Effects Of Racial Discrimination In The 1960's

1105 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racism in america history

Racial discrimination was going on in the United States for centuries, even before our founding fathers formed. Discrimination in the racial aspect was still strongly profound in America even after the formation of the founding fathers and the United States Constitution. When the Constitution was written African Americans inherited a limited amount of civil rights but civil rights nonetheless. Not only were there clauses presented in the Constitution that prevented the African Americans from exercising their rights but they were also strongly discouraged to practice the civil rights that were given to them. The discouragement came from the dominant White American extremists. The racial divide in the United States during the 1960’s was an eye opener for activists, whether black or white. The segregation between the two colors was a disgrace, the United States was supposed to be the land of the free but unfortunately some were too closed minded to see this. The events that took place during the 1960’s started a new revolution to a new era.
Though it took a lot of time and hardship, segregation between the Whites and the Blacks were slowly but surely coming to an end. Dr. Martin Luther King, President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, whom was Attorney General during the civil rights movement, and many influential figures, contributed their approval for this movement. They also instilled sense of confidence and security to the African Americans and civil rights activists. The 1960’s were a time when the African Americans and others have had enough of racism. These groups decided to fight for the Black people to have their civil rights set into motion rather than being suppressed. People were joining together to create a...

... middle of paper ...

...southern states had 48% of the African American population and only about 11% were registered to vote (classdisscusion.2/11/14). The Civil Rights Movement eventually turned the failed ideals into successful ones. By 1966 the black voter registration in the region increased by 40 percent compared to the early sixties (Burner,p.47,1996). That number is most likely still increasing today. The activists in the 1960’s fought for equal rights of future American citizens and it didn’t go unappreciated. The events that occurred during the 60’s changed American history in a positive way. Racism is inevitable but all is well with the absolute protection of our civil right. After reading about how the racial divide impacted American society and how most citizens came together to protect one another’s civil rights I would say that our nation is living up to its professed ideals.

Show More
Related

  • How Is Jim Crowe Laws Related To Racial Equality

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    While we all would agree that racism is immoral and has no place in a modern society, that was not the case in the U.S. in the 1940s. At the time African Americans were treated as second-class citizens, it was made near-impossible for them to vote, and they were discriminated in many ways including in education, socially and in employment. It was a time in which segregation and racism perforated the laws and society, a time in which African Americans were “separate but equal,” segregation was legal and in full force. Apartheid was also everywhere from the books to in society. Blacks were not truly seen as equal as they were seen the the lesser of the two and it very much felt that way. Blacks were oppressed in many ways including having unreachable requirements to vote, such regulations included literacy tests, poll taxes, and elaborate registration systems, but it only started there.

    Read More

  • Compare Martin Luther King's Approach To The Civil Rights Movement

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1960s, the nation was faced tumultuous times. There was racial tension between the white citizens and black citizens of America. Whites could not understand why the African Americans were so upset; they had their freedom from slavery and job opportunities. However, the African American was dissatisfied with the small crumbs of God given rights that all American citizens were entitled to. Two men propelled to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement as leaders; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Their agenda was to seek equal rights for all Americans. But both men differ on the approaches needed to reach these goals; one believed using nonviolence was the answer while the other advocated violence Many people argue that the

    Read More

  • Effects Of Racial Discrimination In America

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    In American, there is a big problem that is racial discrimination. Because the long-standing institutionalized discrimination results in this problem. So what is institutionalized discrimination? How has discrimination become institutionalized for various ethnic subpopulations in the United States?

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Racial Discrimination In America

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racial discrimination is a pertinent issue in the United States. Although race relations may seem to have improved over the decades in actuality, it has evolved into a subtler form and now lurks in institutions. Sixty years ago racial discrimination was more overt, but now it has adapted to be more covert. Some argue that these events are isolated and that racism is a thing of the past (Mullainathan). Racial discrimination is negatively affecting the United States by creating a permanent underclass of citizens through institutional racism in business and politics, and creating a cancerous society by rewriting the racist history of America. Funding research into racial discrimination will help society clearly see the negative effects that racism

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s

    1783 Words  | 4 Pages

    The 1960’s were one of the most significant decades in the twentieth century. The sixties were filled with new music, clothes, and an overall change in the way people acted, but most importantly it was a decade filled with civil rights movements. On February 1, 1960, four black freshmen from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical College in Greensboro went to a Woolworth’s lunch counter and sat down politely and asked for service. The waitress refused to serve them and the students remained sitting there until the store closed for the night. The very next day they returned, this time with some more black students and even a few white ones. They were all well dressed, doing their homework, while crowds began to form outside the store. A columnist for the segregation minded Richmond News Leader wrote, “Here were the colored students in coats, white shirts, and ties and one of them was reading Goethe and one was taking notes from a biology text. And here, on the sidewalk outside was a gang of white boys come to heckle, a ragtail rabble, slack-jawed, black-jacketed, grinning fit to kill, and some of them, God save the mark, were waving the proud and honored flag of the Southern States in the last war fought by gentlemen. Eheu! It gives one pause”(Chalmers 21). As one can see, African-Americans didn’t have it easy trying to gain their civil rights. Several Acts were passed in the 60’s, such as Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. This was also, unfortunately, the time that the assassinations of important leaders took place. The deaths of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all happened in the 60’s.

