Following the Reconstruction era, there was a huge gap between the freedoms of black and white people. Many black were barred from voting because of poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. Schools were segregated and unequal. Blacks could not fully partake in the American Dream. Racism was a powder keg ready to explode. There was a lot of violence against black during this time. Both blacks and some whites demanded change for equality among blacks. Change happened slowly through civil disobedience and federal laws. The African American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was effective at addressing the failures of Reconstruction Era largely through the civil disobedience methods of martin Luther King Jr. rather than …show more content…
Jim Crow laws were the philosophy of “separate but equal” (doc#1). The argument against Jim Crow laws was that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”(doc #1). The Case Brown V Board of Education (1954) declared that education had to be equal. This led to forced bussing where black students were bussed to white schools. This resulted in mixed success because kids were displaced from their home communities. Many white people did not like black people coming to their schools. There was protests and riots against forced bussing. “Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts” (doc#2). President Eisenhower had to send troops to little rock Arkansas so that the students could attend school. The decree of law did not solve the problem of unequal schools. On paper it was a good idea but in reality it did not have public acceptance and did not help the blacks or win white …show more content…
Blacks could not vote because of poll taxes literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. The poll tax is where blacks are charged a fee to vote which blacks could not pay. The Literacy test was an extremely confusing test that blacks had to take if they wanted to vote. The grandfather case said if your grandfather could vote than you could vote so whites could get out of the poll taxes and literacy test. All three of these laws were an unfair means of keeping blacks from voting. The march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama in 1965 was a protest against black injustice. In response to these protest President Johnson set the stage for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Rights Act “struck down restriction to voting in all election (doc#6). This allowed blacks to vote. It enhanced democracy because more people could vote. Civil disobedience resulted in this law being enacted. In 1960 before the law was enacted the percent of total black registration in the south was “29.1%” (doc#7). In 1968 after the voting law was enacted the total rose to “62.0%”
Jesse Jackson, a Civil Right Activist, once proclaimed,"Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior." In other words, Jesse Jackson is saying that racism is a sickness that is affecting many people. People want their race to be superior over others, and rather than using their time for jobs and an education, they want to make sure their race is ruling. Because of this, they can't see that the opposite race is coming together and will rise against those who are prejudice.
Throughout Reconstruction, there were deviations of oppression towards African Americans, which caused conflictual events, and music remarkably alternated all of this. During Reconstruction, there were multiple conflicts between races. From the perspective of white people, African Americans appeared as inferior. Although this was not a valid perspective, it influenced how politics and rights progressed throughout this period. There was an overall ongoing theme of white southern resistance to Reconstruction, and following this concept, there was an abundance of efforts to restrict or strip black rights in hopes of preserving a system of white supremacy.
The Nineteenth Olympic Games were held in Mexico City in 1968. On the 16th of October 1968 the 200 meters Men’s track event was coming to a dramatic end. Tommie smith finished the race in first position, with a world record time of 19.38 seconds and the second position and finishing with a national record Peter Norman from Australia with a time of 20.06 seconds. Soon to come third place was American John Carlos with a time of 20.10 seconds. Not only did these men change sporting history but perhaps more they also changed human rights history.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was basically written as a reinforcement of the fifteenth amendment. It does not allow racial discrimination in voting and was officially signed in to law by president at the time, Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965. South Carolina argued that the protested
This was a way for president Johnson to eliminate some of the difficulties African-Americans faced. The Selma March had a great impact of the passing of The Voting Rights Act because it brought attention to other parts of the country that weren 't aware of the subject. The Selma march was supposed to be a peaceful march but later turned violent by other mobs. Lastly, The Voting Rights Act brought a lot of equality to our country that had never been seen
Jim Crow laws Jim Crow law is how white people and colored people didn’t get along; there was lot unfairness between them such as segregation. Segregation is enforcing separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment. Like, in Alabama hospitals private or public, there can’t be any female nurses in the same room as a black man. For the buses, they had separate waiting rooms and separate ticket windows for the white and colored people. With restaurants whites and colored couldn’t be served in the same room unless they had a solid wall built from the roof down to separate them.
This was to keep them ¨Equal¨ but really did not because all of the black areas were not kept in good condition and the white´s was. This had a big effect on the school system as well. The black schools were
Looking back in the history of the United States of America, African American were given the right to vote on February 3, 1870 by the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even though they were given the right to vote they were placed under undue pressure to keep them from voting. Tactics such as, violence, literacy tests, poll taxes, ridiculous registration practices, Voters ID, Redistricting, and other obstacles were used. This was especially done in the South where slavery was popular. Many African Americans experienced violence and were even murdered to prevent them from voting.
Schools had to change. Even with the integration of new laws to assist Black Americans, Jim Crow laws were used and were unconstitutional, Civil Rights Activists filed many cases against it to ban it. They just needed to show that it was wrong and get the attention they needed to do it. The Freedom Riders campaign had massive effects on the fight against the segregation that was happening in the United States. It spread quickly through many places, showing and making people see the issue of segregation and racial discrimination in the South.
Historical Influences on the Novel To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the 1930s during the Great Depression. This was a dark and hopeless time for all who lived in the United States of America. Many real-life events were the foundation for Harper Lee when writing her novel. The Jim Crow Laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials are all linked to events that occurred in the novel.
Despite the fact that African Americans and other racial and ethnic minority Americans are guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was passed just after the Civil War in 1870, states and local municipalities continued to use tactics such as poll taxes, literacy tests and outright intimidation to stop people from casting free and unfettered ballots. During the Civil Rights activism of the 1960's, just 5 days after Martin Luther King, Jr. led the march on Selma, President Lyndon Johnson announced his intention to pass a federal Voting Rights Act to insure that no federal, state or local government may in any way impede people from registering to vote or voting because of their race or ethnicity. In 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights
In order to vote, citizens had to do some things before They had to do Poll Taxes, in which required a person to pay before an election occurred so that they could vote. Anyone that paid the fee was eligible to pass the Poll Tax. Literacy tests had to be completed too, which was a requirement to prove that their education was high enough to vote. The test was given to anyone who wanted to vote. But for the African Americans, they had made the test where is was like impossible for them to get the answers right.
The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.
Allison Krug English II Ms. Cuddihy January 24th, 2015 Plessy vs. Ferguson It might be hard to imagine but in 1896 people who sat in the wrong part of the passenger train were fined and/or jailed. Plessy vs. Ferguson helped pave the way for many anti racial discrimination laws. This Supreme Court decision helped to uphold the Statue of Louisiana acts of 1890, which required passenger trains to provide “separate but equal” accommodations for whites and colored races on its railroads which changed the rights to make separate facilities for both races to be constitutional as long as they were equal. This truly changed the Civil Rights Era forever.
White people in the south were resistant to the advances of black people and minorities. It was clear that the federal government was trying to stand for racial inequalities. In 1948 black people were allowed to serve in the military and fight for their country. Before that they were required to only cleaning, cooking and simply working for the white people. The black civil rights activist were met with hostility and sometimes beaten or killed.