The American Civil War resulted from long-standing sectional differences and questions not fully resolved when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789. With the defeat of the Southern Confederacy and the subsequent passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, the Civil War’s lasting effects include abolishing the institution of slavery in America and firmly redefining the United States as a single, indivisible nation rather than a loosely bound collection of independent states.
Events |
During the 1890's, a number of other court decisions and state laws severely limited African-American rights. In this case of 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that this "separate but equal" law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. States throughout the nation passed what were known as Jim Crow laws, aimed at separating the races. These laws forbade marriage for between blacks and whites and some with religions. The Brown V. Board of Education, 1954, the school system of Topeka, Kansas operated separate schools for the two races, blacks and whites. Reverend Oliver Brown protested that this was unfair to his 8 year old daughter Linda. The Browns lived near a "white" school, but Linda was sadly forced to take the long ride on the bus to her "black" school across town.
There was this thing where whites took advantage of the blacks. They go to different schools and have certain stores meant for themselves which wasn't fair because some blacks wanted to be able to enter in the same place without being punished. There was this thing called sit-ins, that an African-American wouldn't move until they had what they needed. It wasn't fair that white got everything and blacks did not. Blacks got arrested for the worst reasons. The civil rights bill that Kennedy sent to Congress had equal access to all public accommodations and gave the U.S. attorney general the power to file school desegregation suits. In order to pass the bill, two veteran organizers summoned Americans to a march on Washington, D.C.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an NAACP officer, took a seat in the front row of the "colored" section of a Montgomery bus. The more the bus filled up, the more Rosa Parks and other African Americans had to move to let the whites sit. Parks got to the point where she wanted to tell them things and wanted to "sit down" for herself, as in stand up for her right. All Rosa did was sit and stare at the window as the driver forces her to move. After a while, the driver called the police and had her arrested. This was news, but this is what started the bus boycott.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The summer of 1965, Congress passed Johnson's Voting Rights Act of 1965. This act eliminated the so-called literacy tests that had disqualified many voters. In Selma, the proportion of African-American voters in the South tripled. Some felt the law didn't go far enough, though. Anger over these inequalities led to a series of violent disturbances in the cites of the North.
Challenges & Changes
De facto segregation is a segregation that exists by practice and custom. This can be harder to fight than de jure segregation, or segregation by law. Activists would find it more difficult to convince white to share economic and social power with African Americans than to convince them to share lunch counters and bus seats.
Thurgood Marshall was instrumental in ending legal segregation and became the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Marshall earned an important place in American history on the basis of two accomplishments. First, as legal counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he guided the litigation that destroyed the legal underpinnings of Jim Crow segregation. Second, as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the nation’s first black justice, he crafted a distinctive jurisprudence marked by uncompromising liberalism, unusual attentiveness to practical considerations beyond the formalities of law, and an indefatigable willingness to dissent.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950's. King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington, which helped bring such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986.
Malcolm X was the one to declare to a Harlem audience. Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little and went to jail for burglary. While in prison he studied the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, the head of the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims. Malcolm later changed his name to Malcolm X, which was known as his slave name. After he was out of prison he became an Islamic minister. Malcolm's message caught the attention of African Americans.