Segregation and The Civil Rights Movement Essay Example For Students

Segregation and The Civil Rights Movement Essay Segregation and The Civil Rights MovementSegregation was an attempt by white Southerners to separate the races in everysphere of life and to achieve supremacy over blacks. Segregation was oftencalled the Jim Crow system, after a minstrel show character from the 1830s whowas an old, crippled, black slave who embodied negative stereotypes of blacks. Segregation became common in Southern states following the end of Reconstructionin 1877. During Reconstruction, which followed the Civil War (1861-1865),Republican governments in the Southern states were run by blacks, Northerners,and some sympathetic Southerners. The Reconstruction governments had passed lawsopening up economic and political opportunities for blacks. By 1877 theDemocratic Party had gained control of government in the Southern states, andthese Southern Democrats wanted to reverse black advances made duringReconstruction. To that end, they began to pass local and state laws thatspecified certain places For Whites Only and others for Colored. Blacks hadseparate schools, transportation, restaurants, and parks, many of which werepoorly funded and inferior to those of whites. Over the next 75 years, Jim Crowsigns went up to separate the races in every possible place. The system ofsegregation also included the denial of voting rights, known as disfranchisement. Between 1890 and 1910 all Southern states passed laws imposing requirements forvoting that were used to prevent blacks from voting, in spite of the 15thAmendment to the Constitution of the United States, which had been designed toprotect black voting rights. These requirements included: the ability to readand write, which disqualified the many blacks who had not had access toeducation; property ownership, something few blacks were able to acquire; andpaying a poll tax, which was too great a burden on most Southern blacks, whowere very poor. As a final insult, the few blacks who made it over all thesehurdles could not vote in the Democratic primaries that chose the candidatesbecause they were open only to whites in most Southern states. Because blackscould not vote, they were virtually powerless to prevent whites from segregatingall aspects of Southern life. They could do little to stop discrimination inpublic accommodations, education, economic opportunities, or housing. Theability t o struggle for equality was even undermined by the prevalent Jim Crowsigns, which constantly reminded blacks of their inferior status in Southernsociety. Segregation was an all encompassing system. Conditions for blacks inNorthern states were somewhat better, though up to 1910 only about 10 percent ofblacks lived in the North, and prior to World War II (1939-1945), very fewblacks lived in the West. Blacks were usually free to vote in the North, butthere were so few blacks that their voices were barely heard. Segregatedfacilities were not as common in the North, but blacks were usually deniedentrance to the best hotels and restaurants. Schools in New England were usuallyintegrated, but those in the Midwest generally were not. Perhaps the mostdifficult part of Northern life was the intense economic discrimination againstblacks. They had to compete with large numbers of recent European immigrants forjob opportunities and almost always lost. Early Black Resistance to SegregationBlacks fought against discrimination whenever possible. In the late 1800s blackssued in court to stop separate seating in railroad cars, statesdisfranchisement of voters, and denial of access to schools and restaurants. Oneof the cases against segregated rail travel was Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), inwhich the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that separate but equalaccommodations were constitutional. In fact, separate was almost never equal,but the Plessy doctrine provided constitutional protection for segregation forthe next 50 years. To protest segregation, blacks created new nationalorganizations. The National Afro-American League was formed in 1890; the NiagaraMovement in 1905; and the National Association for the Advancement of ColoredPeople (NAACP) in 1909. In 1910 the National Urban League was created to helpblacks make the transition to urban, industrial life. The NAACP became one ofthe most important black protest organizations of t he 20th century. It reliedmainly on a legal strategy that challenged segregation and discrimination incourts to obtain equal treatment for blacks. An early leader of the NAACP wasthe historian and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who starting in 1910 madepowerful arguments in favor of protesting segregation as editor of the NAACPmagazine, The Crisis. NAACP lawyers won court victories over voterdisfranchisement in 1915 and residential segregation in 1917, but failed to havelynching outlawed by the Congress of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. These cases laid the foundation for a legal and social challenge to segregationalthough they did little to change everyday life. In 1935 Charles H. Houston,the NAACPs chief legal counsel, won the first Supreme Court case argued byexclusively black counsel representing the NAACP. This win invigorated theNAACPs legal efforts against segregation, mainly by convincing courts thatsegregated facilities, especially schools, were not equal. In 1939 the NAACPcreated a separate organization called the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that had anonprofit, tax-exempt status that was denied to the NAACP because it lobbied theU.S. Congress. Houstons chief aide and later his successor, Thurgood Marshall,a brilliant young lawyer who would become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court,began to challenge segregation as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. World War IWhen World War I (1914-1918) began, blacks enlisted to fight for their country. However, black soldiers were segregated, denied the opportunity to be leaders,and were subjected to racism within the armed forces. During the war, hundredsof thousands of Southern blacks migrated northward in 1916 and 1917 to takeadvantage of job openings in Northern cities created by the war. This greatmigration of Southern blacks continued into the 1950s. Along with the greatmigration, blacks in both the North and South became increasingly urbanizedduring the 20th century. In 1890, about 85 percent of all Southern blacks livedin rural areas; by 1960 that percentage had decreased to about 42 percent. Inthe North, about 95 percent of all blacks lived in urban areas in 1960. Thecombination of the great migration and the urbanization of blacks resulted inblack communities in the North that had a strong political presence. The blackcommunities began to exert pressure on politicians, voting for those whosupported civil rights. These Northern black communities, and the politiciansthat th ey elected, helped Southern blacks struggling against segregation byusing political influence and money. The 1930sThe Great Depression of the 1930s increased black protests againstdiscrimination, especially in Northern cities. Blacks protested the refusal ofwhite-owned businesses in all-black neighborhoods to hire black salespersons. Using the slogan Dont Buy Where You Cant Work, these campaigns persuadedblacks to boycott those businesses and revealed a new militancy. During the sameyears, blacks organized school boycotts in Northern cities to protestdiscriminatory treatment of black children. The black protest activities of the1930s were encouraged by the expanding role of government in the economy andsociety. During the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt thefederal government created federal programs, such as Social Security, to assurethe welfare of individual citizens. Roosevelt himself was not an outspokensupporter of black rights, but his wife Eleanor became an open advocate forfairness to blacks, as did other leaders in the administration. The RooseveltAdministration opened federal jobs to blacks and turned the federal judiciaryaway from its preoccupation with protecting the freedom of business corporationsand toward the protection of individual rights, especially those of the poor andminorit y groups. Beginning with his appointment of Hugo Black to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937, Roosevelt chose judges who favored black rights. As earlyas 1938, the courts displayed a new attitude toward black rights; that year theSupreme Court ruled that the state of Missouri was obligated to provide accessto a public law school for blacks just as it provided for whites-a new emphasison the equal part of the Plessy doctrine. Blacks sensed that the nationalgovernment might again be their ally, as it had been during the Civil War. World War IIWhen World War II began in Europe in 1939, blacks demanded better treatment thanthey had experienced in World War I. Black newspaper editors insisted during1939 and 1940 that black support for this war effort would depend on fairtreatment. They demanded that black soldiers be trained in all military rolesand that black civilians have equal opportunities to work in war industries athome. In 1941 A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping CarPorters, a union whose members were mainly black railroad workers, planned aMarch on Washington to demand that the federal government require defensecontractors to hire blacks on an equal basis with whites. To forestall the march,President Roosevelt issued an executive order to that effect and created thefederal Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to enforce it. The FEPC didnot prevent discrimination in war industries, but it did provide a lesson toblacks about how the threat of protest could result in new federal co mmitmentsto civil rights. During World War II, blacks composed about one-eighth of theU.S. armed forces, which matched their presence in the general population. Cyber Bullying : Danger And Need Essay The National Afro-American League was formed in 1890; the Niagara Movement in 1905; and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. In 1910 the National Urban League was created to help blacks make the transition to urban, industrial life. The NAACP became one of the most important black protest organizations of the 20th century. It relied mainly on a legal strategy that challenged segregation and discrimination in courts to obtain equal treatment for blacks. An early leader of the NAACP was the historian and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who starting in 1910 made powerful arguments in favor of protesting segregation as editor of the NAACP magazine, The Crisis. NAACP lawyers won court victories over voter disfranchisement in 1915 and residential segregation in 1917, but failed to have lynching .