The African American Civil Rights Movement

After the end of slavery African Americans were told they were equal, but the Jim Crow laws kept them separate from white people. “Jim Crow system was undergirded by beliefs or rationalizations: whites were superior to blacks in all important ways…”("What Was Jim Crow?"). Jim Crow laws determined how an individual was treated in the areas of social interactions, education and health care. Jim Crow laws were put in place in the United States to keep blacks separated from whites and limit their rights as citizens. Jim Crow was a law of segregation and discrimination that prevented black Americans from equal rights to that of white Americans.

Racism is deeply rooted into society because its origin started in the early colonial days. For centuries, blacks and those of African descent were enslaved. Racism and racial inequality still exist to this day. Many of today’s issues involving blacks and whites stem from the oppression of African Americans in United State history. The road out of slavery was long, tough, violent, and especially deadly.

"Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does." --quote from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision. To this day, Brown Versus the Board of Education is known as one of the most significant Supreme Court rulings of the 20th century. Brown versus the Board of Education stated that racial segregation of students disrupted parts of the 14 amendment.

Civil Rights activist used a non-violence approach to bring back peace and clear out all tension between blacks and whites. Many African Americans rose on the behalf of the blacks to bring back equality and freedom to the black community, and many of them lost their lives in the process. The civil rights movement was a mass media for racial equality in the United States, The civil rights was started in the 1950s and fought with non-violent protests. The movement also achieved the passage of landmark equal rights laws in the 1960s intended to end discrimination against people because of their race. It started in the 1950s and ended in the mid to the late 1960s when Dr. King was killed.

In order for them to achieve this, the white southerners came up with the Jim Crow laws to prevent the African Americans from achieving their god given right of being free and equal. This did not end the African hope of becoming equal. After many years of mistreatment, African Americans knew that change in society was necessary. The members of the black population have been enslaved, beaten, abused, neglected and just taken advantage of, since the end of the civil war, even into present times, African Americans have struggled for equality and rights that white Americans often take for granted. Arguably, no post-war struggle was larger or more significant than the movement to eliminate the Jim Crow laws from existence in the South.

Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope. During this time, the idea of segregation was a very controversial topic among the c... ... middle of paper ... ...ners they continued to fight. As more and more African American students were admitted into white Southern schools, segregationist continued to retaliate and defend their schools against them. No matter how difficult the situation turned out for some of them, and without much help from the government, African Americans did everything they possibly could to protect their educational rights for the sake of their future and success, and in the hope of promoting equality for all African American people of the United States. These students became the symbol of freedom and opened up the window of opportunity for all black people, for their ancestors, and for the future generations to come.

The Civil Rights Movement brought many accomplishments to African Americans such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The key issues that African Americans fought for were voting rights, integration and racial equality. They were tired of the discrimination and humiliation they received as a result of the segregation laws imposed on them. “State laws mandated racial separation in schools, parks, playgrounds, restaurants, hotels, public transportation, theaters, restrooms and so on” (Blumberg 40). Lawsuits had been tried to gain rights such as the unsuccessful Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 and the successful Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

(n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved December 2, 2013, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/67474/African-Americans/285189/Reconstruction-and-after 9.) Smallwood, A. (n.d.).

"W. E. B. Du Bois." The American Mosaic: The African American Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web.

Around 1876, Jim Crow Laws came into effect and demonstrated a system of segregation which separated the blacks and whites, primarily in public facilit... ... middle of paper ... ...ivil Rights Movement, a large social movement, paved the way for changes in black freedom and how the blacks would be viewed. Many whites grew more hostile towards the African Americans because they had been granted their freedom. People who were once viewed as only a piece of property, now had rights under the law, making them equal to the people who once owned them. The Civil Rights Movement was a fight between both races to see who was the stronger race and if the whites would be able to maintain their power. The whites had everything under control until the blacks began to realize as a citizen, they had rights as well.