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civil rights movement timeline 1950s and 1960s
civil rights movement timeline 1950s and 1960s
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1868 marked a proud year for African Americans with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to Constitution. It proclaimed that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”1 This essentially color blinded government, and granted all citizens (a category which finally included African Americans) what is described in the document as indisputable equality. While this was a milestone in the progress for Black rights, this seemingly problem-solving legislation for former slaves did not prevent future hardships by any means. Efforts were made in the southern states to keep blacks from reaping the benefits given to them by the Fourteenth Amendment by maintaining blacks’ position at the bottom of the social hierarchy thus keeping the idea of slavery alive without actually keeping slavery alive. An example of this is the 1876 Jim Crow Laws which called for the organization of separate restrooms, waiting facilities, restaurants, prisons, schools and textbooks, militia, and transportation. It also denied intermarriage, among many other hindrances inflicted by this legislation. 2 While Jim Crow was blatantly incongruent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the full benefits of citizenry, it was justified by the Plessy vs. Ferguson Case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, requiring racially segregated railroad facilities, under the condition that such facilities were equal. This “separate but equal” doctrine was quickly, and legally, applied t... ... middle of paper ... ... analyze historical significance without me telling them what to think. This way the students could possibly see the argument in a more tangible way, see how and why the two sides differed, and both sides’ basis of justification. The students could then independently decide which side they actually favor. Finally, for homework I would assign the reading of excerpts of “Warriors Don’t Cry”, the memoir of Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine. I would ask the students to pretend that they were a student at Central High in 1957 and write a page long diary entry about what one would be seeing and how one would be feeling at this time. All of these activities would promote student-centered learning in that they are free to arrive at their conclusions independently, and they would help develop Formal Operational skills through hypothetical deductive logic.
Though the issue of slavery was solved, racism continues and Southerners that stayed after the war passed Black Codes which subverted the ideas of freedom including the actions of state legislatures (Hakim 19). Black Codes were a set of laws that discriminated blacks and limited their freedom (Jordan 388). Such restrictions included: “No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish...No public meetings or congregations of negroes shall be allowed within said parish after sunset…” (Louisiana Black Codes 1865). A solution to this was the 14th Amendment. It meant now all people born in America were citizens and it “Prohibited states from revoking one’s life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This meant all states had to...
During the four decades following reconstruction, the position of the Negro in America steadily deteriorated. The hopes and aspirations of the freedmen for full citizenship rights were shattered after the federal government betrayed the Negro and restored white supremacist control to the South. Blacks were left at the mercy of ex-slaveholders and former Confederates, as the United States government adopted a laissez-faire policy regarding the “Negro problem” in the South. The era of Jim Crow brought to the American Negro disfranchisement, social, educational, and occupational discrimination, mass mob violence, murder, and lynching. Under a sort of peonage, black people were deprived of their civil and human rights and reduced to a status of quasi-slavery or “second-class” citizenship. Strict legal segregation of public facilities in the southern states was strengthened in 1896 by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. Racists, northern and southern, proclaimed that the Negro was subhuman, barbaric, immoral, and innately inferior, physically and intellectually, to whites—totally incapable of functioning as an equal in white civilization.
For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.
Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the
Both Acts aimed to protect the basic human rights of African-Americans, using federal law in the wake of the American Civil War. However this in itself is a major area of controversy, as the acts did merely aim to grant minimal rights to blacks, immediately suggesting their effectiveness was limited from the outset. Although indeed in contrast to this, it can be argued that the 14th Amendment to the constitution, embodying the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was a ‘step in the right direction’ and no matter how minimal that movement was, it was an essential starting point. The 1866 Act, defined all people born in the USA (except untaxed Indians) as national citizens, and this measure asserted the right of the federal government to intervene in state affairs should any discrepancies arise. This was a major advancement for the black community in terms of official social standing, especially having this act woven into the constitution, signifying a sense of security. However as shall be seen, it was not the idyllic, harmonious start many envisaged, supported by the introduction of the 1875 Act, which was designed to stop segregation.
