Civil Rights in America 50s & 60s

History Coursework J. Lee

Civil Rights in America – Question 1

Why were better race relations still needed in the USA in the early 1960s?

At the end of the 1940s, many black American’s were returning from the Second World War, after fighting brave and hard for world peace and against discrimination for over ten years. Many of these men were presented medals for their sacrifices and actions during the war, however their return to America was far from a heroes welcome.

They returned to a country ripe in long standing hatred and discrimination against them – a mass discrimination that was support even in the so-called ‘Jim Crow Laws’, which split nearly every public place into ‘Whites’ and ‘Blacks’

This segregation continued through the 40s and 50s before the rights of black people began to enter re-consideration in the United States, mainly thanks to the protests and campaigns of black-rights campaigners.

Whilst the segregation laws were meant to provide equal opportunities for both racial divisions, this was far from the truth of the situation, as black American’s were under-educated, offered little in the way of health care and were often beaten by their white counterparts.

Some beatings ended up resulting in the death of a white person, and gangs often took the law into their own hands by killing black people, who were accused of committing even small crimes, before they had been offered the chance of a fair trial.

It was clearly an unfair situation in the country but many white Americans had been brought up, through many generations, to consider themselves as far superior to black citizens. It would take years of hard campaigning and progress to begin the change the situation in the country and try to change people’s state of minds.

One of the first major challenges of the situation came in 1954 with the trial ‘Brown vs. the Board of Education’ in Kansas.
Oliver Brown was the leader of a party of parents of black children who had to travel huge distances to get to their black designated school, despite a school for white children lying just around the corner from their residences.

Brown believed that these children deserved to be able to attend their nearest school and so challenged the Kansas Board of Education in court. Whilst the law suit failed and was granted in favour of the board of education, it did help to raise national and international awareness of the poor education that black children were receiving.

In 1955, a young boy named ‘Emmett Till’ was killed in a lynching for apparently intimidating a white woman while in an small store in Mississippi. Till was attacked by a gang of white men for his alleged crime and killed in the beating. The case attracted huge media attention as Till had never been found guilty in court for his crime and what actually happened was a very small affair, only blown out of proportion by the lynches. In all likelihood, had the offending have been a white boy, he would have simply been kicked out of the shop and then forgotten about.

Emmett’s mother held an open casket funeral in an attempt to raise awareness of the poor legal rights of black citizens.

One of the most famous and instrumental campaigns in raising the awareness of black people’s fights for rights in America came in 1955 when Rosa Parks was arrested for failing to give up her seat on a local bus to a white person. In response to the arrest, a boycott of all the state’s buses was initiated in which thousands of black people refused to use public transport and instead would walk to work. Not only did the huge processions of travelling protestors attract attention from the mass media but the bus operator stood to enter bankruptcy as the vast majority of its users were from the black community.

The bus boycott situation continued for over a year as people battled with the question of should segregation exist on public transport? However in 1956, the US government finally decided that, as the stalemate situation did not look like ending soon, they had to step in to prevent either bankruptcy of a large American company or perhaps an escalation in the scale of the boycotts into violence or affecting other public services.

In 1957, another argument about the rights of black citizens in education broke out, centred around nine gifted and talented students at Little Rock High School, Arkansas. The students had been given permission to use the facilities available in the main school building by the local education board. This was a major development in black rights in the Arkansas area, as never before had black pupils been allowed to share resources with white students, however this was to the dismay of many local residents who had been brought up to favour segregation of black citizens.

Password

Confirm Password

I agree to the terms of service and privacy policy

The black students were often abused and sometimes seriously assaulted as they tried to simply carry on with their education and, throughout the course of the violence and hatred against them, eight of the black students deemed it impossible to continue with their education at Little Rock. Only one of the students graduated from the high school.

The scenes of black students been jeered at by angry white mobs had once again attracted international media attention to the hot topic of black rights in America, and the government were slowly been pushed towards the point of having to take some ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Shortly after the events of Little Rock High School and also helped by the events witnessed in the Bus Boycotts and famous legal trials, President Eisenhower put the 1957 Civil Rights Act into affect, the first of such acts which considered the rights of black people to vote.

