Blacks were also encouraged to fight for change because, of a harsh but true story of the murder of Emmett Till. He was 14 when he was brutally murdered, living in Chicago. His mother sent him to spend his summer with his relatives in Mississippi. Emmett alleged to have wolf-whistled a white woman in a corner shop. Emmett was kidnapped because of this by the white woman’s husband because of the spreading rumours that Emmett was sleeping with the white woman. This hatred and added stress of the rumours led the man to beat, shoot Emmett in the head and throw Emmett’s body to the bottom of the river Mississippi. The husband was never proven guilty because the jury of the case was all white. Meanwhile Emmett’s mother faced grieving and in this gave the go ahead to show Emmett’s bruised and battered body in an opened casket at his funeral, with I might add some 50,000 people there and even more watching it on international news. This was the last straw for blacks around America, it led to an up rise of campaigning for blacks to have a fair equal treatment in the states of America
In conclusion I believe that blacks fought for their civil rights for several reasons. I feel it was the right choice to fight for there civil rights in the 1950’s. Furthermore all the events blacks have had to deal with are horrific and unnecessary by the white community of America. America was an unfair place for blacks with a two tier society, with boastful whites being at the top. Secondly blacks in the South had no political representation, causing the power to be all in white hands because of the fear of blacks being more than slaves but well educated. An educated race is a dangerous race. Blacks also had the fact of segregation to deal with which was humiliating, denying decent education and professional jobs. This is shown by the sheer amount of blacks not in professional occupations in America. These views where starting to get to a boiling point for Black African Americans and when they came back from a war experience better treated than in there own country it started to fry fury in the heads of Black Americans and this sequentially led to Black African Americans to expect and demand change. The positives out of the reasons for Blacks fighting for there civil rights, was the eventual development of groups like the NAACP and the UNIA working towards better treatment and black equality in the USA.
In the 1950’s and 60’s the Blacks did begin to achieve a measure of accomplishment, from successes in education to the ending of Jim Crow laws. In these few paragraphs I will describe these successes in profound detail.
To set things in motion I would like to begin with talking about the successes achieved in America. When segregation was coming to its closing stages, the Brown decision of 1954 made it illegal to have segregated schools. This was not very popular for white people of the South of America. Many white coloured communities often resisted, like in Little Rock Arkansas.
One case that is known as the ‘Brown Case’, involved a little girl called Louise Brown, whose parents wanted her to go to an all-white school. This little girl was black. Her parents fought for their rights to send their girl to that school. They thought segregation was over. According to white people it was not. At Little Rock in the state of Arkansas, federal troops had to force their way into a white school so that black people could go there.
Another case was that from the Modern America book about James Meredith. He had the qualifications to go to the University of Mississippi, after taking the school to court several times he had a place on a course in 1962. When James came to the University for registration the governor of Mississippi was barricading the way in. It took the US army to stop the governor from stopping James from going to the university. Rioters rioted and protesters protested until he could attend all his classes. In the end he had several federal marshals to protect him at school.
These two reports show the real hatred of the Blacks by the Whites of Southern America, but the point is Blacks stepped forward in education and gained very equal opportunities of a decent education to whites; Which Blacks did not have when segregation was around. It shows an excellent victory for the Blacks of America.
Other successes came about for Blacks. To start with I would like to describe the bus boycott in Montgomery. After the civil rights act a great victory in Montgomery, Alabama was secured. Rosa Parks was fined for not giving up her seat to white man, black leaders called for a bus boycott. This meant Blacks would not use the buses; it created great economic impact for the bus companies because many white people had cars. In Alabama the Supreme Court declared that all the state laws of Alabama on segregation in buses were unconstitutional. A month later the bus companies caved in. This in turn brought more publicity to the segregation laws because it was televised all over the world white people from other countries were appalled at the treatment of Blacks in the USA in the Southern states especially.
In addition the successes in Birmingham, Alabama were an excellent achievement for Blacks. This involved thousands of Americans mostly it has to be said Blacks shocked at the Birmingham police chief, Connor, and the Governor and what they were doing. It was disturbing what they were doing to the highest rank. Water cannons and dogs were used on the protestors; the council of Birmingham after pain suffered by the demonstrators gave in to the demands. It was an immense victory. This was followed on by the President asking Congress to pass a Civil Rights Bill that would make all forms of racial discrimination in public places illegal. Civil rights leaders worried that the Bill would not be accepted by Congress. They demonstrated every inch of the way. Thousands marched through Washington and gathered at Lincoln memorial. That was where Martin Luther King gave his most well known speech. This was a building of successes for Blacks in America, at this point in time Blacks and a lot of Whites believed that segregation and racism was going to be utterly rid of in America.