In 1863 to 1877 Reconstruction brought an end to slavery, it paved the way for the former slaves to become citizens. The African Americans wanted complete freedom. However, that right became a setback and were seen as second class citizens. Before the end of the Reconstruction, a legislation was passed called the Jim Crow law. The law enforced the segregation of people of African descent. The legislation was a system to ensure the exclusion of racial groups in the Southern States. For example, separate transportation law, school division, different waiting rooms both at the bus terminals and hospitals, separate accommodations, marriage law and voting rights. The Jim Crow law was supposed to help in racial segregation in the South. Instead,
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
During the early 1900s post reconstruction era, African Americans faced extreme injustice and prejudice in society. By being denied rights guaranteed in the Constitution, and being subject to outright racism, African Americans saw their democratic rights slowly being taken away from them. The Jim Crow laws were the facilitator of this democratic infringement through intimidation, as well as by the failings of our prized judicial system. By denying African Americans certain unalienable rights guaranteed to all American citizens, the Jim Crow laws were one of the greatest contractions of democracy in American history.
Although the Fourteenth Amendment, when adopted in 1868, gave certain rights to blacks, including citizenship, equal protection of law and other freedoms, African-Americans were considered inferior by whites in this country. In 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson officially made segregation legal, and put “separate but equal” into effect. African-Americans were excluded from hotels, restaurants, theatres and schools. African-Americans had lower paying jobs than did whites. Accumulated frustration led blacks to call for dramatic social change. (Good, 8-10)
Ferguson trial was a court case about a black man by the name of Homer Adolph Plessy. He was arrested for refusing to not ride in the ‘colored’ railway coach. Plessy had enough of the segregation so he decided to sit up in the white coach. However, it didn’t go well for him and he was arrested. On February 23, 1869, the Louisiana legislature passed a law prohibiting segregation on public transportation. The Government used the term ‘separate but equal’ as an excuse for not letting the blacks sit up with the whites. The supreme court case of Plessy v. Ferguson upheld a ‘separate but equal’ doctrine. “Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contract do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other. (Plessy v. Ferguson). So the blacks and white were now equal, but they couldn’t be together. The government said that the everything was equal when the school that the black children were in had old textbooks when the white school had new textbooks. The blacks and whites were separate but not so much
New Orleans, Louisiana was a place of many races and mixed raced people. Interstate train travel was segregated there, called “Louisiana's Separate Car Act.” Many people didn’t think this was fair not only because was it discriminatory, but because there was no way to tell if a person was truly white or black because there were so many mixed people. In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens’ Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. In 1892, Homer Plessy, a ⅞ white and ⅛ black man, bought a train ticket and took a seat in the “white” car. Plessy was asked to get off the train or move to the “black” car. When he refused, he was arrested. This planned incident was to question the fourteenth
The Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case (163 U.S. 537) began on April 13, 1896 and ended on May 18, 1896 when the court made their decision; this case is between Homer Adolph Plessy and John Ferguson. The main issue in this case was racial segregation; Plessy was told to sit in the section of the train that is meant for African Americans, but he refused. The question that is being asked is if “Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains [is] an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?” (Oyez). The amendments that are being violated are the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause.
Moral reflections turn political when they “prompt us to articulate and justify our moral and political convictions, not only among family and friends but also in the demanding company of our fellow citizens” (Justice, Pg. 29). This is true for the case of segregation, which started with the enactment of the Jim Crows laws in the 1880’s legalizing racial segregation of public facilities, including railroad cars. As illustrated in 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson when Plessy, a 7/8 white man was arrested for refusing to move from the white seating area back to his assigned seat in the African American seating area. This case upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine in it’s decision, stating that racial segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment (Dalton, Week
The Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment in favour of segregation was a clear hindrance to the development of civil rights. This is because it sets a precedent for segregation to be enforced across the country and set a precedent of normalisation of racist views. While it may be argued that such laws existed before then, it cannot be denied that such laws became more rampant and widespread as a result of the ruling. This can be seen clearly in the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1901 which, among many things, instituted separate schools which "shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race" [1]. This particular example
Throughout American History, many minorities have fallen victim to cruel discrimination and inequality, African Americans were one of such minorities that greatly suffered from the white majority’s upper hand. After the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period following it, many people, especially the Southern population, were extremely against African Americans obtaining equal rights in the American society. Due to this, these opponents did everything in their power to limit and even fully strip African Americans of their rights. The Supreme Court case of Plessy v Ferguson in 1896 is an excellent example of the obstacles put forth by the white population against their black counterparts in their long and arduous fight for civil liberty and equality. Even though the court upheld the discriminatory Louisiana law with an 8-1 decision, John Marshall Harlan’s dissent in the case played a significant role in the history of the United States for it predicted all the injustice African Americans would be forced to undergo for many more years, mainly due to this landmark decision.