Whilst the act was a huge step forward in the removal of racial segregation, there were many restrictions which, when put into practice, limited effect had on the majority of the black population and their rights. In particular, whilst the act had finally granted voting rights to some black citizens, there was no law to partner it and prevent the obstruction of these people from being able to cast their truthful and honest votes. Many people were forced into placing votes for parties that they did not support, and in many places blacks were simply obstructed from being able to place their vote at all, as white gangs crowded the entrance to polling stations to prevent their entry.

It was evident that whilst a sure realisation of the issue was finally coming about from the government, sufficient action had yet to be taken.

With segregation still obviously present in many areas of the United States, another protest for rights began in 1960, with the Nashville and Greensboro sit-ins at restaurants and diners across the towns.

Civil rights campaigners were angered at the way black people were restricted from eating with white people and began to protest by sitting at the counter of such diners with a space left between them. The idea was that a white people who wanted to sit down would have to take a seat next to a black person. Whilst the occasional sympathetic white person would take up one of the seats, the protest was mostly a failure in what it tried to achieve, as mobs simply saw the actions as a reason to further abuse and assault the black (and in many cases, white) citizens that were taking part in the protests.

Despite its failure in converting many whites to believe in changes to the civil rights bill, it once again attracted much of the country’s attention and raise awareness of people standing up for their rights.

In 1960, following much campaigning since the previous elections, an adjustment was made to the Civil Rights Act, making it illegal for anybody to try an obstruct a black citizen from placing a fair and legal vote.

On paper this was a major achievement but in reality it yet again failed to make a major difference as law enforcement authorities were not keen to take action against those now breaking the new laws, and often white people would still get away with obstructing black people from reaching polling stations – particularly in those areas where local officials were still opposed to the voting rights of black citizens, most notably the south-eastern states.

In 1961, groups of civil rights protestors began touring the country on buses with banners and posters, campaigning for equal rights within society for all races. These so-called ‘Freedom Rides’ helped to spread their message far and wide, however some ended in tragedy as gangs attacked the buses and killed many of the riders, some in horrid deaths with people being burned alive inside the buses. These terrible scenes were spread across the world and sparked much fury and outrage against the treatment of the campaigners.

What is certainly the most famous and well known protest occurred on August 23rd 1963. Hundreds of thousands of civil rights campaigners descended on the streets around the White House and Capitol during the March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King made his world famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.

The sheer size of the demonstration astonished the world and prompted the US government to start taking serious action on segregation and granting more rights to black people.

Three more acts quickly followed the demonstration, the first being the 1964 Civil Rights Act in which racial discrimination was banned in public places and employers were made to provide equal pay and opportunities to all workers no matter what their race. This act was the first act to take major action against discrimination towards black people in America.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act shortly followed, outlawing the needs for black people to pass literacy tests before placing their votes. Only a valid American citizenship and voting registration was now required to vote.

In 1968, another amendment was made to the Civil Rights Act, preventing black people from being discriminated against in the buying or selling of property. Whilst not immediately sounding a great change, this had the huge impact of no longer limiting the places where black people were allowed to live and was the first step in starting mixed race communities and neighbourhoods, as black families were now allowed to move into predominantly white occupied areas.

Despite the three major law changes, the situation was still far from perfect. It was easy to draft in and out laws and requirements on pieces of paper, but the hardest challenge of making them a reality was far from accomplished. Many white Americans had been brought up to see black people as an inferior race that did not deserve rights and votes. In many people’s eyes, what was happening before them was a complete destruction of all they believed and had been taught was right and wrong in society and many were determined to keep things the way they believed they should be, with or without the support of the law.

In conclusion, despite rigorous protesting and demonstrating from civil rights campaigners, and the help of major changes in the laws of American society, the hard challenge of removing racial discrimination and segregation from all communities was still not complete, and it would take a large amount of work to change peoples beliefs and obtain the full co-operation of law enforcement authorities in all states to finally make it a truly equal society.

