The End of Slavery and People of Color

Before desegregation the world was a much different place than today. Many people of color were being mistreated and excluded from things other citizens could do. In the process of civil equality and desegregation many people played roles to help out. Although people tried to help it wasn’t an easy task to complete. Overtime things changed and the U.S. is a more different place than it was when it was in its early stages. More and more people recieved the rights that they deserved and were treated in a different way than before.

From the 1860’s and the ending of Civil War to the end of the 1960’s, it was then where true change started to occur in desegregating the U.S.

At the end of slavery when it was abolished, people of color were still treated differently than others and very poorly. Not to say that everything would’ve changed right away after it was abolished but for how long it took to change. During the Civil War there were many african american troops that fought on both sides of the war. During this war the emancipation proclamation was signed by president Abraham Lincoln. This meant that the slaves in the states that rebelled against the Union shall become free states. This didn’t affect the union states or parts of states that were occupied by the Union. And this also made it possible for African American men to enlist in the army but it was kind of a forced thing if they were in “good condition.” Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass thought that it would be good for African Americans to enlist in the army because it can become a huge step in fighting for equal rights.

The Union's victory of the Civil war in 1865 may have given about four million slaves their freedom, however the method of rebuilding the South in the course of the Reconstruction length delivered a new set of great sized demanding situations. underneath the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern nation legislatures exceeded restrictive black codes to control the hard work and behavior of former slaves and other African individuals. Underneath Johnson's Reconstruction guidelines, which began in May 1865, the previous confederate states had been required to uphold the abolition of slavery that was made official by the thirteenth amendment to change the U.S. constitution, swear loyalty to the Union and repay their conflict debt. Outrage within the North over these codes eroded assist for the method referred to as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the radical wing of the Republican party celebration.

During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, blacks won a voice in government for the primary time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even the U.S. Congress. African-American participation in southern public lifestyles after 1867 would be the most radical development of Reconstruction. This changed into basically a massive-scale experiment in interracial democracy not like that of every other society following the abolition of slavery. Blacks gained election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress at some point of this era.

Black codes were restrictive laws designed to restrict the freedom of African people and made certain their services was as a cheap labor force after slavery was abolished throughout the Civil war. though the Union victory had given about four million slaves their freedom, the question of freed blacks’ repute in the postwar South became nevertheless very much unresolved. beneath black codes, many states required blacks to sign yearly labor contracts; in the event that they refused, they risked being arrested, fined and compelled into unpaid labor. Outrage over black codes helped undermine aid for President Andrew Johnson and the Republican party. While former slaves fought to affirm their independence and gain economic rights during the earliest years of Reconstruction. White landowners acted to control the hard work force through a system just like the only that had existed during slavery.

In late 1865, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first black codes. Mississippi’s regulation required blacks to have written evidence of employment for every year each January, if they left earlier than the end of the settlement, they could be forced to give up earlier wages could be arrested for it. In South Carolina, a regulation prohibited blacks from obtain any profession aside from farmer or servant but could get other jobs of they paid an annual tax of $10 to $100. This provision hit the free blacks already living in Charleston and former slave artisans particularly hard. In both states, blacks had been given heavy consequences for homelessness, which includes forced plantation labor in some instances.

The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required southern states to ratify the 14th change which granted “equal protection” of the constitution to former slaves and enact male suffrage before they could rejoin the Union. The 15th amendment, followed in 1870, assured that a citizen’s right to vote would now not be denied on account of race, color, or preceding situation of servitude. in the course of this period of Radical Reconstruction, blacks won election to southern nation governments or even to the U.S. Congress.

Getting into more of the segregation, the case of Plessy V Ferguson is a major court decision and well known. Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. supreme court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation below the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident where African American educate passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a train car for blacks. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme court ruled that a regulation that among whites and blacks turned into not unconstitutional. As a result, restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public inns based totally on race have become common.

In the 1960s, this became the central timeline where the issue of segregation was more and more wide spread and talked about. A major event being the 1960s civil right movement that seemed to have the most impact on the issue of segregation and equal rights. The civil rights movement become a battle for social justice that occurred especially at some point of the 1950s and Sixties for blacks to benefit same rights under the law in the united states of america. The Civil battle had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t quit discrimination against blacks they persisted to bear the devastating effects of racism, specially in the South. through the mid-20th century, African individuals had had more than enough prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many whites, mobilized and began an exceptional fight for equality that spanned decades.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination into law on July 2 of that year. King and different civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law assured equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy checks and allowed federal government to make sure public facilities have been incorporated. while President Johnson signed the voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 steps in addition. the brand new law banned all voter literacy checks and furnished federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions. It additionally allowed the legal attorney to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, ballot taxes had been later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia kingdom Board of Elections in 1966.

