"The two races have lived here together. The Negro has been here in America since 1619, a total of 344 years. He is not going anywhere else; this country is his home. He wants to do his part to help make his city, state, and nation a better place for everyone, regardless of color and race. Let me appeal to the consciences of many silent, responsible citizens of the white community who know that a victory for democracy in Jackson will be a victory for democracy everywhere” (Medgar Evers in Jackson Mississippi, 2013). This excerpt is taken from a 17 minute speech by Medgar Evers on May 20, 1963, in response to the vocal criticisms of Mayor Allen Thompson’s view of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as being ‘outside agitators’. This historic broadcast, in which Mississippians for the first time were presented a black perspective on segregation and civil rights, has never been located. Nonetheless, recordings of irate reactions by Mississippians slurred with racist epithets, “What are you people of Mississippi going to do? Just stand by a let the nigger take over. They better get his black ass off or I am gonna come up there and take it off” (Pinkston, 2013), have been found preserved at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Some say, history is the process by which people recall, lay claim to and strive to understand. On that day in May 1963, Mississippi’s lay to claim: Racism. Between 1882 and 1952 Mississippi was the home to 534 reported lynchings’ more than any other state in the nation (Mills, 1992, p. 18). Jim Crow Laws or ‘Black Codes’ allowed for the legalization of racism and enforced a ‘black way’ of life. Throughout the deep-south, especially in rural communities segr... ... middle of paper ... ... Double Day and Company. Pinkston, R. (2013, June 12). 50th anniversary of Medgar Evers' broadcasting milestone. Retrieved from CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/50th-anniversary-of-medgar-evers-broadcasting-milestone/ Pratt, R. A. (1992). In The Color of Their Skin: Eduation and Race in Richmond Virgina 1954 - 1989 (p. 4). Charlottesville: The University Press of Virigina. Roland, J. (2013, 10 31). Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to Protect All Rights. Retrieved from www.constitution.org : http://www.constitution.org/col/intent_14th.htm Southern Manifesto on Integration . (1956 ). Congressional Record (pp. 4459 - 4460 ). Washington, D.C.: Goverment Printing Office . Vaught, S. (2003 ). The White Citizen’s Council of Montgomery, 1955-1958: The Politics of Countermovement, Moral Culture and Civic Bigotry. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University.
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Show MoreJohn A. Kirk, History Toady volume 52 issue 2, The Long Road to Equality for African-Americans
McMillen begins by tracing the roots of segregation in Mississippi beginning with common law and later evolving into state sponsored apartheid with the Plessey v. Ferguson decision and the new state constitution of 1890. The need for separation between the races arose out of feelings of “negrophobia” that overcame the white citizens of the South during the period of Jim Crow. Negrophobia was an overwhelming fear by white males in the South that if the races were in close proximity of each other the savage black men would insult the heavenly virtues of Southern white women. As a result black boys in Mississippi learned at an early age that even smiling at a white woman could prove dangerous. Although segregation was vehemently opposed by Black leaders when it was first instituted, by the 1890’s leaders such as Booker T. Washington began to emphasize self-help over social equality. The fact that Mississippi’s institutions were segregated lead to them being inherently unequal, and without a...
"Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires. While everything forgotten hands in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return...”, a quote from the movie Velvet Goldmine, expresses the thoughts that many supporters of integration may have felt because no one truly knew the effects that one major verdict could create. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a very important watershed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, like most progressive decisions, it did not create an effective solution because no time limit was ever given. James Baldwin realized that this major oversight would lead to a “broken promise.”
C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.
Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
Robinson, A. and Sullivan, P(Eds.). (1991). New Directions in Civil Rights Studies. Virginia: Rectors and Visitors of the University Press of Virginia.
In the South, during the period 1880 to 1940, there was deep-seated and all-pervading hatred and fear of the Negro. There was an annual average of sixty-two lynchings for the years 1910 to 1919. However, beginning in 1923 lynchings bega...
Vaught, S. (2003 ). The White Citizen’s Council of Montgomery, 1955-1958: The Politics of Countermovement, Moral Culture and Civic Bigotry. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University.
“Two Towns of Jasper” may seem like a normal, modern day town but on the inside the citizens still hold ideas of segregation and racism. These ideas are then examined as the documentary investigates the trials of Bill King, Lawrence Brewer, and Shawn Berry. The three murderers tried for Byrd’s death were all Caucasian and in some way showed hatred toward African-Americans. Bill King and Lawrence Brewer had tattoos that represented the Aryan Nation, a public and political white pride organization, and Shawn Berry was also thought to have ties to the organization. When they beat and murdered Byrd the issue of race arouse and citizens began to question each other’s motives. African-Americans brought up issues of segregation and Caucasians tried to justify the segregation as a traditional way of life. Societal change was examined and made possible because cit...
In the 1950’s the Civil Rights Movement would ignite, and blacks would unify under the philosophy of equality for all. As blacks fought for their rights, a wave of white resistance developed. White resistance came in many forms, ranging from social violence to political manipulation. In southern communities such as Greensboro, a new form of white resistance known as “progressive mystique” developed. “Progressive Mystique” allowed communities, such as Greensboro, to “maintain both a progressive liberal racial rhetoric and a conservative discriminatory racial order”. “Progressive mystique” incorporated the concepts of unanimous agreeability, hospitability to new ideas, civility, and “community responsibility towards the Negro” (8). The book Civilities and Civil Rights by William H. Chafe and the documents on Virginia Durr demonstrate the role and impact of “progressive mystique”.
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
The tensions rising in the country during the summer of 1963 were those of political, social, and moral uneasiness. It was a time in the nation where African American citizens felt the aggressively constricting vice of racism and segregation. In conjunction with the Supreme Court decision in 1954, and political parties delegating ‘justice’, the cause for African Americans to come together was greater than it had been all those years ago with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. To Martin Luther King, Jr., it was critical to understand the civil turmoil that blanketed the nation during that time.
* Howe, Jeff. " Race Divides...". Link, The College Magazine. New York : College Television Network., pg 18-25. 1998.
The symbol of diversity and the epitome of cultural amalgamation, the United States had been a country in which racial discrimination and segregation were the norms of the day. The African Americans and myriads of people of color had faced terrible hardships in the country’s south during the period of the prevalence of the Jim Crow customs and laws. The Jim Crow era was an era in which the blacks were considered everything but human beings deserving equal treatment within the society and before the law. It was a period when the non-whites were considered sub-humans by the whites and starting from the social institutions to the political arenas the blacks were discriminated on the basis of skin color, race, and ethnicity. Going through the narratives