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Civil rights movement in the USA
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In the history of the United States, there have been many social changes that have occurred. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s was one of the most significant and important for the equality of all people. Throughout history, there had been a continuous conflict between the races of people who lived in the United States. Rights were violated on a consistent basis, purely because of the color of a person’s skin. Unfortunately, many of the changes that the movement fought for, brought on a violent opposition from many whites and that led to the violent deaths of some of the famous leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. It also led to two pretty distinct groups of black activists. One group worked violently while the other worked peacefully. …show more content…
Through the use of civil rights movements, peaceful and violent, as well as many Civil Rights Acts, African Americans gained more power and rights within society. Discrimination was a huge issue during the 1900’s and there were many tactics utilized to help this problem. One very important approach was a form of nonviolent protest. Two people that used nonviolent protest were Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. In December 1955, Rosa Parks boarded a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When the bus became crowded, Parks was asked to move to the back of the bus to what they called the “colored section”. She refused to move and was arrested as a result. This set off a protest towards the Montgomery bus line. This boycott went on for an entire year. The boycott was headed by 27 year old Martin Luther King, Jr., peacefully. In 1956, a federal district court issued an injunction prohibiting the segregation of buses in Montgomery. The following year, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He then began to preach nonviolent civil disobedience as a way to achieve racial justice. Tactics that were used by the SCLC were demonstrations and marches, as well as nonviolent, public disobedience of unjust laws. For the next decade, sympathetic whites and African Americans engaged in sit-ins, freedom marches and freedom rides. There constant upheaval and relentless pursuit towards racial equilibrium put pressure on the government to make changes. Some of these were answered with violence, but these actions were very effective. Not all African Americans agreed with King’s peaceful protests. Black muslims and other African American separatists advocated for a more violent style of protest and argued that desegregation should not result in cultural assimilation. A black power leader such as Malcolm X insisted that African Americans should fight back instead of ignoring the problems. He had a very eventful upbringing. His father was killed when Malcolm was young by the Ku Klux Klan. From there on he held a permanent grudge towards whites and turned to violence. Malcolm X was very suspicious of whites and was willing to use any means necessary to gain equality. Due to the all of the racial attacks, protests, and discrimination, Congress felt compelled to act on behalf of African Americans.
This began the second era of civil rights acts, reconstruction. With the reconstruction came The Civil Rights Act of 1964. This banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. Another act that was passed was The Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act had two major provisions. The first outlawed discriminatory voter-registration tests. The second authorized federal registration of voters and federally administered voting procedures in any political subdivision or state that discriminated electorally against a particular group. This act also said that certain political subdivisions could not change their voting procedures and election laws without federal approval. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was yet another act that helped end segregation. This Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson after Martin Luther King’s death. It banned discrimination in most housing and provided penalties for those attempting to interfere with individual civil rights. All of these acts were passed as a result of protest and leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and many
more. The 20th century was a constant battle for African Americans in their fight to gain more political and social rights. The 1960’s were the most impactful years of the civil rights revolution. This all happened due to people like Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks and Malcolm X. Although there forms of protest weren’t the same, there end result was. Moreover, even though Martin Luther and Malcolm X were assassinated, the message was well received. There was a lot of changes such as new acts and laws passed due to the violent and nonviolent protests. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1900’s was very effective. Discrimination is an ongoing problem that is still being dealt with today.
Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act, which called for the fair treatment of all races, changed the tone of the Civil Rights Movement. This doesn’t mean that everyone automatically started to change the way they thought about African Americans, but people started to come together and realize that change needed to happen soon. 5 months after Kennedy first announced the bill, he was shot in Dallas, Texas. It wasn’t until 8 months after Kennedy's assassination that Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into effect on July 2, 1964. The bill was passed through congress with a 290-130 vote. (History Channel 2010) After the bill was passed, more action was taken to assure equal rights for African Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created to prevent discrimination and unfair treatment with African American voters. (Library of Congress) The 1964 Civil Rights Act sent a message loud and clear: no longer was discrimination or racism going to be tolerated. In fact, many people thought that change needed to happen soon, as a 1964 Gallup poll suggests. 58% approved of the bill while only 31% did not. 10% were undecided (Public Broadcasting Service 2015). Not only did those who were black support the bill, but many white national leaders started to support the ideas of the act. The bill became the national pathway to equal rights. However, not all were ready to move towards change. Following the signing of the bill, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were both assassinated.
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...
The United States changed as a nation because of the Civil Rights Movement. Especially, the United States notched up as a more perfect union. The Civil Rights Movement secured voting rights for African-Americans and called for the ending racial segregation, discrimination and segregation. After years of struggle and upheaval, it resulted in the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, under the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. The purpose of the act was to protect African-Americans’ voting rights and overcome legal barriers that prevented them from exercising their rights to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a historic triumph as it helped the nation acknowledge the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which granted equal voting rights to all but which goal remained unfulfilled for the next several decades. Therefore, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned
From that time until now there have been new laws passed and things have gotten better. But even now blacks and other minorities are involved in the civil rights movement. Lots of like Spanish Americans, Jews, Orientals, Native Americans, immigrants, homosexuals and others are involved now. The leaders, black and white, sometimes don’t agree on how to win civil rights. Most people are working peacefully, but others, that are called militants, think peace hasn’t worked and that violence is necessary. Many people think that blacks still do not receive fair treatment from authorities like the police. Even now the civil rights movement is still working for equal rights for all like we were promised in the Declaration of Independence.
