The Laws in the Reconstruction Era and the Civil Rights Movement

The Laws in the Reconstruction Era and the courtly Rights Movement The courteous rights causal agency that started and grew through the years following the embrown v. Board of Education ending of 1954 and with the help of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Patterson, 2001) marked an heavy period that gracious more than ending segregation in cities and unfair rights it led to the diversity of Ameri lot social, cultural, and political life. The civil rights bowel ordure did not only march that the rights of African Americans should not be ignored but also showed how a landed estate as a whole had the power to change itself.The focal point the civil rights unfolded, gave opposites a chance to reach decent opportunity in the future. When one thinks of the words civil rights one often thinks of Martin Luther queers I wee-wee a Dream speech in the beginning the populations capital. some(prenominal) can recall television footage of placid marchers world abused by fire hos es and police dogs. These and other images can be seen as a struggle and intense burst of fatal activists that characterized the civil rights battlefront of the mid twentieth century. Yet African Americans have perpetually struggled for their rights.Many consider the civil rights movement to have begun not in the 1950s but when Africans were maiden brought in chains, centuries earlier, to American shores (Gillon & Matson, 2001). In particular, those African Americans who fought their enslavement and demanded fundamental citizenship rights laid the foundation for the modern civil rights movement. The first slaves were brought to America in 1619 ( Gillon & Matson, 2001). Not until the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery following the Civil War did melanizes gain their freedom (Gillon & Matson, 2001).But the newly freed opaques could not memorise or write and did not have money or property, and racialism and in referity remain, especially in the South, where slavery had predo minated for so long. To aid black assimilation into sporty society, fed datel and state goernments implemented legion(predicate) another(prenominal) pop reforms between the years 1865 and 1875, the Reconstruction era (Gillon & Matson, 2001). The fourteenth Amendment, for example, guaranteed blacks federally protect equal rights, and the Fifteenth Amendment granted black men the right to suffrage (Gillon & Matson, 2001).Despite these and other measures to help the former slaves rights, the emergences of the Reconstruction era were short lived. In the area of complete southern white society, many did whatever it took to confirm blacks from enjoying any of the benefits of citizenship. Some, for example, desire to keep African Americans from equal rights through harassment or intimidation. A number of racist multitudes, such(prenominal) as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), used even more cruel methods including lynching and other forms of violence to terrify African Americans seeking t o exercise their rights or come near their social position.You can read alsoSimilarities and Conflicts in a trolley car Named DesireAs the constitutional guarantees of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments continued to slowly disappear, the supreme Court struck perhaps the most crippling whiff to the black struggle for equality In 1896 the Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that blacks and whites could be practice of lawfulnessfully separated as long as the facilities for each were equal (Chong, 1991). Facilities for blacks and whites were rarely equal. More importantly, the Supreme Courts decision, by level-headedly backing segregation, gave white society a powerful tool to keep blacks from enjoying the rights of citizenship.With the Supreme Court now reinforcing the Souths segregation practices, the purlieu of white racism gave birth to the Jim Crow Laws, southern customs and laws that unploughed parks, drinking fountains, streetcars, restaurants, theaters , and other humankind places segregated (Conklin, 2008). In response to Jim Crow, which by 1900 extended into all parts of unrestricted life, several leaders in the black community stepped up to debate political strategies to fight unjustness and racial inequality. One of the dominant figures of this early movement for civil rights was an gifted W.E. B. Du Bois, who encouraged African Americans to fight for the rights that they deserved. Du Bois crusade led, in part, to the formation of the matter Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights brass that brought together lawyers, educators, and activists to collectively fight for black civil rights (Powledge, 2001). Through protests, agitation, and effective operation, the NAACP continued a steady case to end segregation in housing, education, and other areas of public life.With the outbreak of universe War I, salubrious over a quarter of a million black troops conjugate the military, but were r elegated to segregated units (Romano, 2006). At the same season, many blacks traveled northwards to take advantage of the rapidly increasing defense industries. This extensive migration, however, change unemployment and other problems that already plagued the northern urban centers. Racial problems continued. When the United States entered World War II, African