I've read a lot about the early years of civil rights. It took the equivalent of a boatload of dead, rotting fish to shock the consciousness of Americans to the plight of Black's in the segregated south!

Their deaths and videos of Black's peacefully protesting and being beaten or killed for it finally got the attention of decent people who were largely unaware of just HOW bad it was down south.

I've read accounts of northern whites, some of whom were guilty of discrimination too, who thought that Black's down south got the largely unfair but NON-violent brand of discrimination popular up north at the time.

Seeing those videos and reading accounts of the girls' death and routine lynching zFINALLY shocked them into recognizing how bad and wrong it was, making them begin to support civil rights legislation.