Preachers and Civil Rights.

The goals of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were achieved in large part by African-American preachers who led black southerners in a successful effort to secure the rights guaranteed to them in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. While the drive for this social revolution came from the black community, its success depended upon the support of whites at a time when the federal government had moved slowly to protect the rights of blacks in the South. A major factor in persuading whites to support these changes came from the ability of the civil rights workers to appeal to the religious and moral values of the nation.

Greensboro Demonstrations.

In February 1960 white and black Americans were stunned by the sit-in demonstrations at the Woolworth's dime store's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, which...