The foundation for change had been laid but the work was far from done.

Civil Rights in America – Question 2

“The civil rights movement achieved a great deal in the 1950s and 1960s.” Do sources A-E prove that this interpretation is correct?

In 1957, the first amendment was made to the Civil Rights Act in America designed to improve the living conditions and rights of black people in the country, following years of demonstrations, protests and campaigns.

Four more amendments followed in the 1960s, designed to further enhance the rights of black people.

The law changes were a sign that America was finally facing up to the fact that it had been discriminate towards black citizens and was an indication that things may be changing, however the law changes were not enough on their own and an improvement in the situation depended on the co-operation of the American white population in changing their ways and welcoming black people as equals in their society.

Sources A-E help to give us an idea of how things were changing during that period of history and perhaps just as importantly in this case – what wasn’t changing.

One of most apparent splits in society between black and white people had been education, with black children often being educated at under-equipped and poor standard schools with travelling distances of dozens of blocks in busy towns and cities. This was due to the segregation laws which restricted black people from sharing even the basic amenities in life with white people.

Source A is a chart from a British history textbook and is therefore fairly reliable and likely to be showing true statistics. It shows the amount of black citizens in southern states that attended schools with white people both before and after the Civil Rights Act was brought in.

In the 1956-1957 school year, only three of the eleven states had any schools which were integrating white and black pupils.

Whilst three states were beginning to take black pupils into unsegregated schools (Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas), the situations were still not what would be described as acceptable, with only 3440 black pupils in total attending such schools, and of those pupils 3400 were in Texas, with just 34 in Arkansas and a mere 6 pupils in Tennessee.

The source shows us that improvements had been made following the introduction of the Civil Rights Act, with four more states now starting to integrate black pupils into schools with white pupils and improvements in the numbers of pupils in all those states that were already taking black pupils.

Though this does indicate that improvements were being made and changes beginning to happen, the rate at which this was happening was incredibly slow. Four of the states still had not integrated any black pupils and the highest percentage of black pupils getting an education with white pupils was a very small 1.42% in Texas, with the numbers dropping back to just 0.004% in Louisiana.

Though discrimination was beginning to be eradicated from education in America, the rate was slow and it would take a long time for real changes to be noticed unless further improvements were made to the law in order to speed the process up and get more states to participate in integrating their black students.

Source B is a photograph taken in Arkansas on September 23rd 1957. As the source is a photograph it is highly likely to be truthful and reliable and is therefore very useful for giving us a clear idea of the events that it is showing.

The source is again focusing on the discrimination faced by black people trying to be educated in America during the late 1950s.

It shows Elizabeth Etchford, a black high-school student on her way to enrol at Little Rock High School.

Up until 1957, Little Rock had been an all-white high school, along with all other high schools in Arkansas. However, following the changes to the Civil Rights Act, the Arkansas board of education decided to allow a very small number of talented black students to use the resources of their better funded state schools. This small number of pupils made up the 34 shown on the chart in source A.

The photograph displays Elizabeth being hurled with abuse from a large crowd of white citizens who are quite obviously opposed to black people being able to share their education resources. This sort of opposition was common in America due to white citizens often being brought up with the idea that they were always superior to black people, and was a major hurdle that needed to be overcome if black people were to become full equals in American society. The Civil Rights Act had put the law in place but it was ultimately white people who had to make the decisions of enforcing it, and in the first few years after the changes to the act were brought into place, this rarely happened as many important law enforcement officials opposed the law themselves and therefore refused to make people abide by it in their states.

Source C is an extract from Chaos or Community a book written by Martin Luther King that was published in 1967.

Martin Luther King had first hand experience of the discrimination black people faced in American society through both his poor quality of childhood and his later work to promote equality in America, so sources originating from him are always going to be very useful for studying that period of history, however they should be carefully considered for bias, much like this source, as King was a civil rights protestor and therefore firmly on one side of the argument so his sources are likely to contain bias where either the truth has been exaggerated or hidden.

