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the impact of the civil rights movement
impacts of the civil rights movement
civil rights movement impacts in society
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Before the Civil Rights Movement, which took place from 1955-1968, African-Americans had a difficult time establishing an identity and their rights. However, for many African-Americans, the Civil Rights Movement developed a purpose for one’s life and progressed African-Americans’ status and rights in society. Although some people may argue that the Civil Rights Movement was not productive and only caused conflict and havoc, due to the majority of African-Americans still employed in low-level jobs and many towns affected by the Civil Rights Movement being torn apart and degraded, those effects were only temporary and tangible to others. The Movement had a much more profound effect of giving one a purpose or “spark” in life, which later led to African-Americans demanding more rights and equal status in society. For many African-Americans, the Civil Rights Movement created a purpose for one’s life. For example, in The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was it, Alice Walker states the Movement made her “alive”. In other words, Walker is expressing that the Civil Rights Movement gave her a purpose in life. One that doesn’t make her feel hopeless. One that makes her want to live. One that makes her want to work the hardest she ever has and be something, not just a “shadow or a number” (Walker 125). In Walker’s essay, she states that as a child and growing up in one’s parent’s care, one yearns for the magical “spark” that provides meaning and purpose to one’s life. For many teenagers today, this is still true. Many teenagers go through high school working to receive good grades and trying their best to be accepted into a prestigious college to earn a solid, hopefully high paying job. However, going through that process, especially towar... ... middle of paper ... ... Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations. For many, from being a child until turning around 21-24, people just follow the norm and don’t really have a focus or drive in life, just the normal expectations. However, once one experiences the magic “spark” or epiphany, one can progress through life with determination and most likely become very close to achieving his/her goal. In the case of Alice Walker, the magic “spark” was the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with this she fought harder than ever for her life and to be herself, not just a mere shadow or number. Such sparks or epiphanies effects are apparent today, President Obama, first black US President in history, achieved his position by his drive, which most likely was sparked by something in his childhood or early twenties.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It was the “Crowning Legislative” achievements of Civil Rights movement. Before the Act of 1964, 57% of
The constant efforts and struggles of African Americans against Jim Crow laws, hate groups, social injustice, and racial bias prevailed and led to the Civil Rights Movement that has shaped our contemporary world. The struggle of African Americans to gain equal rights in a society dominated by conservative, white culture and prejudice along with the endeavor of acquiring the constitutional right to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, can safely place Jim Crow laws in archive of American
The Civil Rights Era became a time in American history when people began to reach for racial equality. The main aim of the movement had been to end racial segregation, exploitation, and violence toward minorities in the United States. Prior to the legislation that Congress passed; minorities faced much discrimination in all aspects of their lives. Lynchings and hanging...
the civil rights movement dramatically changed the face of the nation and gave a sense of dignity and power to black Americans. Most of all, the millions of Americans who participated in the movement brought about changes that reinforced our nation’s basic constitutional rights for all Americans- black and white, men and women, young and old.
Although the conclusion of the Civil War during the mid-1860s demolished the official practice of slavery, the oppression and exploitation of African Americans has continued. Although the rights and opportunities of African Americans were greatly improved during Reconstruction, cases such a 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson, which served as the legal basis for segregation, continue to diminish the recognized humanity of African Americans as equal people. Furthermore, the practice of the sharecropping system impoverished unemployed African Americans, recreating slavery. As economic and social conditions worsened, the civil rights movement began to emerge as the oppressed responded to their conditions, searching for equality and protected citizenship.With such goals in mind, associations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which came to the legal defense of African Americans and aided the march for civil rights reforms, emerged. By working against the laws restricting African Americans, the NAACP saw progress with the winning of cases like Brown v. Board of Education, which allowed the integration of public schools after its passing in 1954 and 1955. In the years following the reform instituted by the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the fervor of the civil rights movement increased; mass nonviolent protests against the unfair treatment of blacks became more frequent. New leaders, such as Martin Luther King, manifested themselves. The civil rights activists thus found themselves searching for the “noble dream” unconsciously conceived by the democratic ideals of the Founding Fathers to be instilled.
