Inequality In The Civil Rights Movement

The Constant Fight of Inequality “Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.” Martin Luther King Jr. could not have said it any better. For many years African Americans have felt the thrash of living a silent unequal life. Finally, they found their voice and it sparked The Civil Rights Movement. This movement had long lasting effects on American society and government policies. There was major problems with equality among our nation during the 1960s and eventually the Civil Rights Movement came along and gave us a more positive society and a morally stronger legislature.

African Americans had harsh rules when it came to bus terminals. In Montgomery Alabama, “‘coloured’ passengers

Voting was nearly impossible to most minorities because of poll taxes, literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. Poll taxes affected the minorities because some people did not have the chance to earn enough money. When given the choice, vote or eat, you are going to pick eat. Also literacy tests were often given during this period prior to voting. If you could not read and or write, then you could not vote. Typically, only white men were educated. This would mean only white male votes counted. In some rural areas, Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members would stand by the ballot box to push intimidation onto the voters to vote for their nominee. Due to this, the Southern Christian Leadership Convention would bus voters to go vote. The mindset of this was they could challenge the KKK by being confident in numbers. Out of theses challenges, we as a nation scored the 24th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 24th Amendment prohibited any poll tax in elections for federal officials. In 1966, Harper v. Virginia Board of ELections deemed it unconstitutional to have poll taxes for state elections as well. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized the U.S. attorney general to send federal examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing local officials who often refused to register African Americans. This law also suspended discriminatory devices,

At one point, there was a school for whites and then a separate school for the colored. Somehow, our nation got away with the injustice of supplying the two schools differently. For example, colored schools would be considered lucky to have a textbook per classroom, while it would be typical for white schools to have a classroom set. Also, black schools often were tiny one room school houses. This contrasted with white schools which had multiple classrooms and diverse classes. Our nation challenged these ways when the schools of America were told to desegregate. We had an incident here in our own state of Arkansas that has made its personal mark on history. As nine African American students tried to enter Central High, they were spat on, yelled at, and blocked from entering. Our own governor, Orval Faubus, was a fan of segregation. This was a major dark shadow put on our state. Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block these students from entering their school they had the legal right to access. President Eisenhower got wind of this act of injustice, and sent in the One Hundred First Airborne Division to escort the Little Rock Nine into Central High. Because of these nine brave students and many others who had to walk the hard path to justice, we now have desegregated schools and equal opportunities in the