ipl-logo

How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect African Americans

824 Words4 Pages

Significant amounts of people today often do not comprehend how recently African-Americans truly gained the right to vote. About fifty-some years ago, less than one generation, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act; a landmark piece of federal legislation. The Voting Rights Act help African-Americans across the nation to overcome the legal barriers, such as the racially discriminatory Jim Crow Laws, that often prevented them from exercising their right to vote—which is guaranteed under the fifteen amendment, in national, state, and local elections. More specially, from the ratification of the fifteen amendment to the passage and signing of the Voting Rights Act, African-Americans, as well as other minority groups, endure countless …show more content…

However, Dr. King believed that filing lawsuits was a very inefficient way to help decrease the obstacles that African-Americans faced during the voting process, due to racial prejudice and bigotry—in order to increase the percentage of African-Americans that came out to vote. Dr. King stated that his experience has “been that it takes years to undo in the courts what segregationists do in a day in the legislative halls of the South.” Many states, such as Alabama and Mississippi, in the deep were largely unaffected by SCLC actions in the last 1950s and early 1960s. The number of African-Americans registered was tremendously low; therefore, the voter turnout was low. For example, in the 1960 Presidential election only 29.4 percent of all African-Americans were registered to vote (Beyerlein & Andrews). Likewise, 19.3 percent of eligible African-Americans were registered in Alabama and more shockingly less than half a percent of African-American voters were registered in Selma, Alabama. Dr. King believed the only way to put force the national government to truly enforce the law was through direct-action campaigns. Dr. King went down to the worst of the worst Selma, Alabama. SCLC, along with other African-American activist, planned a march. In March of 1965, led by Dr. King, protestors Marched from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery. During their March they were meet with deadly force by the local officials, police officers, and racist white power groups because of all the blood that was shed, during this march, many historians as well as other people, reference to this day as “Bloody Sunday” (Selma to Montgomery March). Despite the resist from racist white individuals, the marchers persevered and reach the

Show More
Related

Summary Of Give Us The Ballot By Aar Berman

966 Words | 4 Pages

This horrendous event is now remembered and commonly known as “Bloody Sunday”. “Bloody Sunday” was not the only time that marchers where met with horrible violence. “…the murder of the white Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of five gunned down on Route 80 by Alabama Klansmen after she had attended the Selma to Montgomery march…” The violence that was met with before and after the Voting Rights Act was passed were moments that will never be forgotten. Later came the importance of the Voter Education Project (VEP), an extension to the voting Rights Act. There were many other organizations that host the Voter education Project, for example, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial

Read More

How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect The Lives Of African Americans

536 Words | 3 Pages

“Laws passed after the Civil War to limit opportunities for African Americans” are widely expressed as Jim Crow Laws (“Jim Crow Laws”). These laws suppressed African Americans for about 77 years, affecting their lives in the worst way possible. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were “separate from white people in society” (“Jim Crow Laws”). Jim Crow Laws had a huge impact on lives of African Americans.

Read More

What Did James Meredith Impact

1149 Words | 5 Pages

After the march the right for African Americans to vote in the south was becoming possible for them. Later, August 6,1965. The president signed a law, Voting Rights Act of 1965, stating the southern states must stop their practice of discrimination and not allowing African Americans to vote. James Meredith’s March Against Fear affected the present and future non-segregation between blacks and

Read More

The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project Of 1964 And The Civil Rights Movement

623 Words | 3 Pages

In the mid 1960’s, nearly one hundred years after African Americans were legally granted the right to vote, problems were occurring regarding their voting rights. The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964 and the Civil Rights march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama happened about a year apart from each other, but they had the same common goals. Surprisingly not only African Americans were involved in these projects, but the majority of people were white. The overall common goal was getting African Americans the right to vote in certain states while not being discriminated against, as well as showing them that they are not alone with their white supporters.

Read More

How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect African Americans

147 Words | 1 Pages

Jim Crow Laws effected a lot of African-Americans. African-Americans were treated in disgraceful ways. African-Americans did not like the way life was going , but every time they tried to change something they were punished. Even the good Caucasians were murdered by their own people trying to help the African-Americans gain equality and respect you know natural human rights. Jim Crow Laws basically prohibited the right for blacks and whites to share anything.

