What Is African American's Role In The Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was fed by the lack of African American’s equal suffrage. They fought for their rights through many people, activists and citizens. The roles by major activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X, are taught to every student in school, but the roles of the common citizens, who made large strides towards equality in their communities, are often left out. In the novel, The Secret Life of Bees and the article A Dream Undone, there are examples of everyday citizens who worked towards equal voting rights, which effectively progressed the country to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, was created with the intention
It tells the story of Frye, who returned back home to North Carolina from the Air Force. After serving his country, he thought it was the perfect time for him to register to vote. When he went to register, they issued an impassable, literacy test; the literacy test required him to recite the constitution with perfection, and he, like most people, could not, so he was denied. This act of rejection from Jim Crow Laws fed his determination, and he went on to be the first African American to graduate from the University of North Carolina Law School in 1959(“A Dream Undone.”). After Frye graduated he worked with worked as a deputy United States attorney for the Kennedy administration; during that he also was a legal advisor to students who arranged the desegregation sit-ins at Greensboro, NC. The Voting Rights Act restricted states from using dextrous ways to prevent minorities from voting, such as literacy tests. Frye became a beneficiary of the Act, when he became the first African American representative voted into the North Carolina General Assembly in 1968. In the following decades, Frye and hundreds of other elected African Americans advocated the Voting Rights Act by encouraging minorities to