American Civil Right Movement - 1955-1968

The American Civil Rights Movement had many events that attempted to desegregate the United States such as: the Brown vs. Board of Education trial, Freedom Riders, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. These events, both successful and not, would be influential to the upcoming Blaxploitation movement in film. The Freedom Riders movement proved to be a nasty one as 13 members set out on May 4th, 1961 to test the ruling of the Boynton vs. Virgina case, which supposedly desgregated inter-state travel. " With the cooperation of the cops, a Klan mob of more than 100 ambush the Riders in Anniston AL, on Mothers Day, May 15. The Riders are brutally beaten and the Greyhound bus is set on fire. The mob holds the door shut to burn them alive. The Alabama Highway Partol has an undercover cop on board. He pulls his gun to force the mob back, and the passengers tumble off the bus — barely escaping with their lives — just as the gas tanks are exploding." (The First Ride). It is actions like this that fuel the need for revolt in the Blaxploitation films to come.