In the source, King talks about how he believes that maintaining a level of resistance and non-violence is the way to make progress and details how he believes that this has already had its results in previous protests such as the 1960 “Sit-ins” in Greensboro and Nashville and the 1961 Freedom Rides in which black citizens boarded buses and drove around some of the most discriminate states to highlight their cause, generating widespread media attention mainly through the fatal meetings with some of the buses and rival white groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Martin Luther King says that he believes that progress has been with the introduction of the ‘powerful’ civil rights laws and shows that people did see the situation as beginning to improve following the work done by him and other campaigners. However, he also admits that there are still limitations and there is still a lot of work to be done to achieve equal rights – “I appreciate the limitations of non-violence and the distance we still have to go.”

Source D is a conversation that was printed in an issue of US magazine Newsweek in 1967. This source is perhaps the most biased and unreliable of all the sources as it was probably intended to be read by white people, of whom the majority would probably still be in favour of some segregation and supporters of discrimination at the time. It does, however, give us an indication of the sort of way certain events were publicised in the American media.

The event in question was the Detroit Race Riot and the article also mentions the Watts, Newark and Harlem riots. These were a series of extremely violent demonstrations between 1964 and 1967 by black Americans against the way they were being treated. Many of the riots were initiated by what was believed to be the unfair treatment or arrest of a black person by police, and all resulted in violence sweeping many communities of the cities with tens of thousands of people involved. The four riots left an estimated 105 people dead, thousands injured and millions of dollars of property damage.

In terms of statistics, the Detroit riot to which this source refers was the most severe of the riots, though all were very serious incidents.

The source details a conversation between a group of young black people in Detroit, who most likely took part in the violence that broke out there in 1967. The conversation suggests that people taking part in the events were pleased by the devastation they had caused and makes out that the sole aims of the black people involved were death and destruction. One of the people in the conversation says “We got the record”, suggesting that this was the largest of all the race riots during the era of black rights protesting.

It is not clear whether this is a true transcript of a conversation that took place or a fictional story that has been created. If so, it shows the attitudes of people in America towards the riots and what they believed black citizens were trying to get out of the violent action.

The riots went against much that Martin Luther King had said in his speeches about protesting with peace, and were seen as a step-back in gaining equality in American society. The riots also showed that the civil rights act passed a few years before had failed in preventing scenes like those that were witnessed between 1964 and 1967, yet again highlighting the division in living standards and national treatment of black and white people.

The final source is a chart showing amount of black citizens registered to vote before and after the Voting Rights Act was passed into law.

The origin of the source is not stated and it therefore impossible to gauge the level of bias or accuracy of the information, however, assuming that the information is correct and truthful, it is very useful for us to investigate the effectiveness of the act which was passed into power in 1965.

The chart shows that before the act came into force, only one southern state, Florida, had above 50% of black citizens in a position where they were able to vote, however by 1971 that number had risen to seven states, showing that the act had in total increased the quantity of black voters in those states sampled.

However when closer examining the chart there are indications that it wasn’t as successful as could perhaps have been hoped.

Many of the states did not show a huge increase in numbers and the figures in North Carolina even dropped a percent following the introduction of the act, showing that it failed to have any impact in those areas and more work was needed to increase the amount of black people that were registered to vote.

Nevertheless, it was clear that improvements were beginning to be made and some states had excelled in their provision of the vote to black people, with a ten fold increase in numbers in Mississippi.

Conclusion

The civil rights acts that were drafted in and amended on numerous occasions had a very much mixed impact across America with improvements in some areas of living for black people but a lack of change or even deterioration in others.

More people were beginning to be issued with the vote in the troubled southern states and education quality was gradually starting to rise, however the rates of change were still very slow and work still needed to be done to provide full equality in America.

The violent events witnessed across many deprived areas of American cities between 1964 and 1967 highlighted the areas in which the civil rights acts had still failed to have much of an impact and showed that laws alone were not going to achieve equality, the people of America needed to be brought onto the side of equality and desegregation, and by the end of the 1960s that had still not happened in many areas of America.