This quote, delivered on the 28th August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. by Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream” speech, is possibly the most recognized quote of the whole twentieth century in the United States. King, through the paraphrasing of the Declaration of Independence, manages to evoke the truth on which the United States of America was founded. The notion that all men are created equal plays an enormous part in the evolution of the United States, especially from 1945 to 1968. This period of time has African Americans gain civil and political rights but also sees the United States develop severe intolerance towards them. During WWII, soldiers from the United States fought as a part of the Allied powers in a war of ideals, the Allied powers fighting for Democracy and the Axis powers fighting for Fascism. Even though over a million African Americans were fighting for the United States and their principles, they had to struggle with racism and segregation in the military. When the Allies won the war, the United States was called out in front of the world by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People for their hypocrisy on matters of segregation and racism. African Americans then followed the likes of …show more content…
& the Civil Rights Movement The legal pressure employed by the NAACP on the government assured that in 1954, the Supreme Court guaranteed the right for African Americans to study beside whites in primary and secondary schools. This right, regarded today as the last legal battle against segregated education, was termed “Brown v. Board of Education”.
This decision was ignored, evaded and fought back violently by many Southerners and segregationists. However the only thing these violent and racist approaches accomplished was the fuelling of extensive and powerful protests. The best-known examples of Southern intolerance are the assassination of Emmett Till and the arresting of Rosa