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How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights? Laquanda Washington HIS204: American History Since 1865 Hector Galano 21 November 2011 How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights? African Americans have been working hard every since the slavery days to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation.
Many civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges, John Brown, Fredrick Douglas, Nat Turner, and Linda Brown, have worked together so that blacks can have the same things that whites have. First off I will like to inform you on what segregation, discrimination, and isolation is. Segregation is the practice of keeping ethnic, racial, religious, or gender groups separate, especially by enforcing the use of separate schools, transportation, housing, and other facilities, and usually discriminating against a minority group.
Isolation is the process of separating somebody or something from others, or the fact of being alone and separated from others. And discrimination is unfair treatment of one person or group, usually because of prejudice about race, ethnicity, age, religion, or gender. Segregation was a by-product of the slaves being freed. Of course they were segregated before but that was because they were believed to be property not people. After the slaves were freed is when the problem began because they were not given rights when they were freed so many tried to restrict where they could go, what they could do.
Many whites were mad about this and did not want to eat, go to school, use the water fountain, use the bathroom, are do anything else with blacks. Segregation was not politically noticed until the Plessey versus Ferguson case. This was a Supreme Court case in 1898, in which the Court ruled that blacks and whites should have separate but equal facilities. This is where people such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X come into play. Rosa Parks was a 55 year old elderly lady that was arrested and thrown in jail because she refused to give her seat to a white man on the bus.
While during research I found out that the bus driver immediately slammed on brakes and came back with a policeman and Mrs. Parks was arrested for violating segregation laws. Rosa Parks was not the only African American who was treated unfairly. Another African American was Ruby Bridges. Ruby was one of the first black children to go to an all white school, when the courts first allowed integration on November 14, 1960, her parents allowed her to participate in this with the NAACP.
The kids at school never talked to her, parents took their kids out of the school and the teachers decided not to teach as long as it was a black child in the school. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation (separation of people according to race) in public schools is unconstitutional (violates laws stated in the U. S. Constitution). This decision overturned the long-standing “separate but equal” doctrine laid down in 1896 by the case of Plessey v. Fergusson, which had encouraged segregation in certain areas of the country.
The struggle over desegregation now centered upon the school question. By the end of 1957 nine of the 17 states and the District of Columbia had begun integration of their school systems. Another five states had some integrated schools by 1961. Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges where not the only females who worked to end segregation in American other females such as Mary McLeod Bethune (Mary McLeod Bethune created schools for black students and worked with several US presidents to make sure all children received a good education. Read about her accomplishments and the teacher who inspired her.
Harriet Tubman (Harriet Tubman was another slave who worked to free slaves. She ran away because she was afraid of being shipped further south where slaves were treated very badly. Learn more about her escape and how she went on to help many others escape to freedom) Linda Brown (Linda Brown was a little girl when she became famous for fighting the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in the Supreme Court. Her case, Brown v. Board of Education, helped all black children get a better education) and Sojourner Truth (Sojourner Truth was also a slave, but she won her freedom)
Women were not the only people who participated in the civil rights movement. Men such as John Brown were an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. Later that year he was executed but his speeches at the trial captured national attention.
Brown has been called “the most controversial of all 19th-century American and “America’s first domestic terrorist. Brown’s attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five pro-slavery Southerners, and inciting a slave insurrection, found guilty on all counts, and was hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party to end slavery.
Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War. Another man was Fredrick Douglas was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.
Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave. Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his experiences in slavery in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became influential in its support for abolition. He wrote two more autobiographies, with his last, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, published in 1881 and covering events through and after the Civil War. After the Civil War, Douglass remained active in the United States’ struggle to reach its potential as a “land of the free”.
Douglass actively supported women’s suffrage. Without his approval he became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on the impracticable and small Equal Rights Party ticket. Douglass held multiple public offices. Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant, famously quoted as saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong” Another man was the famous Martin Luther King Jr.
MLK was thrown out of restaurants because he was black; he was attacked by police dogs and even sprayed down in restaurants. Even though he went through so much he did not give up, he fought for what he believed was right, he even had a million man march in Alabama because he believed that whites and blacks should be equal, which he talked about in his famous “I HAVE A DREAM” speech. Martin Luther King was shot to death on the balcony of a hotel because he was fighting for something he knew was wrong and he. And after his death the vision of his dream came true.
