Brown VS. Board of Education Alana Swims U.S. History Ms. Jeannine Pellettiere During the Reconstruction era 1865-1877, African American men began to gain some power in politics, with the ability to vote. However, as Democrats began to regain power in the southern states, laws were passed that began to establish “separate but equal” economic, educational and social policies that would discriminate against blacks for years. As of 1868 the 14th Amendment granted rights of citizenship to all people born in USA or naturalized in the US, it guaranteed equal protection of all laws for all citizens. However the basic rights were not provided as promised. From the earliest time in American the US education System mandated separate schools for children based on ethnicity. In most cases the schools for African Americans were inferior to the schools of whites. At the end of the civil war in 1865 the inclusion of African American as full citizens called for an amendment to the US constitution. The 14th amendment went into effect 3 years later giving citizenship and protected the civil rights of African Americans. Later the whites came up with the Jim Crow Laws or should I say “system”. Jim Crow refers to a group of laws and customs that allowed segregation in the US. The Jim Crow Laws were more than laws it …show more content…
Thus contributing to the workforce and the economy. The southern white man was so concerned about a black person being equal to them but missing the big picture. We (as in African American) helped make America what it is. The resistant white folk delayed our (as in America’s) progress by standing in the way of process. I believe there had to be a substantial amount of money spent on trying to keep us unequal; whereas if we had learned to work together much sooner we could have saved a lot of time, money and stress working on building up our