Preview

Significant Events In African American History Since 1865

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2293 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Significant Events In African American History Since 1865
African American History Since 1865
Robert Bryant
History 204
Instructor Dennis Neill
October 9, 2014

African American history since 1865
Introduction
The America that was there after the conclusion of the civil war is nothing like the America we recognize presently. Significant events have occurred since 1865 that have shaped our understanding of what America is today. Major industrialization and urbanization, equal rights for all citizens and the two major world wars that have shaped our understanding of what America is today. While, there are numerous events that have shaped America, there are few events that have served as markers of change for the entire society, particularly for the African Americans. From 1619 to
…show more content…
In 1954, the court in Brown v. Board of education case, ruled that segregation in education facilities to be unconstitutional and this measure strike down segregation in education facilities (Feagin, 2014). In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. Her defiance offered the start of a momentum to the civil rights movement that spread across the United States. She was not the first black person to refuse to wake up for a white person, but by the time of her action, there was growing resentment and anger in the African American society for being treated as second-class citizens. Word went around about Montgomery mistreatment and arrest (Feagin, 2014). The Women 's Political Council resolved to protest Rosa Park’s ill-treatment by arranging a bus boycott to start on the day of Parks’ trial, December 5th. Martin Luther King Jr. and the African American community established an association, the MIA (Montgomery Improvement Association) to carry on boycotting until the Jim Crow segregation laws were altered (Feagin, 2014). The key objective was to stop segregation in the public transport system and other sections of the society, and also to employ African-American drivers in Montgomery. The public unrest ensured for 382 days, costing the Montgomery bus company he sums of money, however the city declined to give in (Feagin, 2014). The Montgomery protest leaders filed a national lawsuit in opposition to the city’s segregation rules, claiming that Montgomery desecrated the 14th Amendment. In 1956, a national court stated that the Montgomery segregation rules were unlawful, but lawyers for Montgomery County appealed. On November 3rd, 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation laws in Montgomery were illegal. During the protest, the Montgomery authorities made many arrests (Feagin, 2014). At one time, the police detained a group of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    African Americans started seeing America in a new way it was a difficult battle that lasted from 1861 through 1865 it ended on May 9. The Civil war was a turning point for African Americans they were no longer in slaved .The Civil war was the beginning of the destruction of slavery and it also changed Americans ideas about freedom. The student model and Chasing Lincoln's killer are both excellent non fiction books that help you visualize how African Americans lived. Chasing Lincoln's killer is talk about what lincoln did to end slavery.…

    • 93 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. She was charged, convicted and fined for breaking segregation laws. In response, Martin Luther King, Jr led the black community in a protest by boycotting busses. More than 50,000 members of the black community stepped up. The boycott lasted 381 days. On December 21, 1956, King’s actions resulted in the Supreme Court changing the law, ending segregation. To celebrate this hard earned victory, that very day, Martin Luther King, Jr. took a ride on a bus. He sat near the front, next to a white man (Sohail, 2005).…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the article "The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Fall of the Montgomery City Lines," written by Felicia McGhee, McGhee writes the life of the racial segregation of the bus system and the effect of the boycott. On December 1, 1955, forty-two years old Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man after a long day of work. When the bus driver asked her and three other blacks to move to the back, Parks refused giving an explanation to why she said, "My feet were not tired but I was tired-tired of unfair treatment." (McGhee 254). Her actions violated the bus segregation laws and she was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct. In the year before Rosa Park's arrest, two teenagers, Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith were also arrested for similar actions (McGhee 253). Blacks were outraged by the arrest of yet another black women on a city bus. Provoked by Park's arrest, the Montgomery's black residents initiated a 381-day boycott of the bus system. The boycott was disastrous for the Montgomery City Lines, costing the company $750,000. The residents were "boycotting a system of oppression, segregation, prescribed by the State of Alabama and the Montgomery City Council" (McGhee 252). The boycott ended on December 20, 1956 only ended after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the city’s segregated bus system was unconstitutional (McGhee 252). This ties to Camus standards of the moment of rebellion is when the rebel "finds his voice" and feels that enough is enough, the rebel will stand up for himself/herself (14). The Montgomery black residents were tired of the unfair treatment of the bus segregation laws that they decided to stand up for themselves, they organized a boycott and in the end, they were able to succeed and end the bus segregation laws. But the Montgomery Bus Boycott also meets Clark et al…

    • 1626 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The protest united a vast group of African Americans who were passionate in combating racial discrimination and inequality. In fact, the demonstration was one of the first large scale ones, and as mentioned in a letter by Virginia Durr, it was “the first time that a whole [black] community [had] ever stuck together this way and for so long” (Document D). In addition, the larger assistance aided in lessening the consequences of not taking the buses. 42,000 African Americans did not use the public transport for two months but found alternatives and help from the drivers willing to carpool (Document C). What was vital in making the Montgomery Bus Boycott successful was it being a peaceful demonstration. From the start, the boycott urged participating African Americans to not resort to any act of violence. As said by Martin Luther King, Jr., “democracy [gave them the] right to [peacefully] protest” and even though they would inevitably face trials, they must endure and remain determined (Document…

