Many of these facilities were, education, healthcare, transport, cinemas, restaurants and churches and even housing and estates were segregated. This shows the extent white went to separate them from the ‘inferior’ race. Jim Crow laws limited black Americans from having a better way of life as they were made poorer, didn’t have the opportunity to managerial roles as they were only allowed the low paying jobs and weren’t equal to white people increasing poor conditions, also, led to unequal or no voting rights in coloured communities. Under the Fifteenth Amendment black people had legal rights to vote across America. However, many southern states found ways around the laws to disenfranchise the black populations.
Also, the vast majority of black Americans were disenfranchised by grandfather clauses and literacy tests which made it very hard for black Americans to vote. Finally the Ku Klux Klan terrorised black Americans using techniques such as lynching. By contrast in the Northern States, segregation was rare. What is more, Black Americans has greater access to higher-paid industrial jobs and many were organised in unions. However, on average black workers earned 50% less than their white counterparts.
The 15th amendment (1870) gave black men equal voting rights with white men. However they were threatened or physically stopped from voting. It was no good having rights which were not enforced. Yet inequality increased at the end of the 19th century and continued in the early 20th century through Southern states passing the ‘Jim Crow’ laws which increased segregation. WW1 did little in stopping the rising tide of segregation.
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.
Other states introduced literacy tests as criteria for voting. Literacy testes were not applied fairly and therefore even educated black people were disenfranchised. These were not explicitly racist, but both prevented black Americans from voting. These barriers, which prevented black Americans from voting, meant that black citizens no longer had a voice for their opinion to be heard. This affected how black people would still be treated as second-class citizens through white supremacy.
The fourteenth Amendment (1868) gave citizenship rights to all people bon in the USA and was an attempt to assure the rights of previous slaves. Furthermore the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) gave all citizens voting rights regardless of their race. However these rights were never fully enforced, although progress was made toward racial inequality, even in the south. Between 1890 and 1910, southern states introduced legal segregation which was achieved by passing local laws which denied black Americans from using the same facilities e.g. educational, health care, cinemas, etc.
Where will it end? Voting is a right that many Americans have fought and protected for many years, the constitution includes a part that states that all Americans are created equal. Over hundred years ago, people believed that certain people should not vote, as stated in a quote by U.S Senator Steven Douglas on October 13, 1858; “I do not regard the Negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother, or any kin to me whatever” (White, pg.266). The Constitution states that all Americans are equal no matter what their race, ethnic background, or sex. If we have people reinterpreting who can vote and how they vote, will there be a return to small thinking?
The 19th Amendment The importance of The 19th Amendment is to provide the right for citizens of the United States to vote. They shall not be denied by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The main purpose of this amendment is to allow any United States citizen the right to vote and that goes for women as well. The 19th Amendment was able to put an end to women’s suffrage. It shouldn’t matter whether someone is a different sex or not, everyone should have the right to vote.
The Emancipation Proclamation issued on 1863 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States, at state and local levels, and which continued in force until 1965, which mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The South during the Reconstruction period introduced a new set of significant challenges. Jacksonian Democracy refers to the legal political philosophy of United States President Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed in the footsteps of
Malcolm X Quotes "Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks." Source unknown. "The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored.