The Civil Rights Movement in the United States

The Civil Rights Movement

in the United States

The

Civil

Rights

Movement

in

the

United

States

has

been

a

long,

primarily

nonviolent

struggle

to

bring

full

civil

rights

and

equality

under

the law

to

all

Americans. The

movement

has had a lasting impact on United States society, in its tactics,

the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and in

its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism.

The

American

Civil

Rights

movement

has

been

made

up

of

many

movements.

The

term

usually

refers

to

the

political

struggles

and

reform

movements

between

1945

and

1970

to

end discrimination against African Americans and to end legal

racial segregation, especially in the U.S. South.

This article

focuses

on

an

earlier

phase

of

the

struggle.

Two

United

States Supreme

Court

decisions

—

Plessy

v.

Ferguson,

163 U.S. 537 (1896), which upheld

segregation as constitutional doctrine, and Brown v. Board of

Education,

347

U.S.

483

(1954)

which

overturned

Plessy

—

serve

as

milestones.

This

was

an

era

of

stops

and

starts,

in

which

some

movements,

such

as

Marcus

Garvey's

Universal

Negro

Improvement

Association,

achieved

great

success

but

left

little

lasting

legacy,

while

others,

such

as

the

NAACP's

painstaking

legal

assault

on

state-sponsored

segregation,

achieved

modest

results

in

its

early

years

but

made

steady

progress on voter rights and gradually built to a key victory in

Brown v. Board of Education.

After

the

Civil

War,

the

U.

S.

expanded

the

legal

rights

of

African

Americans.

Congress

passed,

and

enough

states

ratified,

an

amendment

ending

slavery

in

1865

—

the

13th

Amendment

to

the

United

States

Constitution.

This

amendment

only

outlawed

slavery;

it

did

not

provide

equal

rights,

nor

citizenship.

In

1868,

the

14th

Amendment

was

ratified by the states, granting African Americans citizenship.

Black

persons

born

in

the

U.

S.

were

extended

equal

protection

under

the

laws

of

the

Constitution.

The

15th

Amendment

was

ratified

in

(1870),

which

stated

that

race

could not be used as a condition to deprive men of the ability

to vote. During Reconstruction (1865-1877), Northern troops

occupied

the

South.

Together

with

the

Freedmen's

Bureau,

they

tried

to

administer

and

enforce

the

new

constitutional

amendments.

Many

black

leaders

were

elected

to

local

and

state offices, and others organized community groups.

Reconstruction

ended

following

the

Compromise

of

1877

between Northern and Southern white elites. In exchange for

deciding

the

contentious

Presidential

election

in

favor

of

Rutherford

B.

Hayes,

supported

by

Northern

states,

over

his

opponent,

Samuel

J.

Tilden,

the

compromise

called

for

the

withdrawal of Northern troops from the South. This followed

violence

and

fraud

in

southern

elections

in

1876,

which

had

reduced

black

voter

turnout

and

enabled

Southern

white

Democrats

to

regain

power

in

state

legislatures

across

the

South.

The

compromise

and

withdrawal

of

Federal

troops

meant that white Democrats had more freedom to impose and

enforce

discriminatory

practices.

Many

African

Americans

responded to the withdrawal of federal troops by leaving the

South in what is known as the Kansas Exodus of 1879.

The

Radical

Republicans,

who

spearheaded

Reconstruction,

had

attempted

to

eliminate

both

governmental

and

private

discrimination by legislation. That effort was largely ended by

the

Supreme

Court's

decision

in

the

Civil

Rights

Cases,

109

U.S.

3

(1883),

in

which

the

Court

held

that

the

Fourteenth

Amendment

did

not

give

Congress

power

to

outlaw

racial

discrimination by private individuals or businesses.

Segregation

The

Supreme

Court's

decision

in

Plessy

v.

Ferguson

(1896)

upheld state-mandated discrimination in public transportation

under

the

but

equal

doctrine.

While

in

the

20th

century,

the

Supreme

Court

began

to

overturn

state

statutes

that

disfranchised

African

Americans,

as

in

Guinn

v.

United

States (1915), with Plessy, it upheld segregation that Southern

states

enforced

in

nearly

every

other

sphere

of

public

and

private life.

