The 50s civil rights movment
Returning from WWII, black Americans, just as those three decades prior, expected to find America a land of equality for all people and specifically a land endowed with increased black civil rights. Although the late 1940's and 1950's are not generally considered a period of social advancement for blacks, the decade and a half after World War II ultimately proved to be a very significant chapter in the history of black civil rights and a pivotal stepping stone for the drastic social uproar of the next decade. In 1950, America counted fifteen million black citizens, two thirds of whom still lived lives in the segregated south. Bound by rigid Jim Crow laws, the black view of life appeared bleak. Nonetheless, a period of increasing black civil rights was already underway. Paving the way for the entire revolution was Jack Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson, the first black American to play major league baseball. Blacks had crept in America's national past time; more radical social changes were soon to come. Disenfranchised blacks finally found a leader dedicated to their cause in Harry S. Truman. After hearing of a lynching of black war veterans, Truman was suddenly tuned in to the heated crisis in the
Most important of the civil rights advancements of blacks were the landmark supreme court's rulings enacted to tear down the institutions of segregation in place for nearly three quarters of a century after the fall of slavery. Clearing the way for the civil rights movement was Chief Justice Earl Warren. Appointed by Eisenhower, a man who believed more in social harmony than social justice, Warren shocked the president and other conservatives with his active intervention in extremely controversial social issues. Warren believed in legislation by the judiciary in default of legislation by Congress, and the 1950's were definitely an era in default of active social legislation by Congress. The epochal Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ruling declared that forced segregation in public schools was "inherently unequal" and thus unconstitutional. The landmark decision overturned the court's 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson ruling that "separate but equal" educational institutions were allowable under the constitution. The ruling was quickly tested in September 1957 when Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas called in the national guard to prevent nine black students from entering Little Rock's Central High School. Eisenhower, despite little inclination towards promoting integration, sent in federal troops to protect the students. That same year Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since the Recons
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Approximate Word count = 947
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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