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In May 17, 1954 The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessey v. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned "separate but equal" segregation of the races, ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who will later return to the Supreme Court as the nation 's first black justice. August 1955 Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped, and was beaten badly, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. They had done this because people had said that he allegedly whistled at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, where arrested for the murder and where all in front of an all-white jury. They later talked about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. The case becomes a cause of the civil rights movement. On December 1,1955 in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the colored section of a bus to a white passenger. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which lasted for more than a year, until the buses diced to desegregated in Dec. 21, 1956. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was instrumental in leading the bus boycott. Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which MLK is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to MLK, it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists. "We must…

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plessy V Ferguson Essay

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This women was tired she had worked all day and felt she had every right to that set, and she was right. When Dr. King heard about Rosa Parks standing up for her rights and was jailed for that he knew he had to act, so he went to Montgomery Alabama and demand justice for Rosa Parks. The city council denied his request. Dr. King left with no other choice gathered the black people of Montgomery and did something that had never been done before by the black people before. Dr. King decided they should boycott the bus transit system, until the segregation on the bus ended, and jobs were offered to black men as drivers for routes where black people lived. Dr. King had the church get involved with the boycott, by organizing carpool time and pick/drop off locations. The city of Montgomery took notice to this, and decided to place a ban on people for loitering, even though they were only waiting for their ride. In 1956 the city of Montgomery had Dr. King indicted on for violating antiboycott laws. King was found guilty of leading an illegal boycott and sentenced to $500 fine and 386 days in jail. In November 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court declares bus segregation laws…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emmett Till Murder

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages

    According to the LA Times, In Chicago, “more than 20,000 people protested after the acquittal along with another 10,000 in Harlem.” Many people who were on the sidelines during the Civil right movement wanted to join the fight for equal rights. One hundred days after the Emmett Till’s murder, Rosa Parks refused to give seat while on an Alabama bus on her way home. That soon sparked the Montgomery Bus boycott led by Martin Luther King lasting 381 days. Nine years later, congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial discrimination and…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When the American Civil War ended, all the enslaved African Americans obtained freedom from slavery. From then they were able to live their life in the land of the free. Unfortunately, African American’s didn’t really benefit from being set free. It was almost as though they were set free from slavery, but not set free from disrespect and were not given the same rights as other American citizens. In this assignment, I will discuss some of the progressions of African Americans from 1865 to our present day.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kelley, Robin D. G. and Earl Lewis, eds. To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans to 1880. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.…

    • 1804 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the Civil War and the Reconstruction period, there were many social, political, and economic change that affected the American society until the 20th century. Many changes revolve around the freedom of slaves after the 13th Amendment. Allowing newly African Americans emitted into the American society, lead many changes alongside with it, mainly negatives. Few changes in the society are the separation and discrimination of Africans, unfavorable labor, and the lack of political rights. Each contribute in the hardship African Americans in the American society.…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life of African American before and after civil Rights African American in south, they remained under the great depression of cruelties and shames of slavery generation to generation, not only slavery was named to them, beating and sexual assault, the selling and trafficking of family members, rejection of educational rights, denial of wages, unlawful marriages and private life was full of pain. It was all because of discrimination in United State, that wide spread of infection had been injected since in the foreign period, whereas all freedoms were established to white Americans and African American were kept depressed from major rights. White American were given educational opportunities, voting rights, land acquisition and criminal procedures…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    State and local laws known as Jim Crow laws were enacted between 1876 and 1965. They made de jure racial segregation in all public facilities of Southern states. It started in 1890 with "separate but equal" status for African Americans. Separate but equal led to conditions for blacks that tended to be inferior to the ones provided for whites. These De jure segregations were mainly in the Southern states. In 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Do to this action she was arrested and charged with civil disobedience. This action and the many other demonstrations which it started would lead to a series of legislative decisions that contributed to undoing the Jim Crow system. Blacks also took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott which was led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. earlier demonstrations like the one led by K. Leroy Irvis of Pittsburgh's Urban League in 1947, was against employment discrimination by Pittsburgh's department…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the Civil War the United Stated faced even bigger problems. Many questions were raised by everyone all over the country on how the U.S would work. The Union came up victorious while the South was completely destroyed, crops were damaged and the social status for African Americans was being questioned. While war was over, many white Americans still didn’t accept African Americans new social role in the U.S. The pressure was heavy during this time, and there for the Reconstruction era is arguably the most important era in the U.S history. Looking at this topic I will discuss how this era had a big impact on African Americans rights with the decision on the Plessy vs Ferguson court case, how Frederik Douglass became a big advocate for civil…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    as relation to a particular people, country, period, person, according to the meaning of the word History, it full knowledge will improve African American status. Despite the transition of Africans from West Africa to America and used them as slaves to work on tobacco and sugar plantations for many years, they had the privilege to be a part of this grate and powerful nation which empower them economically, on cultural plan and a standard of civilization.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Period Of Reconstruction

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The period of Reconstruction, lasting from 1865-1876, consisted of the years after the Civil War during which Americans made efforts to rebuild their chaotic nation. African Americans were arguably affected by this period the most because it was a small step in the right direction towards securing political and economic rights for former slaves. However, the slight improvement of daily life for African Americans didn’t result in much change. Although the North was somewhat successful economically during this time period, the South remained a rural dominated society in which there was a heavy gap between social classes. In the South, the 14th and 15th amendments remained an unfulfilled promise in the South as African Americans continued lives…

    • 787 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays