The History of African American Discrimination and the Civil Rights Movement

In 1788, the ratification of the United States Constitution sought to establish the fundamental aspects of the nation’s government, laws, and protections of its citizens’ unalienable rights. Robert G. McCloskey’s The American Supreme Court (2016) explains that, during this period, the prospects of the Supreme Court were essentially unknown. As time progressed, however, the Court began strengthening its legitimacy with its decisions in major landmark court cases which, in turn, established its crucial role in shaping the judicial interests and values of the nation. As such, McCloskey (2016) traces the country’s judicial history by highlighting the Court’s great transitional periods regarding state rights, nation rights, property rights, and slavery. By the start of the 20th century, however, discrepancies began to emerge with the rise of

While the Civil Rights Movement is considered a success, there is still racism in the United States today, in which blacks are still viewed as overly aggressive and overtly dangerous compared to whites. The racism we are familiar with today is called “institutional racism” and is not only shown in workplaces, but in schools and courtrooms. Institutional racism is defined as a pattern of social institutions who give negative treatment to a group of people based on race. To elaborate on institutional racism, starting with pre-school, black children make up only 18 percent of the pre-school population, but make up almost half of out of school suspensions. In K-12 black children are three times as likely to be suspended than white children. Now moving to the court system, black children make up nearly 60 percent of children in prison and are more likely to be sentenced as adults than white children. These statistics show that black’s, even black children, are more likely to be viewed as dangerous and subject to worse sentences.

Following The Civil War, close to four million slaves were freed, but they were still faced with the systematic oppression of their past. Due to President Johnson’s support of state’s rights, many white southerners were able to place authority over newly freed slaves by establishing Black Codes, the KKK, and segregation. The new freedoms gained by African Americans following the civil war were insignificant because white superiority was heavily present. After the passing of the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery, Black Codes enabled white southerners to legally control blacks.

The time of racism, segregation, and discrimination in the Civil Rights era was a difficult time for many people: whites, other races, and even children. Racism brought the realization to many people to think about how racism might affect their children and the way they were brought up. The real interesting fact is, that even though most Americans showed concern towards children there wasn 't a large percentage that took in consideration the feelings, thoughts, and affects that African- Americans and other racial children, including whites had towards the consent segregation, discrimination, and racism that went on in the Civil Rights era. Even the

Oppression of minorities has had a detrimental aspect in the associated individual’s lives. History has demonstrated that as a western society, we devalue minorities’ rights and values through legislation and societal views. Today, this remains to be an issue for many individuals of many stigmatized groups. Although efforts to reach a more unified community have been taken, many minorities still fight oppression. Through activism, social and political movements, the LGBTQIA community have progressed immensely throughout the past few decades. History has demonstrated a slow, yet vast amount of success in this marginalized group. Activists endured a long journey toward gaining rights for the community which lead to a modern day civil rights movement for the LGBTQIA community. Although there has been a great amount of successes, non-heterosexual individuals still do not have full equal rights as their heterosexual counterparts. There are still adversities that are being faced in this population that hinder these individuals from thriving. The issue is even greater when the individual has an additional identity that is also marginalized. Specifically, individuals who identify as people of color (POC) and LGBTQIA still encounter prejudice from society.

The conclusion of the Civil War in favor of the north was supposed to mean an end to slavery and equal rights for the former slaves. Although laws and amendments were passed to uphold this assumption, the United States Government fell short. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were proposed and passed within five years of the Civil War’s conclusion. These amendments were to create equality throughout the United States, especially in the south where slavery had been most abundant. Making equality a realization would not be an easy task. This is because many problems were not perceived before and during the war. The reunification of the country would prove to be harder than expected, and entry into a new lifestyle would be

After the civil war ended in 1865, and the Confederate States rejoined the Union, animosity towards blacks was at an all-time high. Even though the federal government “outlawed” state discrimination towards African Americans with the passing of the 15th amendment, the south was grounded in their beliefs of white supremacy and the ultimate control over the black population. Roughly a century later, during the 1950’s, racism was still rampant throughout much of the south. Many states went as far as to oppose the constitution and denied many blacks the right the vote with the passage of the “Black Codes” and “Jim Crow Laws”. Theses state laws ensured that African American’s voting outcome was kept minimal using literacy tests and polls. With such

America’s history continues to influence our nation greatly. There is still a vast amount of inequality but prior civil rights movements have inspired many challenges for equal rights.

