In terms of politics Black people had the right to a vote, as did every person in America. This was one of the only things that a Black person could do. But, this was taken away from them by the southern states. To be able to vote you had to register. This would be all right but the White people, who were the registrars, asked impossible questions to the Black people trying to register so that they were unable to register. The types of questions that were asked were ‘how many bubbles in a bar of soap’ and to recite the whole US constitution. These were questions that the most highly educated White person could not answer. All this meant that Black people were unable to vote someone in to change all of this and to get rid of segregation. So, Black people faced even more of a challenge to get out of their poverty and to change the laws to what they wanted them to be.
When it came to the education of the younger people of America, the southern states adopted a ‘separate but equal’ policy. In theory, this meant that although the Black children and the White children were separate they would receive the same education. But, in practice, it meant that White children and Black children were separate but the Black children received a much poorer standard of education. This was because the Black teachers of the Black children had also received a poor education so they were unable to provide the best education for the children. As said above this meant that more Black people were unable to get the highest paid jobs and work their way out of poverty and this was due to the high illiteracy levels. Also this meant that the Black people found it harder to provide for their families and therefore the quality of living for a Black family was poorer than that of a White family.
The segregation that was faced by the Black people of America meant that they had a totally different experience of living to that of a White person. Black people had to face being shouted at a violently beaten by White people. Also Black people had to face not being able to use the same quality services as White people, for example, Black people had to give up seats in parks and on buses and were unable to eat in the same restaurants. This all meant that Black people were unable to experience the same lifestyle as the White people of the time.
The law disadvantaged the Black population of Southern America immensely in terms of trying to get justice. The case of Emmet Till is a prime example. He was a young 14-year-old Black boy from the north. He was visiting family in the south and showed his family pictures of himself going out with young White girls. His family would not believe that he would be able to go out with a White girl so he said that he would prove to them that he could speak to girls. He went into the local shop and as he was walking out he said ‘bye babe’ to the shop assistant. So later that night, the White girls’ father and another man snatched Emmet and brutally murdered him. They were later arrested and taken to court. Many Black witnesses spoke out at what they saw and the two men were identified as the killers. But, on the 19th September 1955, in Mississippi State court, the all-White southern jury found the two men not guilty. The foreman said that “I feel the State failed to prove that the body was that of Emmet Till.” The case was to have a huge impact on the Civil Right’s Movement, as the trial was publicised in northern newspapers, with calls from many northern Politicians and journalists for the Federal Government to act to end this type of violence in the southern states.
Also the Ku Klux Klan took the law into their own hands by dishing out beatings and lynchings to Black people in the southern states. Their re-emergence was triggered by a call the calls for the southern states to end segregation in schools, something that the Ku Klux Klan argued and fought for tirelessly. They would lynch and severely beat people that they thought were promoting
