Black Rights Essay, Research Paper

The quest for equality by black Americans played a central role in the struggle for civil

rights in the postwar era. Stemming from an effort dating back to the Civil War and

Reconstruction, the black movement had gained more momentum by the mid-twentieth

century. African Americans continued to press forward for more equality through

peaceful demonstrations and protests. But change came slowly indeed. Rigid segregation

of public accommodations remained the ruled in the South, despite a victory in the

Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955. School integration occurred after the Brown

v. Board of Education decision of 1954, but not without struggles. In the North, urban

ghettos grew, as the growth of blacks grew. Crowded public housing, poor schools, and

limited economic opportunities fostered serious discontent.

In the North and South alike, consciousness of the need to combat racial

discrimination grew. Support bubbled up from different social groups. Young people in

particular, most of them students, enlisted in the effort to change restricted patterns deeply

rooted in American life. In 1962, the civil rights movement accelerated. James Meredith,

a black air force veteran and student at Jackson State College, applied to the all-white

University of Mississippi and rejected on racial grounds. Suing to gain admission, he

carried his case to the Supreme Court, where Justice Hugo Black affirmed his claim. But

then Governor Ross Barnett, and adamant racist, announced that Meredith would not be

admitted, whatever the Court decision, and on one occasion personally blocked the way.

A major riot followed; tear gas covered the University grounds; and by the riots end, two

men lay dead and hundreds hurt.

An even more violent confrontation began in April 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama,

where local black leaders encouraged Martin Luther King,Jr., to launch another attack on

the southern segregation. Forty percent black, the city was rigidly segregated along racial

and class lines. ?We believed that while a campaign in Birmingham would surly be the

toughest fight of our civil rights careers, King later explained, ?it could, if successful,

break the back of segregation all over the nation.? Though the demonstrations were

nonviolent, the responses were not. City officials declared that protest marches violated

city regulations against parading without a license, and, over a five-week period, they

arrested 2,200 blacks, some of them schoolchildren. Police Commissioner Eugene ?Bull?

Connor used high-pressure fire hoses, electric cattle prods, and trained police dogs to

force the protesters back. As the media recorded events, Americans watching television

and reading newspapers were horrifies. The images of violence in Birmingham created

much sympathy for black Americans? civil rights struggle.

In August of 1963, civil rights protesters arranged massive march on Washington

D.C. to lobby for the end of segregation. The hih point of this day was the address by

Martin Luther King, Jr. King was long interested in Ghandi?s theroy of nonviolent

protest. At this march on Washington, he proclaimed his faith in the decency of his fellow

citizens and in their ability to extend promises of the Constitution and the Declaration of

Independence to every American citizen.

?I have a dream,? King declared, ?that one day this nation will rise up and live out

the true meaning of its creed:?We hold these trues to be self -evident, that all men are

created equal.? I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former

slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit together at the table of

brotherhood.? King ended his famous speech by quoting from an old hymn:?Free at

last!Free at last!Thank God almighty, we are free at last!?

Despite the many advances by the black civil rights? leaders, racisl tensions still are

apparent in today?s society. Martin Luther King was shot and assasinated for his civil

rights work. All he wanted was for blacks and whites to be equal. The seperation gap has

become less wide though. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed and it outlawed racial

discrimination in all public accommodations, and in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was

passed. This Act allowed federal examiners to register black voters where necessary.

There is still a long way to go in the fight against discrimination, but we are moving closer

and closer each day.