Throughout the south schools started integrating in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling. Most schools that tried this were met by angry mobs and the Ku Klux Klan. Nevertheless they integrated in little rock Arkansas fifteen year old Elizabeth Eckford was attempting to attend a former white only school. She was stopped by a white mob and state police. The president was not willing to allow individual states to undermine him so he sent in the Federal Guard to escort her into the school and classes making sure that she didn’t get hurt. This was also happening to most of the schools in the south. At the time the NAACP and other civil rights campaigners adopted a method used by Mahatma Gandhi in India. It was called “Non Violent Protest”. The idea was to get the media involved. It portrayed southern whites as vicious animals and was very affective in civil rights movements of the late 1950’s. If they were planning a “sit-in” they would make sure that the media were there. This would portray a racist image of the U.S.A throughout the world.
In December 1955 a black woman called Rosa Parks refused to give her up seat up for a white man. Consequently she was removed from the bus and imprisoned. This started off another very important stage of the fight for civil rights, The Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks had been an active member of the NAACP and had been involved in the planning of the boycott. Since over 60% of the bus users were black when the boycott started the bus companies started going out of business. In December 1956 the courts decided that segregation on the buses was not legal and the buses were officially desegregated. This was a major victory for the NAACP. They may have only ended segregation on the buses in Montgomery, but it showed black Americans in the south what organised non-violent protest could achieve.
Segregation was a lasting issue in the U.S.A until the late 60’s. Segregation had been started off in the middle of the 19th century. After the civil war had been won by the north in 1865 the southern and northern states of America remained divided over the issue of slavery. This is why most black Americans migrated north in hope a better standard of living. They would no longer be treated as the second rate citizens as they had been in the south. But when they got to north it was a whole different story. In the north they weren’t much better off but at least there was not such a high chance of them being lynched or attacked, there was still a very fine balance between black American progress and the constant threat of white discrimination. At the turn of the century black Americans prospered within their own communities. Since they could neither shop nor do business with the white community, they built up their own black communities. The most famous of all these is Tulsa Oklahoma, Tulsa was known as “The Black Wall Street”, and it was home some of the wealthiest black’s in the U.S. But on May 21, 1921, the lives of the black Americans of Tulsa changed for ever. A black man was accused of raping a white woman, within 12 hours the K.K.K and other white racist groups had destroyed over 600 black businesses and the livelihoods of over 3000 Black Americans had been destroyed. This showed that to be a prospering Black man in America was a dream for many which none would realise as long as America was in the grasp of the fists of oppression.
A. Phillip Rudolph launched the Double V in World War II. The Double V campaign stood for Victory in the War and Victory for the Civil Rights in the USA. A. Phillip Rudolph had three main aims, which were: -
- Immediate end of segregation and discrimination in federal government jobs.
- An end to segregation in the armed forces
- Government support for an end to discrimination and segregation in all jobs in America.
Unfortunately there was only limited success for the Double V campaign, A. Phillip Randolph only managed to achieve one of his three aims and that was federal government jobs for blacks.
Education was part of a much wider campaign against segregation. Other demonstrations against segregation were the: -
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Bus Boycott of Montgomery : which lead to bus companies listening to the demands of the blacks otherwise they would go have went out of business because 60% of the bus riders were Negroes
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Sit ins which made the owners of white only shops and restaurants look bad because they were violent towards the black protestors on T.V and even though the protestor didn’t even defend themselves they were taken to jail for it.
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Freedom Rides that were met by heavy resistance by southern whites who knew the routes the students were following.
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The Birmingham March was held in Birmingham Alabama because it was one of the most segregated states in the country. Whites, police, dogs, water cannons and people with billy clubs attacked the demonstrators in front of the media.
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The Washington Dream Speech that brought out over 250,000 black Americans and whites to try and help the end of segregation was inspired by Martin Luther King’s speech.
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The Civil Rights Bill 1964 said that discrimination on the basis of skin in any or all public places in the US was banned. This included petrol stations, restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, airline terminals etc
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Selma Alabama 1965 And The Right To Vote was exercised by black people trying to get somebody to Govern who wasn’t racist. The blacks had been allowed to vote since 1870 but were unable to because they had to be able to pass a literacy test and answer questions like “how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?” The Civil Right Act of 1964 gave Negroes some part of their rightful dignity, but without the vote it was dignity without strength.
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The Vote For Blacks was very hard to get due to very hard literacy test that only a handful of well educated men knew how to answer.
All these factors helped against segregation thanks to the strong media coverage broadcasting worldwide. Politicians like George Wallace continued to back segregation in the hope to keep the votes of white people who also believed in segregation.
The Topeka vs. Brown case was very important because it lead black Americans to believe that they had the power to desegregate America which lead to segregation ending in 1965. It ends the discrimination of anyone due to the colour of their skin in a public place. The President of the United States of America John F. Kennedy realised if the USA wanted to stay one of the world’s super powers then politicians would have to change their views on segregation.
