The Civil Rights Movement started in 1954 and continued until 1968. The Civil Rights Movement was a strive for the rights and the freedoms that African Americans had been given, but taken away from by things such as the Jim Crow Laws and segregation. The Civil Rights Movement had goals of gaining equal rights but also making the fundamental documents that America had been constructed upon to be true for everyone in America. These fundamental documents include the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. With the want of these goals comes about change, an impact, and a response, and the Civil Rights Movement impacted America by gaining the civil rights for African Americans, starting the integration of schools, and also bringing …show more content…
The founding documents such as the Constitution were created by the people and for the people, however, these people were white, land owning men. The Constitution was created to help establish “a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty and prosperity”(Document 1). The men that created the Constitution were set in the ideas of natural rights for all human beings and the basic freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, they neglected to apply these ideas to the people in their own country such as African Americans. Eventually over time and after a civil war, rights had been given to African Americans through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Although these amendments gave rights, they were met by the force of discrimination, segregation, and the Jim Crow Laws. All of which blocked the rights or freedoms for African Americans. The Jim Crow Laws were laws that disenfranchised African Americans by making them pay a poll tax, pass a literacy test, and by making it to where African Americans could only vote if their grandfather had. This was called the Grandfather Clause. These laws were hard to get around and go through because many African Americans did not have the money to afford the poll tax and many could not pass the literacy tests because they were not provided with adequate education. In addition, many African American’s grandparents were in enslavement, therefore unable to vote. These inabilities, segregation, and discrimination caused African Americans to be upset and start the Civil Rights Movement and made them want to fight for the rights and goals that they believed in. They would fight until they were satisfied with justice coming about and prevailing (Document 3). They would fight back with peaceful protests and marches.
Africans Americans weren’t getting much respect or equality with the whites since 1619, the year when the first African slaves were shipped to Virginia. In 1954, the civil rights movement of African Americans to achieve equal rights such as, housing, jobs and education. Many other events during the civil rights movement timeline, 1954-1968, made the movement stronger. Such as the Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat and got arrested in 1955, which started the Montgomery bus boycott by Martin Luther King Jr.
The Civil Rights movement was getting the rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality. With the help of Jackie Robinson just one year later, the Civil Rights act of 1964 was passed thus banning desegregation of race and sex. Jackie Robinson revolutionized American culture by breaking the color barrier in baseball, advocating for the Civil Rights movement, and playing an active role in adjusting African-American positions in
The Civil Right movement was a broad and diverse effort to attain racial equality, compelled to the nation to live up to its ideal that all are created equal. The movement demonstrated that ordinary men and women could perform extraordinary acts of courage and sacrifice to achieve social justice. The event of Brown v. Board of Education and advocates such as Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks greatly impacted the United States. Thurgood Marshall applied to the university of Maryland Law school, however he was turned down because he was and African American. Therefore he decided to go to Howard’s University an all black historical school.
Before the American Civil War happened close to four million African-Americans were slaves. At the turn of the century the Naturalization Act of 1970 allowed only white men to vote. After the Civil War the thirteenth (1865), fourteenth (1868) and fifteenth (1870) amendments were passed, allowing African-American males to vote and have citizenship, which also led to ending slavery. Even after the ending of slavery, there were still some white men who tried to keep white supremacy alive thereby dehumanizing and alienating African-Americans from the mainstream of people. Even after African-Americans were given all their rights, there were still problems with racial segregation.
“The Jim Crow laws also led to the disenfranchisement of African American voters. States passed laws requiring literacy or history tests, background checks, proof of land ownership, or other complex processes just to register to vote,”(Source 1). Consequently most African American people did not get to vote because they did not get the right education to pass the tests. These were not the only oppressions african americans had to face. There was the Plessy vs. Ferguson Case that made it all the way to the Supreme Court even though all the courts sided against Plessy.
The civil rights movement was successful of achieving its goals. The civil rights movements wanted to end segregation, desegregate schools, and reverse the separate but equal rule. To achieve these goals the civil rights movement did various things like, court cases, sit-ins, boycotts, non-violent protest, and marches. Some of the court cases that helped the movement reach its goals was, NAACP, brown vs, board. Some sit-ins were, the non-violent protest in which blacks and whites attempt to desegregate lunch counters buy sitting at counters until served.
They were not giving the right to vote, could not used or possessed alcohol or used firearm. African-American were economically at risk because
The Jim Crow laws made it so that many black people became powerless as they couldn’t vote. They couldn’t vote because the lawmakers passed a law to make it so that people had to pay to vote. Because many black people at the time were poor many of them couldn’t pay this fee of voting and were left powerless when it came to political decisions. That is not the only way that the lawmakers made it so the blacks were powerless. They also made it so white and black people couldn’t be together in public so there had to be different railway cars, water fountains, stores, restaurants and pretty much their whole lives were apart.
The disenfranchisement of Black Americans is as old as their presence in The United States. This disenfranchisement manifests itself in many different ways and is perpetuated on an institutional and individual levels. The oppression that blacks face have been consistently resisted by Black people and our allies. One of the more favorable ways of resistance towards institutional racism in the past and in the present has been to create legal reform. Laws such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment, also referred to as Reconstruction Amendments, are some laws that alleviated the oppression black people faced.
The Union victory in the Civil War prompted the abolition of slavery and African American’s were granted freedom, along with rights that should have been there from the start, however, white supremacy overpowered in the South, forcing African Americans back into a state of slavery. The Reconstruction era, the postwar rebuilding of the South, proved to be an attempt towards change in the lives of African Americans but the opportunities were only available for a limited time. African Americans had hopes of a new South after the Civil War was fought yet that was only accomplished to a certain extent. African Americans have always faced discrimination in society, for that same reason they weren’t accepted into Congress. The graph shown in Document
Post Civil War, African Americans started to gain rights to gain rights, and soon gain rights equal to whites. While there were some people/things standing in their way (KKK, Black Codes), in the end they got what they needed; Equality. Many acts and laws were passed to aid the new rights now held by African Americans, as well as the numerous people willing to help. New Amendments were added to give African Americans rights after the war, all giving them some equal rights to whites. The first of the three added was the Thirteenth Amendment, it gave African Americans freedom from slave owners, and stated that no one could be kept as a slave in the U.S..
Introduction The story of the Civil Rights Movements of African Americans in America is an important story that many people knew, especially because of the leadership Martin Luther King Jr. Black people in America, between 1945 and 1970 had to fight for rights because they had been segregated by white people, they didn’t have equal laws compared to white people. So they initiated the Civil Rights Movements to fight for getting equal civil rights.
The Civil Rights Movement promoted an ideology that hard work and sacrifice could mean the freedom of millions of people. An idea that scares many and inspires
Even though the government adopted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans’ suffrages were still restricted because of southern states’ obstructions. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was important for blacks to participate in political elections, but before this act was passed, there were several events led to its proposal. The government gave African Americans’ the right to vote by passing the 15th Amendment, but in the Southern States, blacks’ suffrages were limited by grandfather clauses, “poll taxes, literacy tests, and other bureaucratic restrictions” (ourdocuments.gov). As times went on, most African Americans couldn’t register their votes.
The purpose of the Civil Rights Movement was to end racial segregation and discrimination and establish equal rights for African Americans, resulting in a Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to do