Many African Americans worked to end segregation and many of them worked to end discrimination also. The situations that I have stated above are also examples of them being discriminated against because of the color of their skin. African Americans had the bus boycotts where they would not get on the buses. They had things such as sit-ins and also had marches that where nonviolent. For example the march I stated above that Martin Luther King Jr. held. Blacks were not allowed to work at the same places as white people because of the color of their skin. They couldn’t go to the same movie theatre are attend public functions.
This brings me to talking about African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955???1968) refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from oppression by white Americans.
Many African Americans felt as if they should be treated equally even though there skin color was different. Another African American who fought for blacks to have equal rights was a civil rights leader by the name of Malcolm X. It’s said that Malcolm X wanted to change things for blacks because his father was killed by whites and at least one of his uncles was launched. Seeing how blacks were treated Mr. X did speeches, protested against the treatment and was even thrown in jail just like Mr. King. Malcolm X was thrown in jail just like all other civil rights leaders.
African Americans were treated as if they were nothing because of the color of their skins. An African American who we all are familiar with is Harriet Tubman. Ms Tubman was a slaved who helped other slaves finds their way to freedom. She did everything she could for them and with them. She knew that it was a great risk that she was taken but she was determined for blacks to be free and for them to stop belonging to somebody else. She didn’t want them to be discriminated against so she helped them escape for the south and find their way to the north.
She was beaten, whipped, and denied food because she wanted blacks to have the same rights as blacks. Another lady that I spoke of earlier was Sojourner Truth who was born Isabella Baumfree. She was an African American abolitionist, she was born a slave but she escaped with a daughter. Later in life she went to court against a white man and she won the case and opened the door for African Americans to be able to go to court. She also fought for women and became a writer where she wrote famous speeches for women and African Americans. She even went on to help get African Americans in the army, the whites allowed her to help them recruit men.
Next we have W. E. B Du Bois he helped out African Americans in many ways, but first I would like to speak on who he is. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois attended Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University, and he was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also known as the NAACP (is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909.
Its mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people. African Americans where isolated in schools, restaurants, theaters, and other public places as I stated above. The fight to end all of this was fought by many blacks and even some white people. But African Americans were treated the worse when they tried to fight because of how they looked.
We as blacks were looked upon as trash and dirt we were not clean enough to do anything that white people did. From the very start dated black as slavery things for us were hard, and even after slavery ended we were still looked upon as if we were disgusting. After the fight that my ancestors fought things in America have slowly started to change, we have a black president. But you can still tell that we still are fighting the same fight for equal rights because many people are even trying to kill him.
Sure we as blacks can vote, eat where we want to and even go to schools with whites, but there are still many of them who don’t want black kids sitting in the classrooms with the white kids. Many people who work in places where blacks eat even feel offended when they have to serve blacks. The fight that had been fought since way back when will always be fought. Because all people will never accept blacks as real human beings. Many will always isolate blacks and treat us like animals. | | | | | Reference Bridges Hall, Ruby. Through My Eyes, Scholastic Press, 1999. Coles, Robert.
The Story of Ruby Bridges, Scholastic Press, 1995. Crouch, Stanley and Playthell, Benjamin, Reconsidering The Souls of Black Folk. Running Press, Philadelphia, PA. 2002. DeCaro, Louis A. Jr. John Brown???The Cost of Freedom: Selections from His Life ; Letters (New York: International Publishers, 2007) Franklin Sanborn (ed. ) (1891): The Life and Letters of John Brown Gooding-Williams, Robert. In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America. Harvard University Press, 2009. Hubbard, Dolan (Ed. ). The Souls of Black Folk: One Hundred Years Later.
University of Missouri Press. 2003 Louis Ruchames, ed. A John Brown Reader: The Story of John Brown in His Own Words, in the Words of Those who Knew Him (1959) Miller, William. Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery. Illus. by Cedric Lucas. Lee ; Low Books, 1995. Steinbeck, John. Travels with Charley in Search of America, Viking Adult, 1962. The Unfinished Agenda of Brown v. Board of Education, John Wiley ; Sons, 2004. Weidt, Maryann N. Voice of Freedom: a Story about Frederick Douglass. Illus. by Jeni Reeves. Lerner Publications, (2001).