Civil Rights Act Of 1964 example essay topic

The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776 and states that all men are created equal. Equal what does that mean? I mean that we are all on t he same level and should be treated the same. If we are all suppose to be treated the same how come the civil rights act which changed segregation laws didn't happen until 1964. How equal were we before then, and just how equal are me now?? Despite sacrifices and the seemingly major advances in t he fight for equality, almost 40 years after the civil rights act was passed, t here is still a lot of discrimination taking place everyday in America.

Great milestones have been made in the fight for civil rights, but true equality has not yet been reached. "1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights". (C. Apg. 1995) The Civil rights Act of 1964 stirred up the country socially. Before 1964, there were segregation laws in the South preventing blacks and whites from being in the same place.

There were separate drinking fountains, sections of restaurants, busses, and even separate schools. The segregation led to civil unrest among the African-American community. Numerous incidents in the everyday fight for civil rights became landmark events that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Although it was not an easy task African-Americans had begun to speak up and fight for the creation of laws to end segregation and discrimination. On July 2, 1964, President Linden B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. The act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.

Under Title II and VII, the law gives the right to vote, prohibits segregation in places of public accommodation, bans discrimination in schools, trade unions, and the workplace, and insures that funds will be distributed no discriminator ily in federally assisted programs. African-Americans wanted to make major social and political changes in America. This fight for equal rights was known as the civil rights movement. In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality was formed in Chicago. CORE was primarily created to organize "freedom rides" and to break the pattern of segregation in the South. In 1946 President Harry S. Truman finally acknowledged that racial discrimination seemed to be a problem and he established the President's Committee on Civil Rights.

At the same time, the Supreme Court banned segregation on busses for interstate travel. CORE had brought attention to the fact that segregation was hurting the unity of the United States. In 1947, to test the Supreme Courts decision, both CORE and FOR, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, sponsored a freedom ride through the South. Now more than ever, the Supreme Court Justices were noticing the problems that surrounded them. In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled that federal and state courts "cannot enforce laws which bar persons from owning property based on race". That same year Truman ordered integration for all troops of the armed forces.

One of the first major steps towards gaining civil liberties came from the Brown vs. the Board of Education case in 1954. In Topeka, Kansas, a young African-American girl named Linda Brown had to travel to a school miles away for African American children when the public school was located only four blocks from her house. African American leaders and parents took action to challenge the "separate but equal" laws based on a previous Supreme Court decision in the case of Ples sy vs. Ferguson in 1892 and filed a class action suit against the Board of Education. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling declared that segregation in schools was unequal because it violated the 14th amendment. "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".

(Creating America pg. 196) Dr. King is saying that one day he hopes that this country will get to the point where race doesn't matter but what matters is what kind of person you are, you have ignorant bad people that are black and you have ignorant bad people that are white, and you should be judged on who you are and what you stand for, not because your skin is brown, white, yellow, or orange. A substantial gain towards civil rights for African Americans came with an incident in Alabama. On December 1, 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman. A bus boycott was launched, which cost the bus company 65% of its income. After more than a year of protesting and boycotting, the Montgomery, Alabama busses desegregated. Another event leading towards the Civil Rights Act was in September of 1957 at Little Rock Central High School.

The school was to start the year integrated but the night before classes began, Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to "monitor" the first day of school. When nine African-American students arrived the next day, they were denied entrance. On September 20, Judge Davies ruled against Faubus and three days later the students returned to school only to be restricted by a mob of 1,000 townspeople. President Eisenhower then ordered 1,000 paratroopers and 1,000 National Guardsmen to enter Little Rock and on September 25, the school was integrated. In 1962 African-American students enrolled at the University of Mississippi, peaceful protesters helped to teach blacks how to vote in the South, and Kennedy ordered", an end to discrimination in public housing built with federal funds. In 1963 President Kennedy sent troops to the University of Alabama, to enforce the right of African-American students to enroll there.

The bus boycott in 1955 raised an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played a key part in the civil rights movement. He led thousands of African-Americans to speak out against discrimination and helped change our country to the way it should be. He was at the head of many sit-ins, marches, and important protests, including the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama demonstration in which he and many other ministers were arrested.

Dr. King put hope into the hearts of thousands of people. He was a very powerful leader and gave many African Americans and other minorities the courage to speak up. He did not resort to violence to help gain civil liberties. In 1963,250,000 people attended the march on Washington D.C. for legislation of civil rights.

During this demonstration, King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of this creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mean are created equal" (Cape 196) This dream that Dr. King had was that the government and t he people were going to start treating African Americans as people and not as a color. That we someday would be equal and be able to do what ever it is that we wanted.