As

Justice

Harlan,

the

only

member

of

the

Court

to

dissent

from the decision, predicted:

If a state can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites

and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same railroad

coach, why may it not so regulate the use of the streets of its

cities

and

towns

as

to

compel

white

citizens

to

keep

on

one

side of a street, and black citizens to keep on the other? Why

may it not, upon like grounds, punish whites and blacks who

ride together in street cars or in open vehicles on a public road

or street? . . . .

The Court soon extended Plessy to uphold segregated schools.

In Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908), the Court

upheld a Kentucky statute that barred Berea College, a private

institution, from teaching both black and white students in an

integrated setting. Many states, particularly in the South, took

Plessy

and

Berea

as

blanket

approval

for

restrictive

laws,

generally known as Jim Crow laws, that created second-class

status for African-Americans.

In

many

cities

and

towns,

African-Americans

were

not

allowed to share a taxi with whites or enter a building through

the

same

entrance.

They

had

to

drink

from

separate

water

fountains, use separate restrooms, attend separate schools, be

buried

in

separate

cemeteries

and

even

swear

on

separate

Bibles.

They

were

excluded

from

restaurants

and

public

libraries.

Many

parks

barred

them

with

signs

that

read

far as to list separate visiting hours.

The

etiquette

of

racial

segregation

was

even

harsher,

particularly in the South. African Americans were expected to

step aside to let a white person pass, and black men dared not

look

any

white

woman

in

the

eye.

Black

men

and

women

were

addressed

as

or

but

rarely

as

or

labels such as

Less formal social segregation in the North began to yield to

change.

Jackie Robinson’s Major League Baseball debut, 1947

Jackie

Robinson

was

a

sports

pioneer

of

the

Civil

Rights

Movement.

Jackie

Robinson

is

most

well

known

for

becoming

the

first

African

American

to

play

professional

sports in the major leagues. He is not often recognized as one

of

earliest

public

figures

in

the

Civil

Rights

Movement.

He

debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers of Major League Baseball

on April 15, 1947. Jackie Robinson's first major league game

came

one

year

before

the

U.S.

Army

was

integrated,

seven

years before Brown v. Board of Education, eight years before

Rosa Parks, and before Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the

Civil

Rights

Movement.

Jackie

Robinson

stepped

into

the

spotlight before many of the most notable people in the Civil

Rights

Movement

history.

Every

day

he

played,

he

was

an

example and role model for countless children and youths.

Disfranchisement

Main article: Disfranchisement after the Civil War

By

the

turn

of

the

century,

white-dominated

Southern

legislatures

disfranchised

nearly

all

age-eligible

African

American

voters

through

a

combination

of

statute

and

constitutional

provisions.

While

requirements

applied

to

all

citizens,

in

practice,

they

were

targeted

at

blacks

and

poor

whites, and subjectively administered. In addition, opponents

of

black

civil

rights

used

economic

reprisals

and

sometimes

violence in the 1880s to discourage blacks from registering to

vote.

Mississippi

was

the

first

state

to

have

such

constitutional

provisions, such as poll taxes, literacy tests (which depended

on

subjective

by

white

registrars),

and

complicated

record

keeping

to

establish

residency,

litigated

before

the

Supreme

Court.

In

1898

the

Court

upheld

the

state,

in

Williams

v.

Mississippi.

Other

Southern

states

quickly

adopted

the

plan

and

from

1890-1908,

ten

states

adopted

new constitutions with provisions to disfranchise most blacks

and many poor whites. States continued to disfranchise these

groups for decades. Blacks were most adversely affected, as in

many states black voter turnout dropped to zero. Poor whites

were

also

disfranchised.

In

Alabama,

for

instance,

by

1941,

600,000

poor

whites

had

been

disfranchised,

and

520,000

blacks.[1]

It

was

not

until

the

20th

century

that

litigation

by

African

Americans

on

such

provisions

began

to

meet

some

success

before the Supreme Court. In 1915 in Guinn v. United States,

the

Court

declared

Oklahoma's

law

to

be

unconstitutional. Although the decision affected all states that

used the grandfather clause, state legislatures quickly devised

new devices to continue disfranchisement. Each provision or

statute

had

to

be

litigated

separately.

One

device

the