finally the desegregation of buses in Montgomery in 1956. In 1960, the first sit-in of black students took place in North Carolina, to be followed by others in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and all southern and border states. Dressed-up as professionals, the students sat quietly in segregated areas of public facilities, until they were expelled, often by force. The sit-in movement finally led to the Freedom Rides in 1961, and later on, to pacifist marches, among which was the march on Washington led by reverend Martin Luther King Jr, maybe the most famous emblematic character of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA. This march, which was “a collaborative effort of all of the major civil rights organizations, the more progressive wing of the labour movement, and other liberal organizations” [4], had a great impact for the causes of the civil rights movement: it was broadcasted on television, which made the entire country aware of what happened in the South of the USA, as well as in other states. The “I Have a Dream” speech by King is also one of the most famous allocutions of the time. All these pacifist events led to a national recognition of the Blacks’ fight for their civil rights, and finally new laws were passed: in 1954, in the Education field, the ‘Separate but Equal’ laws were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; in 1961, the desegregation of the buses in Montgomery was decided (following the bankruptcy of the bus company); in 1964, the Civil Rights Act “made racial discrimination illegal in public places and in many areas of employment” [5]; and in 1965, the Voting Rights Act removed all barriers to voting by black people. The Blacks now had the same civil rights as Whites... In South Africa, the Civil Rights Movement also began with civil disobedience, strikes and boycotts, led by the African National Congress (ANC) and mostly its Youth League (ANCYL), in 1949. Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, the ANCYL advocated that “white authority could only be overthrown through mass campaigns” [6]. In 1950, the May Day stay-away succeeded in expressing all the Blacks’ grievances regarding Apartheid. In 1952, the Joint Planning Council (composed of the ANC, the South African Indian Congress and the Coloured People’s Congress) decided on a “plan for the defiance of unfair laws” [7], if the Pass Laws (which prevented coloured people from travelling freely in the country) were not abolished. As no positive answer was given to these requests, the Programme of Action was launched with the Defiance campaign: black people began to use “whites only” entries, to walk in whites areas after the curfew forbidding them to do so... This programme led to more than 8,000 people being arrested for breaking the racial laws. The government seemed to release its control over Black people, before taking several supreme measures and putting the ANC leaders (including Nelson Mandela) in jail... The Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Separate Amenities Act only reinforced Apartheid, the former by condemning people encouraging others to protest against the laws, and the latter by allowing owners of amenities to decide whether they would bar the entry to coloured people. Racial separation was thus strongly confirmed. In 1954, the National Action Council for the Congress of the People was founded, aiming at constituting a Freedom Charter, emphasizing the idea of a just and non-racial South Africa, a one-person-one-vote democracy, and a fair distribution of land (Coloured people could not own their land). The Charter was
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