A Resolution for Change: Being Black in the South in the 50's and 60's

A black man goes about his everyday life, living in the South. He walks on by a group of white teenagers beating and kicking a lone black teen. He walks on past a group of KKK members marching along the streets, shouting out their hate speeches while wearing their white ghost costumes. He walked toward his favorite restaurant, eager for a meal; however, he made a mistake of heading into the wrong store, the white store. He walks on in, and then freezes, chills going down his spine, as he feels the glares of all the white folks in the store. A white policeman stood up, walked towards the man with a sinister smile. The black man began to feel his heartbeat pounding. Each step the policeman took, another heartbeat explodes within the man’s chest. The black man kept telling himself, “MOVE!” But the man was frozen with a fear that sapped away all his strength. The policeman took out his baton, and then the black man closed his eyes and cried out quietly to himself, “Oh Lord…” This was the everyday life of a black man living under Jim Crow. The era revealed just how cruel people can be against one another. There were strict rules, extreme violence, and absolute power to whites, but there was also a resistance to the authority that ruled with an iron fist.
Those that lived in the South lived in a society where all abided by the rules known as the Jim Crow Laws. These rules touched every aspect of everyday life. Everything was separate between blacks and whites, but also “equal”. All of these rules became legalized and enforced after the Plessy v. Ferguson case showed that discrimination was legal as long as both had equal access to anything that were of equal quality. Unfortunately, the problem was that most of the time the quality of t...

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...ple. He runs with all his might, feeling the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and the newfound courage granting him a strength he never thought he had. He runs…eyes turning towards him. He runs…arms spread out wide. He runs... with a resolution in his eyes. He shouts, “FREEDOM!”

Works Cited
Ed. Kelly Rudd, Richard Hanes, Sarah Hemsen. "Racial Segregation in the American South: Jim Crow Laws." 29 November 2006. Global Issues in Context. 22 April 2014 .
"Jim+Crow+Law." n.d. The Free Dictionary.com. 22 April 2014 .
Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff. "What was Jim Crow?" September 2000. What was Jim Crow. 14 April 2014 .
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Jim Crow." 11 November 2008. Shmoop.com. 21 April 2014 .