 sit-in located in Kansas. Baugh then transitioned her speech to Freedom Riders. Freedom Riders were a group of African Americans and Whites that drove around in a bus, blacks in the front and whites in the back, all across different states. In one trip, they reached South Carolina. The people were so insulted. Once they reached terminals, they were beaten. From this story, she began to talk about a man by the name of Harvey Gantt. Baugh mentioned how proud she was of this man because he was the first African American from her hometown to become mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina in 1983. Gantt had the privilege to serve for two terms. Next, Baugh went back a few years and told us about the Bombing of 16th street in a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was an act of racially, motivated terrorism. This bombing killed four young girls and