Tragically, in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, leading to an outburst of violence in more than 100 cities across the nation. His hard work and dedication led to his countless advances in the fight for equal rights. He will forever hold a place in the history of the civil rights movement and he will continue to be celebrated for his great deeds and courage. Besides Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and countless supporters there were a few other major figures behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Reverend James Lawson, John Lewis, and Lyndon Johnson. Reverend James Lawson, known as "the teacher of the Civil Rights movement", began as a Methodist missionary in South Africa.

Later Rev. Lawson teamed up with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to help build the African-American Civil rights struggle. During the Korean War Rev. Lawson dodged the draft. He, like many other civil rights leaders believed in a nonviolent approach to civil rights struggles. John Lewis organized many sit-ins, freedom rides and protests throughout the south to gain support for the civil rights movement. His actions helped lead the way to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

John Lewis now serves in Congress, representing the state of Georgia. He has been a Congressman since 1986. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, President Lyndon Johnson required that work places including federal ones take up "affirmative action", which made it illegal for companies to discriminate based on sex race or creed. Even after all the progress in the fight for equality, it became clear that still discrimination was a major problem in America. On October 11, 1965 the Watts Riot was the first major lesson for American public on the tinderbox volatility of segregated inner-city neighborhoods. The riot provided a sobering preview of the violent urban uprisings of the late 1960's and helped define several hardcore political camps.

In 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party. The Black Panthers helped the African-American community a great deal. The organized free health clinics, breakfasts, and clothing drives for their communities. The strength of the party was diminished by the FBI's counter-intelligence program, COINTEL-PRO. COINTEL-PRO disrupted the party by using wiretaps, infiltration, and falsifying letters. The FBI was also behind the December 4, 1969 raid that killed Fred Hampton, one of the party's major leaders.

After all these gains in the fight for equality it still took much time for African-Americans to utilize these civil rights now enforced by the law. It was only in 1989 Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation's first African-American to be elected state governor. On March 3, 1991, while Rodney King, an African-American man, was driving his car in Los Angeles, California he was pulled over by police. The incident ended with the police delivering 56 baton blows and six kicks to King, in a period of two minutes, producing 11 skull fractures, brain damage, and kidney damage. Unaware that the incident had been videotaped, the police officers filed inaccurate reports, not mentioning the fact that Rodney King was left with any head wounds.

On April 29, 1991 the four police officers were acquitted. This judgment started massive rioting in the Los Angeles area, Oakland, and other cities. Personally I lived in L. A during the riots and from my house you could see the malls burning down and our school was set on fire, and we were out of school f or weeks, and had to make it up in t he summer but you can understand why as a people that we were so upset on what went on. There was video tape footage of them beating this man, they tampered with evidence and called him "nigger" countless times, and yet t hey got off, and we a re taught t o believe in our justice system and how it works and then you see things like that and you think, how the hell did this happen. How can someone have that much rage against someone just because of the color of their skin? I found myself in a racial situation in Wyoming when traveling t o my grandmothers funeral.

My family and I walked into a restaurant after 22 hours of driving and we were very hungry. We sat down because the sign said seat yourself, and we sat there while the 5 waitresses waited on all those around us. We sat and waited for 20 mins. People that had come in after us were already eating their food. Finally we just got up and left.

I remember walking out of there feeling ashamed like it was my fault. Ashamed why should I be ashamed because my skin is brown, why should I have to feel ashamed of who I am. And even now that is how I am treated. "well your black so your nothing" You start to build up t his defense and hold bitterness to other races because you have been treated so badly by them in the past. It's a shame that I don't feel comfortable around non ethnic races because I feel like I am constantly being judged. It's sad that we live in a society where my parents raised me telling me that I had 2 strikes against me when I was born into this world. 1.

I am African American and 2. I am female. This segregated social structure caused much tension during the late 1950's thru the 1970's and even into today. African-Americans for many years protested the unfair treatment and the segregation, but were mostly ignored by the government, which was mostly controlled by white upper class males. In 1964 the 88th congress passed the Civil Rights Act to help alleviate some of the tension between the whites and the African-Americans. For the most part the act helped to quell segregation, but there was and still is some ignorance that causes racial tension.

Today there are numerous special interest groups dedicated to ensuring the civil rights of all people. There are no longer segregation laws in the South, or anywhere in the United States, separating races and denying equality. Children are no longer busses to different districts, so that they can go to segregated schools, they all sit together in the same classrooms, side by side. During these tumultuous years many people have given up their lives and freedom for the fight for equality not just among blacks, but for others as well. Despite their sacrifices and the seemingly major advances in the fight for equality, almost forty years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, there is still a lot of discrimination taking place everyday in America.