Civil Rights Movement Essay

2005, 1969, 1949

America was built on the principles of equality and liberty. We see these ideas solidified in our constitution in places such as the 14th amendment. As time goes on, we can look back and wonder if these promises of equality were given freely, or possibly controlled by race. America is one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations in the world, but we know that it wasn’t always like this. So the question arises, how has race impacted a person’s opportunity for equality and civil rights? Over time, America has slowly delivered on the promise of equality but failed to eliminate the prejudice of its past.

Starting in 1948, America was fresh out of World War 2. The culture before this in the early 1940s was strongly

In the 1960s, youth played a crucial role in shaping race relations by actively engaging in protests and activism that pushed for racial equality. In 1964 we saw the Civil Rights Act of 1964 get passed, which was a landmark legislation. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It outlawed racial segregation in public facilities and employment discrimination. While this was one of the biggest steps in the fight for civil rights, the culture of America was slower to change. This is when we see the youth, especially on college campuses, protest and take it upon themselves to ensure equal treatment. On Feb 22, 1969, an article by the New York Times called “35 Negroes March In Student Protest At North Carolina” was published. This newspaper explains an event in which a march led by a Black Student Union took place on the University of North Carolina's campus. Many young people joined civil rights organizations and student-led movements like the Students For a Democratic Society. Their energy helped increase momentum for the Civil Rights Movement's ongoing struggle for justice. We see in the article that this student union has a list of demands they wanted the school to acknowledge. These demands listed a special program for African-Americans, but the school ignored them. This is an example of how youth culture fought for civil rights in the 1960s, but still faced opposition. Most of the time when students encountered obstacles like this it only fueled their fire to continue to protest. It is during the 1960s that we see the emergence of hippie culture as well as rock and roll. These can be seen as a resistance to the traditional American society, which denied personal freedoms to certain racial groups. On Aug 15, 1969, The Washington Post published a newsletter titled “Thousands Rolling in for Woodstock