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Movement

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1960’s were a time of freedom, deliverance, developing and molding for African-American people all over the United States. The Civil Rights Movement consisted of black people in the south fighting for equal rights. Although, years earlier by law Africans were considered free from slavery but that wasn’t enough they wanted to be treated equal as well. Many black people were fed up with the segregation laws such as giving up their seats on a public bus to a white woman, man, or child. They didn’t want separate bathrooms and water fountains and they wanted to be able to eat in a restaurant and sit wherever they wanted to and be served just like any other person.

    Read More

  • Origins of Funk Music

    2188 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the 1960s it was a hard time for black Americans. There was a revolution being driven by two well know black civil rights leaders. The first phase of the revolution was driven by a young Islamic black man, Malcolm X, who was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was adamant that blacks needed to take care of their own business. In the issue of black integration in American culture. Malcolm X had the ability to reach any one member of the black nation in America. This revolution was cut short on a sad day in February of 1965, when Malcolm X was assassinated. This left a void in the hearts of the people who he had touched upon in his revolt. This was where things began to get funky.

    Read More

  • My Soul Is Rested Summary

    155 Words  | 1 Pages

    The book, “My Soul Is Rested” by Howell Raines is a remarkable history of the civil rights movement. It details the story of sacrifice and audacity that led to the changes needed. The book described many immeasurable moments of the leaders that drove the civil rights movement. This book is a wonderful compilation of first-hand accounts of the struggles to desegregate the American South from 1955 through 1968. In the civil rights movement, there are the leaders and followers who became astonishing in the face of chaos and violence. The people who struggled for the movement are as follows: Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and others; both black and white people, who contributed in demonstrations for freedom rides, voter drives, and

    Read More

  • Final Exam Essay

    1402 Words  | 3 Pages

    The 1960s was a period well remembered for all the civil rights movements that occurred during that time frame and the impact these movements had on the social and political dynamics of the United States. The three largest movements that were striving in the 1960s were the African American civil rights movement, the New Left movement and the feminist movement. These three movements were in a lot of ways influenced by each other and were very similar in terms of their goals and strategies. However, within each of these movements there were divisions in the way they tried to approach the issues they were fighting against. Looking at each of these movements individually will reveal the relationship they all share as well as the changes that were brought forth as a result of each groups actions.

    Read More

  • The 1960’s: Decade of Disillusionment

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    African Americans had been struggling to obtain equal rights for scores of decades. During the 1960’s, the civil rights movement intensified and the civil rights leaders entreated President Kennedy to intervene. They knew it would take extreme legislature to get results of any merit. Kennedy was afraid to move forward in the civil rights battle, so a young preacher named Martin Luther King began a campaign of nonviolent marches and sit-ins and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama to try and force a crisis that the President would have to acknowledge. Eventually things became heated and Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor released his men to attack the protesters, which included many schoolchildren. All of this was captured and televised to the horror of the world. Finally this forced the President into action and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities. The bill became bogged down in Congress but civil righ...

    Read More

  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964

    1836 Words  | 4 Pages

    Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.

    Read More

  • The Development of Racism

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...mproved, especially as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, racial inequalities still remain; from income to IQ levels, to the number of the incarcerated and life expectancies. While Americans like to think of our country as the equal land of opportunity, clearly it is not. Racism continues to remain "our American Obsession" (Loewen 139).

    Read More

  • Civil Rights Movement

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since African-Americans had been brought over to the Americas as slaves, there had been a huge rise in racism and segregation. In the 1950s times had become even more difficult for this race of people as racism had hit an all time high. This was not only a problem, but had diminished the rights of blacks to little or none at all. African- Americans felt as if they had the responsibility to fight peacefully and gain the rights they believed they were owed. The thinking of civil disobedience displayed in a great number of these people brought upon the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. A movement thought to have the effect of bringing more than just rights to the African-American but also bringing the responsibility of blacks all around the country to a peak. Their responsibility had now changed to having to now learn to assimilate with the whites all around them.

    Read More

  • The Struggle for Freedom Among African American Citizens

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s. During the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place, it was the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools....

    Read More

More about Effects Of Racial Discrimination In The 1960's

Open Document