Role of the Media in the Civil Rights Movement

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African Americans have had a long struggle in achieving the freedoms deserved by all citizens of the United States. The monumental cases of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) had an undeniable impact on the civil rights of African Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 also played important roles in the civil rights that we enjoy in our country today. As televisions were becoming a household item during this time the effects of media were notable and widespread, as well.

The “Equal Protection Clause” in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution required states to provide all people in their jurisdiction equal protection under the law and acted as the basis for the Plessy v. Ferguson case. The “separate but equal” clause was born out of the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896 and allowed for segregation on intrastate railroads as long as equal accommodations for African Americans and Caucasians were made available. It was determined by the majority that while politically equal, African Americans were socially unequal and therefore no amendment was violated in upholding the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act, the Act that Plessy v. Ferguson attempted to have found arbitrary. This judgment served as the legal justification for segregation for better than fifty years to come. The one dissenting vote came from Justice John Marshall Harlan, who feared that the decision would be as infamous as that of Dred Scott v. Sandford which held that slaves were not protected under the constitution. In his dissention Justice Harlan argued that the ruling was degrading to African Americans and acted as a “badge of servitude”.

The decision in Plessy v. Ferguson...

... middle of paper ...

...ents that have taken place since.

The Civil Rights Movement has been a long and arduous struggle yet it has also seen great strides. It may have taken almost sixty years but Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas did finally overturn the decision that acted as the basis for segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave African Americans equal opportunity in private enterprise that was finally punishable if not adhered to and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 forced individual states to abandon tactics that denied African Americans the right to vote. Could all of this progress taken place without the aid of the media? Perhaps, but I believe that the progress made between 1955-1968 in regards to civil rights for African Americans was largely due to the media coverage informing the public of the injustices that were still plenty in America.

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