To What Extent did the Opportunities for Blacks improve during 1953-1960
To What Extent did Opportunities for African-American’s Improve in the years 1953 to 1960?
Prior to the years of 1953 improvements had been made to the lives of African-American’s. During 1953 to 1960 opportunities for African-American’s improved significantly in many areas such as social, economic, political and justice. In saying that however, during this period the areas that improved opportunities for African-Americans also stayed the same as many of the improvements were quite limited. Limitations in what had improved was due to attitudes of the White-Americans, mainly those who lived in the South and especially the Deep South as de-facto segregation was present in education, employment, facilities including housing. Jim Crow laws throughout the South also ensured that blacks were second-class citizens, lacking in political, social, economic and justice equality. On top of this, President Eisenhower was very conservative making opportunities for African-American’s hard to improve but new groups were being formed such as SNCC and SCLC which would challenge opposition.
One very important area of improvement in opportunities for African-Americans was their social status and opportunities regarding education and employment. White-Americans were led to believe that Blacks were somewhat inferior to them and for this reason they had no desire to be educated, work or live on the same premises as them. Due to the Plessy v. Ferguson ‘separate but equal’ ruling being set in stone as of 1896 this meant that education was segregated between the black and white Americans. However, Oliver Brown who was from Kansas did not agree with the segregation seen in education and so decided to challenge the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling in the schools of Topeka. This was mainly because his daughter could not go to whites-only school five blocks away and so had to walk 20 blacks away to the all-black school. Brown and the NAACP, who were already trying to overturn Plessy v. Topeka,
Prior to the years of 1953 improvements had been made to the lives of African-American’s. During 1953 to 1960 opportunities for African-American’s improved significantly in many areas such as social, economic, political and justice. In saying that however, during this period the areas that improved opportunities for African-Americans also stayed the same as many of the improvements were quite limited. Limitations in what had improved was due to attitudes of the White-Americans, mainly those who lived in the South and especially the Deep South as de-facto segregation was present in education, employment, facilities including housing. Jim Crow laws throughout the South also ensured that blacks were second-class citizens, lacking in political, social, economic and justice equality. On top of this, President Eisenhower was very conservative making opportunities for African-American’s hard to improve but new groups were being formed such as SNCC and SCLC which would challenge opposition.
One very important area of improvement in opportunities for African-Americans was their social status and opportunities regarding education and employment. White-Americans were led to believe that Blacks were somewhat inferior to them and for this reason they had no desire to be educated, work or live on the same premises as them. Due to the Plessy v. Ferguson ‘separate but equal’ ruling being set in stone as of 1896 this meant that education was segregated between the black and white Americans. However, Oliver Brown who was from Kansas did not agree with the segregation seen in education and so decided to challenge the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling in the schools of Topeka. This was mainly because his daughter could not go to whites-only school five blocks away and so had to walk 20 blacks away to the all-black school. Brown and the NAACP, who were already trying to overturn Plessy v. Topeka,