However, many southern states found ways around the laws to disenfranchise the black populations. They did this by introducing a ‘Grandfather Clause’, which is that only people whose grandfather voted, gave them the ability to vote. Also literacy test was another method used, which in most ways wasn’t made fairly and even well educated people were disenfranchised and not allowed to vote. However, in 1946 President Truman established The President’s Committee on ‘Civil rights’, producing a report examining the experiences of racial minorities in America. The report was called ‘To Secure These Rights’, this report highlighted the problems facing African Americans and proposed radical changes to make American society better.
Segregation After the civil war in the USA, the African Americans gain “equal” rights. But the 14th amendment in 1868 (Absolute equality of the two races before the law) didn’t include “social rights” which meant that they didn’t get much choices in society, like choosing where you wanted to sit on a bus. This still made the African Americans feel inferior, knowing that within their home town the “whites” had the choices, and actual freedom. Blacks responded to their situation in 4 ways as their situation began to worsen from 1877. They would co-operate with any willing whites, migrate to the North or West, protest politically and would follow accommodationism.
The northern parts of the United States accepted African Americans, and many try to escape to the north to try to get employed and leave the racial segregation in the south. The south had state laws that prevented African Americans from doing what they believe are right. (265, packet) Even though it was said that, African Americans are equal to whites under the constitution, as long as part of the United States still have the segregation going on, then the African Americans do not have rights in the whole country. This was a huge obstacle to stop the racism and try to fit them into the society to live with whites. Women were part of the minorities along with the blacks because of the way they were treated.
These laws denied black Americans the equal rights of white citizens which re-imposed white supremacy and meant they remained as second-class citizens. It wasn’t only the Jim Crow laws but under the Fifteenth Amendment, black people had the legal right to vote throughout America. Nonetheless, the southern states found devious ways to disenfranchise the local black population. For example, some states introduced a grandfather clause, which meant that people could only vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote. Other states introduced literacy tests as criteria for voting.
The Constitution, until recently, did not apply to blacks; blacks feel they deserve payments from 310 years of slavery, destruction to their minds and culture. Dr. Martin Luther King's dilemma in the United States was of a different kind. He was torn between his identity as a Black man of African descent and his identity as an American. He urged Americans to judge based on the content of the character not by skin color and also believed in non-violent protests. Martin Luther King Jr’s main perspective during the fight on racism was equality.
Segregation has been shown in many way and in different forms of housing, industries and often in our school board . The factor segregation we face today started when slaves gained their freedom in the southern cities back in the 19oo‘s . The black community “were look as an inferior race” in the eye’s of the White American community (Woodward). Even after they won their freedom everyone still saw them unequivalent, and discrimination continued. The southern states started to segregate without sanction; “a segregated society is one in which members of different races rarely, if ever, come into contact with one another as equals” (Dizard).These free-men and freewoman were often denied their civil rights and were discriminated by railroads hotels, and inns.
Double consciousness is a concept that Du Bois first explores in his 1903 publication, “The Souls of Black Folk”. Double consciousness describes the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult or impossible to have one unified identity. Du Bois spoke of this within the context of race relations in the United States. He asserted that since American blacks have lived in a society that has historically repressed and devalued them that it has become difficult for them to unify their black identity with their American identity. Double consciousness forces blacks to not only view themselves from their own unique perspective, but to also view themselves as they might be perceived by the outside world.
After the emancipation of slavery in the 1800’s, African Americans have struggled to be treated with the same equal rights as Europeans. Even with the laws that were pasted to protect African Americans there were states that ignored and created new laws to overturn the laws to protect African Americans. The ignorant of Europeans who denied African Americans the equal rights the laws stated they deserved. African Americans decided to stand up for themselves by developing non violent protest movement to fight for the equal rights of African Americans. ("Civil Rights Movement") Martin Luther King Jr. became the leader of the non violent protest movement in the 1950’s.The development of Martin Luther King Jr. in this era started when an African American woman named Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
How it became a term with segregation of African Americans in the late nineteenth-century is unclear. What historians do now however, is that by 1900, the term was generally identified with those racist laws and actions that deprived African Americans of their civil rights by defining whites as the inferior race and casted black people as members of subordinate people. The Supreme Court's of segregation in the “Plessy v. Ferguson” case in 1896 and the refusal of the federal government to enact anti-lynching laws meant that black Americans were left to their own devices for surviving Jim Crow. In most cases, southern blacks tried to avoid engaging whites as much as possible as the best means of evading their anger. These efforts at separating themselves from whites meant developing their own schools and
Starting in the late 18th century, the process of naturalization and racial equality has plagued America. In 1790 congress decided to extend citizenship only to free whites in the Naturalization Act of 1790. That standard changed after the War when citizenship was also granted to people of African descent but that change did not mean equal treatment or equal rights. Although blacks and minorities were indeed citizens, they were stripped of many basic rights and privileges such as unhindered ability to vote, access to facilities, restaurants and businesses, and housing. Black codes, passed in 1866, restricted African Americans’ economic potential by ensuring that blacks remained a cheap labor force.