The International School of America's students follow a strongly principled profile that leads students to develop skills that allow them to excel after high school like academic preparation. Over our four years in ISA we develop skills like an ability to “cultivate rigorous habits of mind such as intellectual curiosity, a desire for life-long learning, critical thinking and effective organization of their efforts to learn”. I believe that is best portrayal of this was the multifaceted Alabama Media Project.
The Alabama Media project was an electronically organized presentation demonstrating the importance of the historical Civil Rights social movement we learned while on the Alabama Civil Rights Trip. It included significant figures from the era, social groups and important events that shaped the world we live in today. The project was also supplemented with group facilitated research, a specific historical injustice in the 1960's, and a modern look at the injustice was to be provided with our solution. Our group chose what we thought was the most crippling injustice: lawful racial segregation in schools. Though racial segregation has been outlawed and deemed unconstitutional today, we saw it to be similar to school segregation based on socio-economic status. This means that low income areas have less money to pay for the local public school, which would give “at-risk” students less of a chance of succeeding than the neighboring wealthy schools. This was especially relevant because minorities are more likely to be in the lower socio-economic tiers. We organized the information on a Glogster, which is an interactive poster board that has the capacity to play media files such as sound clips or videos. We included interviews from ...
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... a leader in a group, which I never had to do before this assignment. The “role” of group leader is not a chosen one but a role that one earns when they show the determination to get things done and done very well. I often showed initiative when our group was at a stand still and I like to think that I really helped them claim ownership of our topic and made them passionate about creating a genuine answer. I learned that doing everything ahead of time never means that you are done, only that you have more time to improve things because pushing yourself to the limit will get you anywhere you want to be.
The Alabama project helped me realized that intellectual curiosity should always drive you to learn new things about the world's history and the events that led to the present, and more importantly to learn about the person you are and the person you wish to become.
“There must be the position of superior and inferior” was a statement by Lincoln which formed the basis of discrimination towards black Americans as it highlighted the attitudes of white Americans. Although civil rights for black people eventually improved through the years both socially and politically, it was difficult to change the white American view that black people are inferior to white people as the view was always enforce by the favour of having “the superior position assigned to the white race”.
The book, the Strange Career of Jim Crow is a wonderful piece of history. C. Vann Woodard crafts a book that explains the history of Jim Crow and segregation in simple terms. It is a book that presents more than just the facts and figures, it presents a clear and a very accurate portrayal of the rise and fall of Jim Crow and segregation. The book has become one of the most influential of its time earning the praise of great figures in Twentieth Century American History. It is a book that holds up to its weighty praise of being “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The book is present in a light that is free from petty bias and that is shaped by a clear point of view that considers all facts equally. It is a book that will remain one of the best explanations of this time period.
Younge, Gary. "America dreaming: the horrors of segregation bound the US civil rights movement together. Fifty years on from Martin Luther King's great speech, inequality persists--but in subtler ways." New Statesman [1996] 23 Aug. 2013: 20+. Student Resources in Context. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.
Even though the Brown v. Board of Education was 62 years ago, African Americans are still fighting to have an equal education opportunity. “But many schools are as segregated today as they were before the ruling, and black children throughout the United States are performing at the bottom of the American educational system” (Jackson 1). Nevertheless, it took decades of hard work and struggle by numerous African Americans for a better education system. Education is the key to success, it gives people the knowledge that they need to strive and become more intelligent thinkers, which leads to more opportunities for them in the job industry. Ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination of any kind, African Americans have every right to have this equal educational opportunity like everyone else. But yet, they were stopped in their tracks by disapproving Americans, who confined the succession of African Americans in the education system. Now that we are in the 21st century, there’s still negligence on black’s education. The black community do not have equal education opportunities because of the lack of funding, poverty experienced by the children in the neighborhoods and society’s views of the black community.
African Americans have been fighting for equality since the pre-Civil War era. Although the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments became realities, segregation and exclusion of African Americans from public places were the realities throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, or the “Force Act” (pg. 157), only allowed the government to protect African Americans from being excluded by “public officials of state and local governments” (pg. 157), not private businesses. Thus, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 polarized the nation, for the case declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s “equal protection of the laws” (pg. 158). As long as the accommodations for both races were equal, separating various public spaces was also equal; however, in 1954 “separate but equal” was reversed with Brown v Board of Education. Brown v. Board of Education focused on Oliver Brown’s fight for his daughter, Linda, to attend an “all-white Summer School, which was closer to home” (pg. 160). When the school refused to admit his daughter, Brown took his fight to the NAACP and then took his fight to the Supreme Court; subsequently, the Court decided on the case with the “consequences of segregation” (pg. 160), which concerned a lack of “equal educational opportunities” (pg. 160). As a result, the Court declared Plessy v.
