The Civil Rights Movement was an ever growing national movement to stop the horrible treatment that African Americans would recieve. Even after slavery was abolished, a lot of racist people found ways in holding the African Americans back from complete liberation. The saying goes that African Americans can be "separate but equal", but that was outruled in 1954. The U.S. Supreme Court stated "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" due to the fact that African American children didn't get the kind of education as the whites did. This resulted from The Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Slowly but surely, African Americans started a movement that would enable real equality to be present in their every day lives. It was a struggle and it was a very tough fight, but they did not slow the momentum for their cause, and they refused to be silenced, ergo, the freedom and liberation that African Americans have today.
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The usage of the television in displaying the news and current events helped to encourage and speed up freedom and equality rights for African Americans. "Segragationist started to see that television was disrupting the system -- they were labeled as the enemy" (Streitmatter). The leading stations who would broadcast the Civil Rights Movement were given nicknames by segragationists; ABC was called Afro Broadcasting Company, CBS, Colored Broadcasting System, and NBC being Nigger Broadcasting Company. If you were seen reporting any negative thing that would happen to African Americans, your life was in danger. They felt as though if you were helping the movement, that you were their enemy and they would attack you just as much as they would attack the African Americans. Richard Valeriani was reporting under NBC, and because of it, he was roughly hit in the back of the head with the wooden handle of an ax, which resulted in a severe head wound. A state trooper witnessed the whole thing and didn't even arrest the man who attacked him, rather, he took the ax handle away from him and sent him along his way.
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There are many different occasions where African Americans would try to be a part of this equality that was said they obtained, but whenever they did, they were attacked for it, and treated in extrememly horrendous ways. One occasion in 1957, was when nine African American students transferred to Central High School in Arkansas, which is known for having only white students. The Governor, Orval Faubus told the Arkansas National Guardsmen not to let them in. Because of the number of whites that were displeased about African Americans attending Central High School, many of them were outside the school awaiting their arrival. Concerned about their safety, the police had brought them to school. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine, did not get this notification, and as she was walking to school, she was harassed and verbally assaulted by the whites. A white middle aged woman who was worried about her and wanted to help, lead her onto a city bus where she can escape the abuse. Eisenhower had to step in and take matters into his own hands because the governor wouldn't cooperate with him or the Supreme Court. Governor Faubus "was [outwardly] displaying defiance toward the Supreme Court's decision of desegregation" and so Eisenhower ordered the National Guardsmen, under federal control, to protect the Little Rock Nine, which they were later called. A few years afterward, in 1961, University of Georgia and University of Mississippi began the desegregation process, University of Alabama following in 1963.
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Another occasion was when a "racially mixed group of college students" decided to travel by bus from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans. They became known as "freedom riders" and NBC's cameraman Moe Levy wanted to capture it all on film. The further south they went, the more people would taunt them and ridicule them and so the police decided to escort the buses to their final destination. At some point during the drive the police cars were no where to be found. When the "freedom riders" got to the Montgomery station, there awaiting them was a group of 2,000 segregationists. They were waiting for them with weapons such as bricks, baseball bats, and lead pipes. As a result of this monstrous act, the "freedom riders" lost teeth, had broken bones, and many of them were disfigured for the rest of their lives. As for Moe Levy, "one of his legs was permanently injured". There were no recordings of this incident because the crowd purposely destroyed Levy's camera.
