After the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery throughout USA, many negroes were still living in poverty in the Southern States. They haven't had equal opportunities as the whites. It wasn't because they were ignored, how can they be when they were seen as a problem to the whites, they were simply stripped away from their rights by the racist white authorities, making them "second-class" citizens. The have the worst or "second class" version of public facilities like public toilets. The whites made them feel inferior by passing a law that separates black from white. Meaning separate toilets, separate schools, separate restaurants, separate railroad cars, and even separate churches, as if god too thought that Negroes were inferior beings. The whites usually have better public services, for example the school for blacks were far more poorer than the whites.
The Supreme Court passed law that stopped segregation in school and added the word "with all deliberate speed" to speed up the process, but the whites in the Southern states feared what would happen when their children became friends with black children. So this law was never taken to action.
Segregation wasn't the only problem southern negroes faced, the Ku Klux Klan was what probably frightened them the most. The KKK's purpose, to create fear in the blacks. The KKK's method, violence. Community leaders didn't need to destroy the fear spread by the Klansmen. Many are Klansmen. Any police case that involves a crime committed by the Klansmen could be easily been closed because the police chief is a member of the KKK. This brings even more fear to the Negroes. A fear that spreads like a plague infecting Negroes making them too scared to go to work, too scared to answer the phone, too scared to stay at home, too scared to live with fear. Just like Martin Luther King, when he was constantly receiving death threat during his campaigns, and some were for real. Klansmen viciously attacked the 'Freedom Riders', a group of student demonstrating for equality.
Blacks in the Southern states found it difficult to vote even when they were aloud to, the reason is because they had to either pass literacy tests, which was rather difficult for them, or pay poll taxes, which many can't afford. This made voting for the blacks hard. But later years, a law was passed out that eliminates all the "technical tricks" that made it difficult to vote.
There are brave people who were willing to gamble with their lives for the cause of equality. Martin Luther King's method of protesting and demonstrating is based under one rule, non-violent. In May 5 1963, one of King's non-violent demonstrations reached to the conscience of racist men. What happened was that the local white authorities who were suppose to attack the marching demonstrators instead let them continue after the demonstrators knelt down and prayed and peacefully continued marching. The hand of love from the demonstrators reached out and killed hate in the conscience of the racist men.
Laws can be passed, like the law to stop segregation and the law to make voting for the blacks easier, but changing the law only changes the environment where racist whites can express and practice their racist ways. No matter how much the law is change to prevent discrimination, racist whites still have that belief in them that they are superior and blacks are inferior. Discrimination can only be fully eliminated by driving the hate out of the conscience of racist people; just as what Martin Luther King tried to do with his non-violent demonstration. The way to do that is to present them with an idea that there is only one kind of people, people.