Throughout history, African Americans have encountered an overwhelming amount of obstacles for justice and equality. You can see instances of these obstacles especially during the 1800’s where there were various forms of segregation and racism such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan terrorism, Jim- Crow laws, voting restrictions. These negative forces asserted by societal racism were present both pre and post slavery. Although blacks were often seen as being a core foundation for the creation of society and what it is today, they never were given credit for their work although forced. This was due to the various laws and social morals that were sustained for over 100 years throughout the United States. However, what the world didn’t know was that African Americans were a strong ethnic group and these oppressions and suffrage enabled African Americans for greatness. It forced African Americans to constantly have to explore alternative routes of intellectuality, autonomy and other opportunities to achieve the “American Dream” especially after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed after the Civil War.
The frustration African Americans were beginning to increasingly feel in the mid to late 1960’s was heavily evident in the attitude of allowing violence to be used because many African Americans were becoming unsatisfied with the slow pace they were reaching equality as well as the retaliation against them. Hence, the movement of the Civil Rights movement away from being content with sticking to nonviolent tactics symbolizes the determination African Americans wanted to gain equal rights even by inflicting
Alice Walker’s writings were greatly influenced by the political and societal happenings around her during the 1960s and 1970s. She not only wrote about events that were taking place, she participated in them as well. Her devoted time and energy into society is very evident in her works. The Color Purple, one of Walker’s most prized novels, sends out a social message that concerns women’s struggle for freedom in a society where they are viewed as inferior to men. The events that happened during and previous to her writing of The Color Purple had a tremendous impact on the standpoint of the novel.
...of religion, the freedom to assemble and civil rights such as the right to be free from discrimination such as gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Throughout history, African Americans have endured discrimination, segregation, and racism and have progressively gained rights and freedoms by pushing civil rights movement across America. This paper addressed several African American racial events that took place in our nation’s history. These events were pivotal and ultimately led to the establishment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act paved the way for future legislation that was not limited to African American civil rights and is considered a landmark piece of legislation that ending racism, segregation and discrimination throughout the United States.
• Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was born into a poor sharecropper family, and the last of eight children.
Alice Walker, one of the best-known and most highly respected writers in the US, was born in Eatonton , Georgia, the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker. Her parents were sharecroppers, and money was not always available as needed. At the tender age of eight, Walker lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. This left her in somewhat a depression, and she secluded herself from the other children. Walker felt like she was no longer a little girl because of the traumatic experience she had undergone, and she was filled with shame because she thought she was unpleasant to look at. During this seclusion from other kids her age, Walker began to write poems. Hence, her career as a writer began.
Throughout the many social changes that have occurred in the United States, the Civil Rights Movement has been the most significant to African Americans. After undergoing countless years of slavery, oppression, and racism, the movement was able to bring unity to all Americans. The most interesting thing about the movement is that there was not one particular event that shaped the movement itself; however one event that sparked it which in return led to the uprising of others. The main event that sparked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement was Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to white man. After this incident, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was triggered, shedding
Several times in her essay she tells of how different she feels after she is shot in the eye but time after time she is told “You did not change” (37). This is a big deal to Walker because she knows for a fact that she is not the same little girl that she used to be and she is “eight, and for the first time, doing poorly in school, where [she has] been something of a whiz since [she] was four” (36). It is like her life has been completely turned upside down and nothing it going the way that it should be. Repeating the line “You did not change” over and over in Walker’s story shows how much this line meant to her growing up and how much it still means to her now. In the same manner that this line effects Alice, it now has a similar effect on her
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 ...
Alice Walker is an American author, novelist, short story writer, poet and political activist. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9, 1944, the youngest child of eight. Her parents, a sharecropper and a maid, had little money. At the age of eight, her right eye was scarred and caused her partial blindness because her parents were unable to take her to the doctor for a week. The blindness left her to become teased and bullied by classmates; she became withdrawn and began writing to escape daily ridicule. At age fourteen, the scar tissue was removed, but she continued to feel like an outcast regardless of her accomplishments. She became valedictorian of her high school and went on to attend Spelman College on a full scholarship. She later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College, graduating in 1965. While at Spelman, she became involved in the civil rights movement. Walker continued with the movement, registering black voters in rural Georgia and Mississippi. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence, she married Melvyn Leventhal in 1967, a white Jewish civil rights attorney. The couple’s daughter was born in 1969. They moved to Jackson, Mississippi, becoming the first legally married inter-racial couple in the state. Together they faced racism and many threats from the Ku Klux Klan and other whites. She finished her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, in 1969 and it was published in 1970. When her marriage ended in 1977, Alice and her daughter moved to northern California. She still resides in northern California and continues to write today.