1
Discrimination and The Civil Rights Movement
For hundreds and thousands of years, mankind has suffered from discrimination. In
ancient Africa, tribes went to war and killed each other for power and leadership. In the
Arabian Peninsula tribes, their leaders assassinated other tribal leaders for the loyalty of the
attacked tribe. Discrimination does not necessarily mean abusing others’ rights for power;
some people discriminate against others for their different religious beliefs and even their
race. Muslims were killed and burnt alive in some cases just for being Muslim;
discrimination can reach extreme conditions where lives are lost.
As a more recent example, around the mid-1900s, African-Americans were being
judged by their skin color and were treated unfairly because they looked different than most
Americans. That act of hatred towards a specific race or a religious group is called racism.
During the past one hundred years, white Americans tried not to interact with African-
