December 1st, 1955 -  The sights I see as I walk through the streets of Montgomery, Alabama are egregious. The signs of  “Colored” or “Whites Only” pain me like knives staked in my side. This is not right. This is not just. I patiently wait at the bus stop. The black community must not fret, for we are constantly reassured by the double-edged sword of a phrase: Separate, but equal. How is it possible that experiences, opportunities, and education, for example, could be completely equal if we are always subject to conscious, or sometimes unconscious, prejudice by the majority. The arriving bus lets out a deafening screech and a loud hiss - I wait. I board and walk towards the empty “neutral” section of the bus. I sit down - to wait some more. After a few minutes, and new passengers board, I am furiously barked at by the driver to give my seat to the white man who is standing. This is not right. This is not just. I refuse.

A brave woman dismissed the white man’s order. She refused to move. She refused to wait any longer and held onto her seat for the turbulent ride ahead.

Civil rights- “The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.” Throughout recent American history there have been many activists fighting for equality of the races. Some have fought as pacifists and others as militants. Thurgood Marshall, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Atticus Finch fought against racial discrimination in order to attain justice and equality for the black community.

In May 1954, a civil rights lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, made a great impact on the legal system in America. Marshall is most known for his victory in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. This case was one of the most important cases of the 20th century. Through this case, Marshall challenged head-on the legal groundwork of racial segregation established by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson: the doctrine of “separate but equal.” On the 17th of May in 1954, the Supreme court ruled that “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” And from that point on, it was recognized that racial segregation of public schools violated the 14th amendment. While enforcement of the Court’s ruling was very slow, Brown v. Board of Education provided the much needed legal underpinning for the American Civil Rights Movement.

Next, in August of 1955, a young boy named Emmett Till was brutally mutilated and murdered by two white men, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam. Bryant and Milam kidnapped and murdered fourteen year-old Emmett for allegedly talking to Bryant's wife while shopping at the grocery store. The two men committed a heinous act and went to live their lives unpunished. Medgar Evers, who constantly fought racial injustices, called for a new investigation of this lynching. Even though Evers did not succeed in his attempts to give the Till family what they deserved, he continued to fight the state and local legal systems on how they handled crimes against African Americans. Evers was also one of the NAACP’s most prominent members. As the first field secretary, he traveled extensively around Mississippi recruiting new members for the NAACP and voter-registration efforts. He also led boycotts of white-owned companies that discriminated against those of colored skin. Clearly, Medgar Evers was a man who combated racial and social injustice in anyway he could:  in the courts as well as out.

In addition, another figure who fought his hardest against inequality, injustice and discrimination is a man by the name of Atticus Finch. A character in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, who is from the fictional small-town of Maycomb, Alabama, stood up for Tom Robinson, a black man who was as good as dead when he was accused of raping a white woman. Atticus, despite knowing that his case did not stand a chance in court, defended Tom to the best of his ability. As a father of children, Atticus frequently had to address many questions and statements his kids expressed. For example, Scout tells her father that he must be wrong in defending Tom Robinson because the entire town seems to think it’s the wrong thing to do. Atticus is quick to correct his daughter and explain his thought process: the only thing that trumps his majority vote is a person’s conscience. In other words, Atticus knows that an individual’s conscience is a better guide to justice than any majority vote. Regardless of having lost in court, Atticus considered his loss a victory because the jury actually deliberated instead of taking only moments to reach a “guilty” verdict as they would any other black man.

Finally, another person who took action against inequality of the races is a man that mirrors Gandhi: Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of the most prominent figures during the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning in the mid-1950s, King had an enormous impact on race relations. He battled injustice and racial inequality and aided in eventually ending legal segregation of African-American citizens in the south and other areas of the nation. King was a man who moved the masses using his words. He asked of his followers to fight and strike back without actually striking - much like Ghandi. MLK encouraged acts of civil disobedience such as defying Jim Crow laws through sit-ins, violating laws and court-orders prohibiting marches and boycotts. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King explains the moral arguments for civil disobedience, and identifies the differences between just and unjust laws.  And just like Ghandi was successful in obtaining India’s independence using nonviolent methods, King helped the black community acquire their own kind of freedom, without violence. He played a crucial role in the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His legacy is written in historical papers, documents, books, walls and monuments to serve as a reminder of the seismic impact he had on American society.

In conclusion, there have been many activists fighting for the justice, equality and respect African Americans deserve as human beings. For the cause at hand, these men dedicated their lives and some even gave it. Thurgood Marshall cleared the legal underpinning for the Civil Rights Movement to advance forward by helping reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling in 1896, “separate but equal.” Medgar Evers kept an eye out for blacks who were charged with crimes and contested what he could in attempts to free his innocent clients. Atticus Finch was one who also battled in court for a black, innocent man even though more than half of the town, and the sitting jury, condemned the defendant before the trial even began. And lastly, through his activism, Martin Luther King, Jr., helped push for the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They all lived with a purpose. They each had their personal mission in life. They each had a dream. However, the fight is not completely over, for today racism is still alive in certain parts of this country and the world. Things today are very different from how they were back then - significant progress has been made. Racism is something that will always be alive, but what activists can do to fight this is by following in the steps of these great historic figures who achieved great change by fighting back through civil disobedience.