The many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, little rock nine, John Brown, Linda Brown, Ruby Bridges, Frederick Douglass, Plessey Scott, JFK, and Malcolm X. All of these men and women had a great influence on the movement’s success in the United States and helped end racial segregation. It all started in 1954 in the Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. The people who were involved were John Brown and Linda Brown. This happened because of the separate but equal law created 60 years earlier in the Plessey vs. Ferguson case when Plessey lost and created separate but equal laws.
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.
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.
For many years after the Civil War many African-Americans did not truly enjoy the freedoms that were granted to them by the US constitution. This was especially true in the southern states, because segregation flourished in the south wwhere African-Americans were treated as second class citizens. This racial segregation was characterized by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. In addition, Blacks were not afforded justice and fair trials, such as the case of the murder of Emmet Till. This unjust treatment would not be tolerated in America any more, which spurred the civil rights movement.
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.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbid businesses connected with interstate commerce to discriminate when choosing its employees. If these businesses did not conform to the act, they would lose funds that were granted to them from the government. Another act that was passed to secure the equality of blacks was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act, which was readopted and modified in 1970, 1975, and 1982, contained a plan to eliminate devices for voting discrimination and gave the Department of Justice more power in enforcing equal rights. In another attempt for equal rights, the Equal Employment ...
In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to end racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations In 1965, congress returned suffrage to black southerners, by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Foner 926). In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional (Foner 951). Because of the civil rights movement in the sixties, minorities gained more rights than they had prior to the 1960s. While the 1960s were a time of advancement for minorities, it was also a time of advancement for women. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on a person’s gender (Foner 944).
The civil rights act outlawed discrimination based on color, sex, and religion against any individuals. It authorize bureaucracy from making rules to help close discrimination and it mandate the same voting rules( The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). The civil rights act was deeply harmed american society(Constitutional Rights Foundation of The Civil Rights Act of 1964). The most important law in the United States was the civil rights act of 1964(Civil Rights Act for Kids of 1964). Even President Johnson signed the the civil rights act into law, by using 72 pens just a few hours after house approval on July 2, 1964(Constitutional Rights Foundation of The Civil Rights Act of 1964). Also, President Johnson wanted a new civil rights bill and he signed it into law on July 2, 1964(Civil Rights Act for Kids of 1964). Within hours of its passage on July 2, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson, with Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Height, Roy Wilkins, John Lewis, and other civil rights leaders
On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson assigned priorities to the Civil Rights bill, which, was passed on July 2, 1964. At that moment, segregation in public facilities was illegal as well as was to discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion or country of
Johnson did so in 1964. The signing of the bill is feasibly one of the pinnacles of federal response to Civil Rights activism, the bill improved on Kennedy’s 1963 draft, and outlawed all forms of discrimination and ended unequal voter registration. Commentators on the matter of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill highlighted the far reaching legal importance of the bill, and the actions of pro-civil rights leaders in the senate which made the bill a possibility. Most importantly the Act gave increased legal protection in both social and political developments, which meant opposition to bills in the order of desegregation would be harder to pass; therefore harder to enforce. So the federal response to a culmination of civil rights activism set a landmark in democracy and showed the change in momentum, that would help the civil rights movement for the present and future. It also brought about greater unity between races and ethnicities, thus broadening the depth of the Civil Rights movement as a result of increased federal
Historically, the Civil Rights Movement was a time during the 1950’s and 60’s to eliminate segregation and gain equal rights. Looking back on all the events, and dynamic figures it produced, this description is very vague. In order to fully understand the Civil Rights Movement, you have to go back to its origin. Most people believe that Rosa Parks began the whole civil rights movement. She did in fact propel the Civil Rights Movement to unprecedented heights but, its origin began in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was the cornerstone for change in American History as a whole. Even before our nation birthed the controversial ruling on May 17, 1954 that stated separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, there was Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 that argued by declaring that state laws establish separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. Some may argue that Plessy vs. Ferguson is in fact backdrop for the Civil Rights Movement, but I disagree. Plessy vs. Ferguson was ahead of it’s time so to speak. “Separate but equal” thinking remained the body of teachings in America until it was later reputed by Brown vs. Board of Education. In 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and prompted The Montgomery Bus Boycott led by one of the most pivotal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. After the gruesome death of Emmett Till in 1955 in which the main suspects were acquitted of beating, shooting, and throwing the fourteen year old African American boy in the Tallahatchie River, for “whistling at a white woman”, this country was well overdo for change.