The video created pain and confusion to see the way many people segregate or discriminate African Americans. It is hard to conceive in many people’s mind a mistreatment or deliberate actions that cause harm to a black person, simply because their skin color. There are many people who strongly oppose such behavior, and do not agree with the basis of discrimination. Also, immigrants can relate somehow to discrimination, and the many way this could affect them. It is terrible how a person can resent someone just for their color or their skin. This is a world with many different points of view, religious believes, political agendas or circumstances that can set people apart, but to take a physical aggression or retaliate because racial hate is

Activists use multiple strategies for achieving civil rights which has both success and failures. Racism in the U.S. has been an ongoing thing for awhile and it is something that should never be brought up and never should have been started.

Every now and then, an event occurs that drastically shifts the dynamic of history in a brief period of time. An action, commonly a perceived denial of rights, plants a seed that is destined to grown into severe liberation. In America specifically, this judgement is ultimately determined by the Supreme Court. Whether or not these decisions were righteous and sensible is still up for debate; however, one can celebrate the decisions, embrace them, accept them, get over it, or whatever he feels the need to do, but there is no denying them; the resolutions are the official law of the land.

The history of the struggle for the advancement and progression of African Americans is a larger-than-life story. It reveals their endeavors for the initiation of change in political, financial, educational, and societal conditions. They did everything to shape their future and that of their country i.e. the United States of America. This struggle for the attainment of equal rights has helped them to determine the path and the pace of their improvement and development (Taylor & Mungazi, 2001, p. 1).

The sources that contained in this research report are reliable, since there are many specific and real data that have been gathered and interpreted from some legal organizations and communities that related to the racial discrimination issues in America (United States Department of Labor). Moreover, some of the sources also retrieved from well-known American newspapers, such as Washington Post (These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn’t budged in 50 years, 2013), which make the data and information are always pay attention and focused on problems that happened in America based on American perspective. Another reason that makes the sources used in this research report reliable is because some of them have been gathered from

African Americans have been perceived as inferior for centuries due to their race. African discrimination began with the Atlantic slave trade. Europeans bought Africans for the purpose of using them as slaves in the New World. According to the BBC, more than a million enslaved Africans died during their transport to the Americas. Patrick Manning, a former Trinidad politician, estimated that ten million Africans entered the New World as slaves from 1500-1900. This early practice of discrimination encouraged the formation of later eras. The Atlantic slave trade took the right to life away from the Africans and took away their opportunities to experience the culture of their homeland. During the 19th century, slavery became a staple amongst the majority of the antebellum south. Slaves made up one third of the south’s population and were stripped of basic rights. Slaves were not allowed an education, and slave women were raped by their masters. Slavery ultimately caused the Civil War, and the Union victory produced the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation freed approximately three million slaves. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments granted slaves basic rights such as: freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote. This Reconstruction period also brought more trouble to the lives of African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan formed from the persistence of white supremacy, and later, the Jim Crow laws were enacted. The Jim Crow laws established segregation between

Discrimination is all over the world and it is a very serious problem in society. We judge each other daily because of their gender, ethnicity, religion, age, and the way a person behave. Discrimination is the “unequal treatment provided to one or more parties based on a mutual accord or some other logical or illogical reason” (). In the modern world of the United State of America the topic of racial discrimination in the Criminal justice system is debatable because there is considerable evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. The United States has a long history of racial discrimination in several aspects of life including employment, public accommodations and education. Nowadays there are extremely biased individuals and do not like to accept people of different ethnicity. This paper focuses on the discrimination and it history.