How Did The Jim Crow Laws Influence The Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

Many people think they know all about the Civil Rights Movement, but most don’t know how much it truly influenced America. Most Americans know the basic facts of the Civil Rights Movement, how African Americans fought for their rights to be equal citizens, but the movement meant so much more for America. It helped white Americans examine the way the county was really treating others of different races and how America wasn’t following its own rule of "all men are created equal". The integration of races during the Civil Rights Movement, not only affected African Americans, but majorly impacted the country and the entire American culture.

In the early years of the Civil Rights Movement, tons of American citizens were

One struggle that stands out was the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were created during reconstruction in the south (History.com Staff). The Jim Crow Laws stated that African Americans had to use separate facilities than white people, separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, schools, and many other public places (History.com Staff). This law shows that multiple white Americans still believed that intermingle with other races was wrong. White Americans demonstrated that they were not ready for the change the civil rights movement by creating these laws to limit their interactions with other races. Another major example that shows white America wasn’t ready for the Civil Rights Movement was the court case "Plessy vs. Ferguson". Plessy was fighting to get rid of segregation on trains in Louisiana (Plessy 20). The majority opinion had defined, "separate but equal" and with this ruling made it

The Civil Rights Movement has taken America a long way from "separate but equal" to the integration of public places to now where discrimination is mostly gone. After people got past the fact that something had to change the movement took off. "Plessy vs. Ferguson" influenced America because it showed nothing can ever be separate but equal (Brown 27). It explained the fact that if you separate two races how will they ever grow or learn new ideas (Ober, Lauren). Then once the races were integrated it hit America hard. There was a lot of violence and was not a good time for the United States. Many people did not want to change their views on race and used violence to explain their thoughts. One example of the violence is Bloody Sunday. On March 7, 1965, six hundred peaceful marchers were beaten and teargassed by police (History.com Staff). After the years of violence got so bad white Americans started to realize how bad they were treating the African Americans. Once they found out more information about how they were being treated it made a lot of white Americans feel uncomfortable and knew something needed to be done. This changed the way many white Americans thought and they started joining in on boycotts and marches (Davis, Jack E.). Eventually, it started to stick, generation to generation people started to lose the views of their parents and create their own. This has help decimation fade away through the years to