Time Many Black People example essay topic

The Civil Rights Movement Civil rights are the rights to personal liberty and are provided by the law. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights promises everybody civil rights. But many people, including lots of black people, have been denied their civil rights. Black people, and also some white people who help them, have struggled for these rights for a long time. Many people have helped and many kinds of groups have been formed to help win equal rights for everyone. Things are a lot better used to be, but the struggle is not over.

Soon after the Declaration of Independence was signed there were groups that tried to end slavery. They were in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland, and Connecticut. It took a long time to win freedom for slaves. Lots of slaves were taken to freedom in the North on the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad is the name of the system that slaves traveled in secret from one place to another. They usually hid during the day and traveled at nighttime. Some slaves even fought to be free. Nat Turner was a preacher that led a slave revolt in Virginia in 1831.

But they all ended up being executed... President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed slaves in the Confederate states. But it did not guarantee anyone an education, a job, or a place to live. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution made slavery illegal. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments were passed later, and they were supposed to give blacks all their civil rights, especially the right to vote. The Reconstruction period was 1865-1877.

During this time many black people had important government jobs. Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi had black lieutenant governors, and Mississippi's speaker of the house was black. The superintendent of public education in Florida was black. The South had 22 black representatives in Congress. White Southerners who hated blacks started the Ku Klux Klan in 1866. It was also called the.

They tried to stop black people from voting and having other civil rights. They would wear white sheets and masks with pointed hoods. They would beat up blacks and public officials. They would burn crosses by the houses of people they wanted to scare. The was declared illegal in 1869. There is still a even now that is against some races and nationalities, but it's a secret organization now.

Black people all over the country were still being denied their civil rights even though laws were passed to protect them. Congress passed an important civil rights act in 1875. This law guaranteed everyone the right to use public transportation and the right to attend theaters and other public places. But whites found ways to get around this law and the Supreme Court overturned it in 1883. After that, most southern blacks were denied the right to vote and other civil rights. Relations between whites and blacks got worse.

From 1900 on there were lots of bloody race riots in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Texas. The Government didn't do very much to help black people protect their civil rights. Many black leaders decided that they were the only ones who could solve their own problems. One of their best leaders was W.E.B. Du Bois. Another black leader was Booker T. Washington.

He thought that if blacks were patient they would win their rights. Du Bois disagreed and argued because he thought blacks should demand their rights immediately. There was a big meeting of black leaders in Niagra Falls in 1905. The riots had scared many white and black leaders. During about the same time another organization called the Urban League was started.

And a man named Marcus Garvey started the Universal Negro Improvement Association at about the same time. He stressed black pride, and made up the slogan "Black is beautiful", and said blacks should return to Africa and build new lives. Thousands of blacks came to northern cities looking for jobs during World War I and lots of blacks joined the U.S. armed forces to fight in the war. They tried to improve their conditions when they came back from the war.

But there was a problem with segregated housing, which means white people living in one section and blacks in another. This started ghettos in many cities. There were lots of fighting and riots when blacks tried to move into white neighborhoods... Black people were seriously affected by the Great Depression in the 1930's. Some blacks were appointed to administrative posts in Government after Franklin D. Roosevelt was President.

Supreme Court rulings helped the civil rights movements. Laws that kept blacks from voting in primary elections were made illegal. Black students could finally admitted to public schools as a because of these decisions. Businesses and labor unions were in trouble for excluding blacks from jobs and union membership. President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating a Federal Fair Employment Practices Committee to help stop this problem. There have been many laws helping civil rights passed during the last few decades.

A lady named Mary Church Terrell was refused service at a restaurant. She sued the restaurant and the Supreme Court ruled in 1953 that discrimination and segregation in public places are unlawful. In lots of the state they used to have separate schools for black students. But there was a famous court case called Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka that made them have to change the law.

In 1955 they started to desegregate the schools. Desegregation means that blacks and whites should all go to the same schools. Another thing that happened in 1955 was when a black lady named Rosa Parks was on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She refused to give up her seat for a white man so she was arrested.

Black people were so bad that they boycotted all the buses in Montgomery. They lost so much money that the law was changed so blacks cold sit anywhere just like whites. During the boycott was when Dr. martin Luther King Jr. became an important black leader. He didn't believe in using violence. He received the Nobel Peace Prize.

But in 1968 he was assassinated and there were riots in 50 states because the blacks were so angry and frustrated. From that time until now there have been new laws passed and things have gotten better. But even now blacks and other minorities are involved in the civil rights movement. Lots of like Spanish Americans, Jews, Orientals, Native Americans, immigrants, homosexuals and others are involved now. The leaders, black and white, sometimes don't agree on how to win civil rights. Most people are working peacefully, but others, that are called militants, think peace hasn't worked and that violence is necessary.

Many people think that blacks still do not receive fair treatment from authorities like the police. Even now the civil rights movement is still working for equal rights for all like we were promised in the Declaration of Independence..