On December 1,1955, a 42 year old Rosa Parks located a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated blacks have to take a designated seat in at the back of the bus, and Parks had complied. while a white guy got at the bus and couldn’t find a seat in the white's section at the front of the bus, the bus driver ordered Parks and 3 different black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest evoked outrage and support, Parks unwittingly has become the “mom of the present day day civil rights motion.” Black community leaders formed the Bernard Law Montgomery improvement affiliation led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a position which would place into the fight for civil rights. Parks’ courage incited the MIA to level a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956 the ideally suited court ruled that segregated seating changed into unconstitutional.

A major case that dealt with segregation in schools was Brown v Board of Education. This court case helped make segregation in schools illegal. Brown v. Board of training of Topeka changed into a landmark 1954 Supreme court case where the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of kids in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education turned into one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped set up the precedent that separate but equal schooling and different services had not been equal(Chris Kennings,2004). By early 1950s, the NAACP was working tough to challenge segregation laws in public schools, and had filed court cases on behalf of plaintiffs in states like South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware. In the case that would become famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a suit in against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all white school.

In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for black kids were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which states that no state can “deny to any man or woman within its jurisdiction the same safety of the laws.”The case went before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, which agreed that public faculty segregation had a “negative effect on the colored kids” and contributed to “a feel of inferiority,” but still held the “separate but equal” doctrine.

The little rock nine had to deal with something of the same nature in the segregation of schools. The Little Rock 9 was a group of 9 black students who enrolled at previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 19579. Their attendance at the faculty was a test of Brown v. Board of Ed, a landmark 1954 best court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On September four, 1957, the first day of classes at Central, Governor Orval Faubus referred to as in the Arkansas national guard to help and protect the black students entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower despatched in federal troops to escort the Little Rock nine into the school. And till this day there is a monument depicting the nine kids apart of the major widespread event.

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an extremely violent turn as six hundred peaceful demonstrators participated within the Selma to Montgomery to protest the killing of a black civil rights activist through a white police officer and inspire regulation to implement the 15th amendment. As they approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they had been blocked with the aid of Alabama state and local police. Refusing to stand down, protestors moved ahead and had been viciously overwhelmed and tear gassed with the aid of police and dozens of protestors were hospitalized. The entire incident was televised and became known as “Bloody Sunday.” a few activists desired to retaliate with violence, but King driven for nonviolent protests and eventually won federal protection for another march.

The ending of segregation marked a major triumph for people of color. They were now able to be in the same places as white that they couldn’t have been before the ending of it. Even though this is the case it didn’t mean everybody was okay with it. More and more schools were being integrated. Affirmative action rules are those where a group or company actively engages in efforts to enhance possibilities for traditionally excluded groups in American society. Affirmative action policies often awareness on employment, training, and education. In institutions of higher education, affirmative action refers to admission regulations to provide access to equal education for those groups which have been traditionally excluded or underrepresented, such as with women and minorities.

It started out as a government motion to protect and deliver preferences to African individuals, a set that had long been discriminated against. Later, it turned into extended to cover ladies, native americans, Hispanics and different minorities. The impact of affirmative action was broadened to university and college admission and nation and federal groups which were required to provide 10% of public works to qualified minority contractors. Affirmative action was something that was put in place to help those who qualified but with that there was also some setbacks to it.

The first important setback to affirmative action was the Supreme Court choice of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. The medical school of University of California, Davis had set aside 16 spots for minority applicants. Allan Bakke had been refused admission despite the fact that he had higher test score ratings than most of the minority applicants. The court ruled that the college had violated Bakke’s civil rights. Starting in 1989 the Court started to impose restriction on race-based affirmative action and ruled that federal affirmative action programs have been unconstitutional except they fulfilled a compelling governmental interest. To this day obviously things have changed in the sense of segregation. It’s illegal in the U.S. and more and more people are getting along over time.

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