Civil rights are the rights to personal liberty and are provided by the law. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights promises everybody civil rights. But many people, including lots of black people, have been denied their civil rights. Black people, and also some white people who help them, have struggled for these rights for a long time. Many people have helped and many kinds of groups have been formed to help win equal rights for everyone. Things are a lot better used to be, but the struggle is not over.
African Americans have a history of struggles because of racism and prejudices. Ever since the end of the Civil War, they struggled to benefit from their full rights that the Constitution promised. The fourteenth Amendment, which defined national citizenship, was passed in 1866. Even though African Americans were promised citizenship, they were still treated as if they were unequal. The South had an extremely difficult time accepting African Americans as equals, and did anything they could to prevent the desegregation of all races. During the Reconstruction Era, there were plans to end segregation; however, past prejudices and personal beliefs elongated the process.
In April of 1963 the Southern Christian Leaders Conference (SCLC) organized a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. African Americans in Birmingham in part with the SCLC arrang...
The exhaustion of the long commute to Monroe Elementary School everyday had upset me, the feeling of being powerless overcame my mentality. I constantly thought to myself about the all whites elementary school only seven blocks away, what made them so surprior? I, as a third grader, grew up to the discriminatory profiling. Of course it was nothing new, but I could not comprehend why. Recalling back to Monroe Elementary; the broken ceiling tiles, the wore down floors, and the cracked windows was not an ideal place for any education to take place. It had only proved to me that the segregation of white and black children made us African American students feel inferiority to the white American students.
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of the Brown v. the Board of Education. This was a very historical moment because their ruling eliminated, the "separate but equal " doctrine. Their ruling called for school integration, although most school were very slow in complying if they complied at all. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Color People, viewed this ruling as a success. The schools lack of the obedience toward this ruling, made it necessary for black activism to make the federal government implement the ruling, and possibly help close the racial gap that existed in places other than public schools. During one of the boycotts for equality, a leader emerged that would never be forgotten. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, quickly became the spokesperson for racial equality. He believed that the civil rights movement would have more success if the black people would use non violent tactics. Some say he was adopting the style of Ghandi. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC, was formed by King and other activist in 1957. They were a group of black ministers and activist who agreed to try and possibly help others see the effects of a non violent movement. Also following the strategies set by the SCLC, a group known as the SNCC or the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, began a string of sit-in and campaigns as the black population continued it's fight for equality. It was the undying efforts of the two groups that paved the way for the march on Washington. This march which drew a crowd of at least 200,000, was the place that Dr. King, gave his famous "dream speech." Both the SNCC, and the SCLC were victims of lots of threats and attempted attacks, yet they continued to pursue freedom in a non violent fashion. However near the late 60's they had another problem on their hands. There was a group of activist known as the Black Panthers who were not so eager to adopt the non-violent rule. The believed that the civil rights movement pushed by Dr. King and is non-violent campaign, which was meant to give blacks the right to vote and eliminate segregation, was not solving problems faced in poor black communities. This Black Panther group, stabled the term "black power", which was used a sort of uplifting for the black self esteem.
United States school systems have has a history of segregation. This segregation began with the passing of Jim Crow laws in the south in the late 1800’s. The influence of this practice was at first the slave culture of the southern states, and later was manifest as residential segregation and school choice programs. There were also many Supreme Court rulings which failed to overturn implement segregation which allowed for the practice to continue to flourish. Although we have seen social improvements in our society in the past 50 years we can still see that many citizens of the United States are still placed at a disadvantage due to their class and race. In this paper we will examine the history of segregation practices and
Throughout the American South, of many Negro’s childhood, the system of segregation determined the patterns of life. Blacks attended separate schools from whites, were barred from pools and parks where whites swam and played, from cafes and hotels where whites ate and slept. On sidewalks, they were expected to step aside for whites. It took a brave person to challenge this system, when those that did suffered a white storm of rancour. Affronting this hatred, with assistance from the Federal Government, were nine courageous school children, permitted into the 1957/8 school year at Little Rock Central High. The unofficial leader of this band of students was Ernest Green.
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...