Color Discrimination Essay

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Race discrimination is defined as “treating someone unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race” (Race/Color Discrimination). Color discrimination is defined as “treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion” (Race/Color Discrimination). These kinds of discrimination is what kept Americans of color from having equal experiences and opportunities as the non-colored Americans. Segregation is another factor that kept African Americans from having a similar lifestyle to the common Caucasian and thus, “condemning Americans of color to second-class citizenship” (Segregated America). The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s advocated for the end of both discrimination and …show more content…

Rosa Parks’ bold stand as she kept her seat on the Montgomery bus helped the long road of public segregation come to an end. On February 1, 1960, four freshman from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College followed in Rosa Parks footsteps and stood up for themselves by sitting down on stools in Woolworth store (Boyd 77). David Richmond, Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil were refused service for a cup of coffee and the words “We don’t serve coloreds here” left the waitress’ mouth and headed towards the freshmans ears (Boyd 77). This simple refusal resulted in the boys sitting down for their right to be served as a paying customer (Boyd 77). Another person who influenced the end of segregation in the Civil Rights Movement era was Thurgood Marshall, a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the first ever African American to be part of the Supreme Court in 1967. One of Thurgood Marshall’s activities within the Judicial branch, specifically the Supreme Court, helped end segregation within schools. This was known as the Brown v. Board of Education case and, before ever being a Supreme Court Justice, Marshall took this case head on as a lawyer. Herb Boyd wrote in “We Shall Overcome” that Thurgood Marshall obtained a significant amount of experience in arguing before the Supreme Court and thus, gave Marshall an advantage that few advocates had (40). The activists of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s decreased discrimination and segregation by taking on these challenging events and made it into something that sparked the nation’s

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