The Civil Rights Movement: Brown V. Board Of Education

Americans thus launching us into the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights efforts of the 1950s and 1960s addressed these issues as the judicial branch, with the eventual support of the executive and legislative, began enacting laws in favor of African Americans. There was dramatic progress towards official acceptance of equality for those of all races. The Supreme Court struck down laws segregating schools, marriages and other public accommodations and institutions. Following a series of popular protests lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, the federal government enacted civil rights legislation designed to end legalized discrimination and to ensure equal access, in practice, to schools, voting booths, housing and jobs. The Civil

Board of Education of Topeka, the plaintiffs alleged that segregation was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. In all but one case, a three-judge federal district court cited Plessy v. Ferguson in denying relief under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The separate but equal doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson was said to have no place in the field of public education. Separating black children from others solely because of their race generated a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. Therefore, a sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Plessy v. Ferguson was ultimately rejected. The Eisenhower administration was not eager to commit itself to the battle for civil rights; as the president had greeted the Brown decision with skepticism. But in 1957, he faced a case of direct state defiance of federal authority and felt compelled to act. Federal courts had ordered the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. An angry white mob tried to prevent implementation of the order by blockading the entrances to the school, and the governor refused to do anything to stop the blockading. President Eisenhower finally responded by federalizing the National Guard and sending troops to Little Rock to restore order and ensure that the court orders would be

We have marched on through history and have viewed race from all three of sociology’s main perspectives. And now, in the midst of the protests in Ferguson we are met once more with simple-minded people who know not of the definition of race. There is not a single chromosome in the bodies of whites that differ in the bodies of blacks. Race is a matter of pigmentation of skin, the amount of melatonin our skin holds, or the texture of our hair. Race is a social construct based merely on appearance, not on biological or genomic science. It is important to detach the symbols of “black” and “white,” from a prejudiced interpretation of what that may mean. What makes a social movement successful is the social change that it brings about. The civil rights movement has seen great change with all the legislation that has been implemented, but it appears that the movement has resurfaced and taken on a new shape. Racism is not over, thus the work of civil rights advocates is not done. The efforts of this social movement cannot be fully validated until our society is capable of changing the way we