Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Movement

During the civil rights movement, individuals including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, American youth and women along with civil rights organizations challenged segregation and discrimination with a variety of activities, including protest marches, boycotts, and refusal to abide by segregation laws.

African Americans during the 1960s, most communities around America segregated blacks and whites in public transportation, restaurants, and school. Discrimination prevented many from receiving equal consideration for education and employment. In some areas of the nation, a “poll tax” was used to prevent African Americans from voting in state and national elections. African Americans wanted to end segregation, discrimination, and bring about equal opportunities for all. In response to this unequal opportunity for blacks in the country many African Americans joined mutually in efforts to generate change. The 1960s saw an increase in organized efforts to strengthen the right of individuals. In April 1960 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was started in Raleigh, North Carolina, to help direct and organize the student sit-in movement. The sit-in movement also showed clearly to whites and blacks alike that young blacks were determined to reject segregation openly. After the sit-ins, some SNCC members joined in the 1961 Freedom Rides organized by CORE. The Freedom Riders, both black and white, traveled throughout the South in buses to test the effectiveness of a 1960 Supreme Court decision. This decision had declared that segregation was illegal in bus stations that were open to interstate travel. The national civil rights leadership decided to keep pressure on both the Congress and the Kennedy administration to pass the civil rights legislation proposed by Kennedy by planning a March on Washington for August 1963. Leaders of the NAACP, CORE, SCLC, the Urban League, and SNCC as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed their ideals for the civil rights of African Americans. Later on events like the Selma march created broad national support for a law to protect southern blacks' right to vote. President Johnson persuaded Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which suspended the use of literary and other voter qualification tests. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the focus of the civil rights movement began to change. Martin Luther King, Jr., began to focus on poverty and racial inequality in the North. In their accomplishments although full equality has not yet been reached, the civil rights movement did put fundamental reforms in place. Legal segregation as a system of racial control was dismantled, and blacks were no longer subject to the humiliation of Jim Crow laws. Public institutions were opened to all. Blacks achieved the right to vote and the influence that went with that right in a democracy. Those were indeed long steps toward racial equality.

Civil rights have also been denied to Hispanic Americans, particularly Puerto Ricans in the East and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. The problem has followed traditional paths, as rights have been denied in employment, housing, and access to the judicial system. Many Hispanic Americans especially Mexican Americans symbolized their desire for equal status in U.S. society. Many returning veterans found better paying jobs and were able to go to college and begin businesses. Many Mexican Americans wanted to put an end to being accepted as an inferior status or role in the American Society. In response

After 1945, Mexican American veterans created organizations like the G.I. Forum and the Mexican American Political Association. These organizations directed their efforts to reflect the rise of many Mexican Americans to middle-class status in income and occupation. Mexican Americans also started the Chicano Movement to define the awareness of farm workers, increased labor activism, and growing visibility of educational and community needs of the Hispanic community. The movement galvanized a new generation of activists and leaders and brought to attention nationally a variety of issues important to the Mexican American community. The accomplishments of The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement encompassed a broad cross section of issues. These included restoration of land grants, to farm workers rights, to enhanced education, as well as voting and political rights. The Chicano movement eventually led to the improvement of educational attainment; development of bilingual-bicultural programs; and expansion of higher education fellowships and support services.

The struggle for civil rights has not been confined to blacks, Hispanic Americans, and women. Native Americans for decades were forcibly deprived of their lands and denied civil rights. During the 1960s American Indians suffered perhaps more than any other minority group. Their reservations lacked schools and decent jobs. The unemployment rate was nearly three times the national average. Nearly forty percent lived below the poverty level. In addition to these hardships, they had the worst housing, the highest disease rates, and the least access to education of any ethnic group in the United States. Native Americans wanted to increase public awareness and empathy for American Indian issues as well as bring about change. In response Native Americans became more aggressive in pressing for their own rights. A new generation of leaders went to court to protect what was left of tribal lands or to recover, that which had been taken, often illegally, in previous times. In state after state, they challenged treaty violations, and in 1967 won the first of many victories guaranteeing long-abused land and water rights. The American Indian Movement (AIM), founded in 1968, helped channel government funds to Indian-controlled organizations and assisted neglected Indians in the cities. Books written by Native Americans expressed public awareness and the need for change. The accomplishments were In 1968 Congress enacted the Indian Civil Rights Act, and the federal courts have heard a number of suits designed to restore to Native American tribes rights to their ancestral lands. Still, Indian activism brought results. Other Americans became more aware of Native American needs. Officials in all branches of government had to respond to pressure for equal treatment that was