history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived from a character in a popular minstrel song. The Supreme Court ruling in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate facilities for whites and blacks were constitutional encouraged the passage of discriminatory laws that wiped out the gains made by blacks during Reconstruction. Railways and streetcars, public waiting rooms, restaurants, boardinghouses, theaters, and public parks were segregated; separate schools, hospitals, and other public institutions, generally of inferior quality, were designated for blacks. By World War I, even places of employment were segregated, and it was not until after World War II that an assault on Jim Crow in the South began to make headway.
The Black community, the bus company, the Montgomery Council, the actions of the NAACP in the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights Movement itself were all significantly affected by this event. Segregation in the Southern states was a major cause of the Montgomery bus boycott. In the South, a practice of “separate but equal” was followed. Southern states took advantage of the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision and started legalising segregation. Segregation was enforced by Jim Crow laws which kept Blacks and Whites separated.
However, even after its abolishment, blacks were still kept in slavery and were treated poorly and unequal to other, white Americans. This abuse was much more common in the Southern states due to the more racist nature of the white people who lived there and the fact that the Southern states had originally fought to keep Black Slavery legal. Soon after the Civil War was won by the Northern States, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment were brought into congress. The thirteenth amendment stated that all Slavery must end in America; the fourteenth amendment stated that everyone living on American soil should gain citizenship and the fifteenth amendment stated that all citizens should gain the right to vote. These amendments could be considered as vital moves towards black equalities, if they had worked.
After the Civil War and the passing of the 13th Amendment, whites still rejected all forms of equality and kept blacks in slavery-like conditions through the sharecropping business and the passing of the Jim Crow Laws also allowed for the discrimination among African Americans. Soon the Civil Rights Act was passed giving all persons born in the United States citizenship regardless of race. To solidify the Civil Rights Act
It provided that there could be separate public facilities, like schools and movie theaters as long as the facilities were near equal in equality. The problem was that the court did not define “equal” in the quality, and the facilities for the blacks became second class. The government was willing to make it seems as though blacks would have rights due to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court decision was a major setback for African Americans seeking equality in the United States. The ruling further paved the way for numerous state laws throughout the country making segregation which resulted in making discrimination legal in almost all parts of daily life.
DBQ Documents like the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th amendment, and other various civil rights movements and documents created massive change for blacks, although for the most part only on paper. In the South, especially once reconstruction was over, laws drawn up by them, what would be called the Jim Crow laws, severely limited the rights of now free blacks, like segregation in schools, charging blacks to vote, and various other limitations. This proved that the change, although fairly substantial in its own right, was simply a precursor for the eventual civil rights act in the 1960’s that ended all forms of segregation and finally put this problem as a whole to rest. The Emancipation Proclamation, which “went into effect” in January of 1863, stated that all slaves were now proclaimed free, and that they were
Public schools, transportation, restrooms, restaurants, water fountains and most public areas were segregated. Whites used these laws to keep their social dominance over blacks in the south. The Plessy vs. Ferguson Case all started when Homer Plessy sat in a white car of East Louisiana railroad, The Separate Car Act of 1892 requested him not to. He then was arrested when he identified himself as African-American and the case went to the United States Supreme Court. His lawyer argued the act violated the thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments.
In the early days the NAACP lobbied U.S. Presidents and members of Congress for support, and opening opposed President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) initiation of segregation in the federal government. They lobbied aggressively for passage of a federal law that would prohibit lynching among blacks in the United States. During the 1920 they devoted much of their publicizing issues of racial discrimination, inequality of housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation they tackled these issues in the court-rooms, in the legislature, and in the streets. They fought hard to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination throughout the democratic processes by seeking the enforcement of federal, state, and local laws that secured civil rights. The organization soon began to expand its membership toward the South under the leadership of field secretary James Weldon Johnson where the organization would face its most fierce opposition.
For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and
This event was important because it gained international attention which put pressure on the different structures of the American government to make changes, and finally in 1965 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was illegal. It also brought the black community closer together to stand up for their rights this is shown when Jo Ann Robinson a head of a group of professional black women in Montgomery says, ‘we are asking every negro to stay off