A different success for Blacks was the pressure of Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, who were increasing the pressure on Lyndon Baines Johnson. To lead to Congress passing the Civil rights act to end segregation by 1964. The terms were basically everyone had an equal opportunity in work and education and everyone could vote White or Black as long as they could pass the identical tests created for both races. This was closely followed by an enforcement act in 1967.
A further success was in 1965, were President Lyndon Baines Johnson tried to persuade Congress to pass his Voting Rights Act. He tried to give everyone male-female, white-Black or clever-stupid a right to vote. It was accepted and it empowered the national government to register those whom the states refused to put on the voting list. This could mean yet another step forward for Blacks because they could get power in Congress and as governors if elected.
In this period there was yet another success. The KKK was also starting to be less feared after the murder of William Moore a postman White postman who started a walk across the South of America to campaign for civil rights. William was shot his body lying helplessly by the roadside. After this thousands of Black and White protestors carried on with their walk fearless of what the KKK was capable of.
The death of Martin Luther King was a very serious death for the Blacks of America. He was shot on his balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Some 100,000 people attended his funeral this showing the great pride Blacks had for their leaders and their rights.
Another success in modern America is how Blacks feel strongly for their rights. A Black Mayor was elected in Los Angeles were one person in eight was Black, which shows that protests were starting to work in favour of the Blacks. When Reverend Jesse Jackson ran for president he got millions of Southern Blacks to vote for the first time. He focused on decreasing poverty which really was mostly Black areas of America. Blacks faced heavy prejudice and discrimination and Jackson pointed out that the Civil Rights Act still had a long way to go.
However Blacks also faced economic and social problems despite the successes they achieved. The death of Martin Luther King set back a lot of Blacks. They lost a tremendous amount of confidence a passionate speaker and fearless leader was lost in Martin. A lot of Blacks lost faith in the segregation act; some did still feel very passionate and still fought intently for their beliefs.
During the 60’s people fought for their civil Rights. The leaders being Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, it was almost like an opposite KKK. They wanted to build a new Black society and called white police ‘Pigs’. This failed miserably and lost momentum to establish a separate state for Blacks when most of the leaders were put in prison.
During the 70’s racial violence died down showing that Whites were starting to come to terms with Blacks being equal. Black mayors in 240 towns, in addition nearly all schools were integrated.
Since 1919 Blacks voted, more Blacks became more important in towns. Thurgood Marshall became the first Black justice of the United States Supreme Court. Today there is still much to be done. Three out of ten Blacks where poor, many do not vote, many unemployed. There is still much fighting to be done to secure Civil Rights for Blacks.
After O J Simpson broke the law the racial gulf between whites and Blacks was increased. Many saw it as two realities. African-Americans, who constitute almost 13% of the total population, still present a separate, and in many ways, subordinate, social class.
Even today in the floods that Hurricane Katrina created there are hints of prejudice. In addition news footage showed the poor ghetto like housing and welfare Blacks live in, the government where also slow to react to the floods. The rescue missions even were holding victims at gunpoint, the Blacks where also seen as criminals and looters.
Blacks still had to fight to improve the conditions of black people in the USA. The Civil Rights Acts were not enough. They were seriously hard to enforce. The wealth and big businesses were still owned by whites. Banks refused to lend money to people in ‘Black’ areas. This resulted in a succession of riots in cities across America. A system was then introduced were companies had to appoint a certain proportion of Blacks, or other disadvantaged groups. Even less educated less qualified than other applicants. This was a slight set back to what Blacks expected Blacks wanted an even spread of rich whites and Blacks not still having a vast amount of whites being richer.
In conclusion I believe that all the successes for Blacks were a big step forward for Blacks in the 1950s and 60s. Fighting for their country in Europe to following Martin Luther King through Washington; Blacks struggled and fought for their Civil Rights and won. However they also had great loses. Like the racism continuing right up to this day. Their social status plummets and their economic power always being under par. But they still to this day stride towards a better future, with the help of peaceful Blacks like Martin Luther King as inspiration to make a name for themselves in the USA. The result of their successes a better world were a young make in America can learn at a good education standard, a young Black can work as whatever they want to be, and most importantly a Black man can be considered an equal to a white man in America.