Americans were, as before, subjected to discrimination in the defense ndustries and in military units, despite their willingness to risk their lives in combat (Powledge, 2001). These wartime experiences, along with a growth in the African American population go awayed in a surge of black protest that brought Jim Crow infra national scrutiny. During the 1950s, ii incidents brought the issue of civil rights squarely into the public spotlight. On May 17, 1954, the NAACP, which had been steady chipping a mien at the legal foundations of segregation, won an unprecedented legal victory The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public take aims was unconstitutional (Polsgrove, 2001). heading Justice Earl Warren presented the Courts decision, in which he describes why separate but equal in education represents a irreverence of African Americans rights Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the black group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn.Segregation, with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to inhibit the educational and mental development of Negro children and dismantle them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system (Patterson, 2001). By ruling against separate but equal article of belief set by the case Plessy v. Ferguson, the court had struck a blo w to segregation. But console many southern racist practices were still beingness practiced, and many whites remained opposed to change. With the ruling of Brown, the affects remained slow, if not existing at all.Many school officials refused to comply with the ruling and the threat of harassment for the ruling had unleashed uncultivated resistance preventing many black students from enrolling in all-white schools. At the same time, schools for black students remained overcrowded, dilapidated, and, in general, grossly inferior to those that their white counterparts enjoyed (Conklin, 2008). The second incident that captured the public eye unfolded in Montgomery, Alabama, when a woman named Rosa Parks started the visible radiation that would provide the momentum for the entire civil rights movement.On December 1, 1955, the NAACP fragment boarded a public bus and took a seat in the Negro section in the back of the bus. Later, Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white passeng er, defying the law by which blacks were required to give up their seats to white passengers when the front section, reserved for whites, was filled (Polsgrove, 2001). Parks was immediately arrested. In protest, the black community launched a one-day local ostracise of Montgomerys public bus system. As support for Parks began, the NAACP and other leaders took advantage of the opportunity to draw attention to their cause.They enlisted the help of a comparatively unknown preacher, Martin Luther King younger , to organize and lead a massive resistance movement that would dispute Montgomerys racist laws (Kohl, 2005). Four days aft(prenominal) Parks arrest, the citywide Montgomery bus boycott began (Kohl, 2005). It lasted for more than a year. Despite taunting and other forms of harassment from the white community, the boycotters persevered until the federal courts intervened and desegregated the buses on December 21, 1956 (Kohl, 2005).The Montgomery bus boycott was important because it demonstrated that the black community, through unity and de margeination, could make their voices heard and effect change. Picketing, boycotting, and other forms of resistance spread to communities throughout the South. Meanwhile, King emerged as the movements preeminent leader. His adherence to the passive tactics used by the Indian ultranationalistic Mohandas Gandhi would largely characterize the entire civil rights movement and inspire large scale participation by whites as well as blacks (Sunnemark, 2003).From 1955 to 1960, the efforts of blacks to bring attention to their cause met with some success. In 1957 carnal knowledge passed the Civil Rights Act, the first since Reconstruction, to establish a civil rights division in the Justice Department that would enforce voting and other rights (Davis, 2001). Meanwhile, the NAACP continued to challenge segregation, and out of that came numbers of new organizations that where formed. Among these, the Southern Christian Leadershi p group discussion (SCLC), a Christian-based organization founded in 1957 and led by King, became a major(ip) force in organizing the civil rights movement (Sunnemark, 2003).An organization called the Student unprovocative Coordinating Committee (SNCC) grabbed the media spotlight, and started many protests when it backed four students who launched a attend campaign to desegregate southern lunch counters (Conklin, 2008). Not only was the nonviolent sit in technique used to desegregate other public places, but it gave large numbers of African American youths a way to participate in the movement. This helped gain national attention, bringing equal rights demands before the public eye.The protest movement continued to accelerate as distinct leaders tested new tactics and strategies. Many established community-based projects that sought to combat the barriers that kept blacks from voting. Others targeted the white terrorism that continued to intimidate blacks into submission. King and other leaders launched a massive campaign that brought together thousands of blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated and violently racist cities at the time (Sunnemark, 2003). Early in the campaign, King was arrested and jailed.From his cell, he penned his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, which realize him the support of many sympathetic whites (Conklin, 2008). Meanwhile, as blacks continued the desegregation campaign in Birmingham, an event occurred that irrevocably commanded the attention of America and its leaders In an effort to stop a demonstration, the notoriously racist police important Eugene Bull Connor turned vicious attack dogs and fire hoses on the pacific demonstrators (Sunnemark, 2003). The force of the water slammed women and children to the ground and sent others hurling through the air. idiot box coverage and other media reports of these brutal assaults shocked the nation and viewers close to the world. later a month of this highly publici zed violence, city officials repealed Birminghams segregation laws (Powledge, 2001). In Birminghams aftermath, mass demonstrations continued to spread, as did grating resistance within the white community. In response to these events, King and other leaders planned a mass gathering on the nations capital in the summer of 1963 (Sunnemark, 2003).On August 28, the border district on Washington brought an estimated quarter of a million people, black and white, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his now famous I Have a Dream speech (Romano, 2006). This triggered the SNCC to start a wide-scale campaign to bolster up voting rights. The group launched a massive voter registration contain throughout the South, concentrating on Mississippi, where less than 5 percent of the states eligible blacks were registered to vote (Conklin, 2008). Freedom Summer, as it became known, was marked by episodes of extreme white terrorism.One of the most heinous examples involved three preteen civil rights workers. The trio was working to register voters when they were arrested and later murdered by the Ku Klux Klan (Patterson, 2001). By 1965 the voting campaign had shifted to Selma, Alabama, where, under the leadership of King, thousands of demonstrators began a fifty-mile journey to Montgomery (Sunnemark, 2003). This time, as the peaceful demonstrators approached the Edmund Pettis Bridge, state troopers used police whips and clubs to bank check their progress.The scene blasted into American living rooms via the nightly news. After Bloody Sunday, thousands of people gathered again to complete the march, this time under the protection of the Alabama National Guard (Powledge, 2001). On August 6, 1965, currently after the highly publicized events in Selma, President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, which, for the first time since Reconstruction, effectively opened up the canvass to southern black Americans (Davis, 2001).By the mid-1960s, many black activists started to lose credence in the civil rights reforms that thus far had targeted only the most fricative forms of discrimination (Chong, 1991). While Kings nonviolent direct action approach had dominated the movement, many people particularly in the North, adoptive a more revolutionary stance. As a wave of nationalist sentiment grew within the movement, organizations such as SNCC and CORE took up more militant agendas. SNCC, for example, began promoting a program of black power a term that meant racial pride (Conklin, 2008).The greatest spokesman for Black Nationalism was Malcolm X. With his working-class grow and charismatic style of speaking, Malcolm appealed to a lot of young urban blacks. Malcolm rejected Dr. Kings advocacy of nonviolence and instead urged his followers to skillful their rights by any means necessary (Sunnemark, 2003). After Malcolms assassination in February 1965, another extremely provocative Black Nationalist group emerged the Black Panthers, a group that boldly adopted the idea by any means necessary (Sunnemark, 2003).Race riots exploded across America, as blacks trapped in urban slums lashed out against the poverty and racism still rampant in their communities. Not only did the riots devastate ghetto areas that were home to millions of African Americans, including those in the Watts section of Los Angeles, but the racial violence started a time interval between those who continued to believe that civil rights could be achieved through peaceful means and those who were more violent .Kings assassination in April 1968 struck a blow to the already fractured civil rights movement. Marin Luther King Jr. became the face of national equality not just for African American but to all those who sought justice and freedom. The American civil rights movement nevertheless left a permanent mark on American society. Most of the forms of racial discrimination came to an end, and racial violence decrease. Today, African Americans can fr eely exercise their right to vote, and in communities where they were once banned from the polls.Millions of African Americans have been lifted out of poverty as a result of the many economic opportunities created by the civil rights movement. Also important, the civil rights movement served as a model for the advancement of other minority groups, including women, the disabled, Hispanics, and many others. The civil rights movement has left a legacy in which generations after it can learn by reading it and not through experiencing it.