attitudes toward one another. While it cause many to turn their backs on their brothers and sisters in the Movement, it prompted many others to unify in order to protect and strengthen one another.The latter effect was most evident in the youth, who had seen and heard so much more that made them question the current situation. They had seen segregation challenged. They had heard the impassioned words of people like Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers. They knew that things were different in the north, where blacks had earned a far greater sense of respect, equality, accomplishment, and independence. The results of prejudice in their minds and hearts turned to rage, disgust, and desire. In this sense, the continued acts of prejudice by whites served to fuel the fire of the Movement. Under the thumb of a more benevolent white society, many African Americans may have been to content to have caused trouble. If the whites had made a greater effort to keep the blacks out of poverty, many may have feared that an uprising would take away their financial security. As thing were, though, many felt that they had nothing to lose except the chains that had continued to bind them long since the Civil War had been won. For these reasons, the youth of the black communities became the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.The volatile situation was a perfect example of the ways in which poverty, discontent, and social clash lead to uprising and revolt. The African Americans were a people in need of a leader. Their empty stomachs and poorly clothed bodies opened their minds to new ideas and the possibility of change. The door had been opened, even if just a crack, for people like Anne Moody to begin planting the seeds of independence and justice. The more the whites resisted the Movement—the more they beat, killed, raped, ravaged, and burned; the more comforts they denied the blacks—the more anger and hostility built within the ...