Read More

We Shall Overcome: Tennessee And The Civil Rights Movement

753 Words | 4 Pages

Fleming’s article, ‘"We Shall Overcome": Tennessee and the Civil Rights Movement,’ was the right for blacks to vote. Even though the blacks had received the right to vote after WWII, many white Tennesseans had found reasons to stop the black people from being able to cast their votes. These included clauses, poll taxes, and even literacy testing. The threat of violence was also used to stop black citizens from voting. Some Tennesseans knew that the violence and unfair laws were something that needed to be changed.

Read More

Examples Of Voter Suppression Of African Americans

156 Words | 1 Pages

African Americans have been victims of voter suppression ever since they were given the right to vote by the fifteenth amendment in 1870. There were multiple efforts to suppress the African American vote such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and violence. These efforts continued until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. Before the law was signed for sure, the Senate and the House of Representatives had to vote to pass or deny the bill. On May 26, the Senate passed the bill by a vote of 77-19.

Read More

African American Citizenship In 1781

1536 Words | 7 Pages

During this time period white males who owned property were the only people allowed to vote due to the Naturalization Law of 1790. The Confederate states of America were forced to sign the fifteenth amendment which gave African American males the right to vote on February 26, 1869 (“Race and Voting in the Segregated South”). However, even though this amendment was passed, African American males were generally not allowed to vote without restrictions (“Race and Voting in the Segregated South”).

Read More

Constitutional Amendment Dbq

528 Words | 3 Pages

After the Civil War in 1865, Republicans in Congress introduced a series of Constitutional Amendments to secure civil and political rights for African Americans. The right that gave black men the privilege to vote provoked the greatest controversy, especially in the North. In 1867, Congress passed the law and African American men began voting in the South, but in the North, they kept denying them this basic right (“African Americans,” 2016). Republicans feared that they would eventually lose control of Congress on the Democrats and thought that their only solution was to include the black men votes. Republicans assumed that all African American votes would go to all the Republicans in the North, as they did in the South and by increasing the

Read More

Equal Rights Dbq

1538 Words | 7 Pages

The Selma Marches consisted of three different marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the Civil Rights Movement. The rallies grew out of the continued discrimination of African Americans in the South. On March 7th, 1965,

Read More

Voting Rights Of 1965 Essay

750 Words | 3 Pages

As the United States was being built as a country many years ago, specifically during the Reconstruction era, African Americans in the South were given the right to vote while they were constantly strayed away from voting. For many years the right to vote was not given to all American citizens. In 1870 the 15th Amendment was ratified so that the right to vote for any American citizen should not be denied or abridged. Although this amendment was put in place many times African Americans strayed away from voting due to poll taxes, literacy tests and other things that easily discouraged them. Not until 1965 was the “Voting Rights of 1965” established, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which prohibited the racial discrimination of voting.

Read More

Essay On The Voting Rights Act Of 1965

1821 Words | 8 Pages

Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.

Read More

Malcolm X And The Voting Rights Movement

1095 Words | 5 Pages

The right to vote is one of the most cherished and important rights for each citizenship living in the United States. Unfortunately, throughout our history the right to vote was not the case for African Americas in the early part of the 20th century. African Americans have struggles to gain basic civil rights, such as the right to vote (Bayer). When marchers gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in the Selma Alabama, on march 7, 1965 to demand voting rights, the nations were forced to acknowledge the depth and breadth of racial discrimination and bigotry that existed in the United States (Bouyer). In in our history voting rights has come a long way in the past years.

Read More

Impact Of Bloody Sunday On Civil Rights

1128 Words | 5 Pages

At night when everybody was marching or in the streets taking a break, police officers would come, shoot the lights out in the street so no marchers could see them. The police officers then beat them. Sometimes, the marchers would go in corn fields to get sleep instead of walking all night or sleeping on the streets. Cops and police

Read More

Texas Voting Rights

923 Words | 4 Pages

In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. lead a march from Selma to Montgomery for better voting laws. Less than five months later, Lynden Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made limiting the vote on the basis of race, color and language illegal. In sections four and five of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 included special provisions to ensure fair voting practices in a number of states, most of them in the South. Voting rights advocates say some citizens there continue to be disenfranchised, but the Supreme Courts close ruling in 2013, striking down section four, suggests conditions have changed since 1965. It is left to Congress to reconsider the

Read More

More about How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect African Americans

Related Topics

Open Document