African American Civil Rights In The 1920's-1960s

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After the 13th amendment freed the slaves and the 15th amendment granted all men the right to vote, an era of discrimination of African Americans and Jim Crow laws that made discrimination legal occurred. This legalized discrimination occurred from when the slaves were free up until the modern civil rights movement, which brought together leaders who abolished this practice, similar to the leaders of previous civil rights movement of the 1890’s to 1920’s who also worked to get rid of discrimination and inequality. The goals and strategies of African American civil rights leaders of the 1890’s-1920’s and 1950’s-1960’s are similar and different with their goals, which included economic, social, and political or only economic, and methods, nonviolence …show more content…
and W.E.B. Du Bois strove for equality of voting by the use of confrontation. Du Bois was the founder of and writer for The Crisis, a magazine for African American readers that addressed the racial inequalities that were prevalent throughout the United States at this time. His confrontation is exemplified through this action because the magazine openly criticized things that Du Bois and the NAACP (an organization that Du Bois helped create that aimed to help the colored population in the US) thought were wrong, including presidential decisions and the film The Birth of a Nation, a feature length film showing the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, a racist organization with goals of intimidating African Americans from taking office. In this time period these were risky things for blacks to do because it made whites, who could be important allies, less likely to join forces, as well as making these leaders susceptible to hate crimes like lynching. Martin Luther King Jr. shows his confrontation through acts, like venturing to Birmingham for Project C; this project was very risky, considering that the people who inhabited the town were known for racism and KKK memberships, but Dr. King knew this, and went despite these problems because he knew there would be a large reaction from the people, therefore lots of media coverage. Both of these leaders fought for political equality with the use of confrontation. However, Booker T. Washington had a different goal than both of these leaders. While Du Bois and Dr. King strove for political and social equality, Washington’s goal was economic equality. His ideas stated that through economic equality, political and social equality would prevail, therefore the only battle that African Americans should be worried was the economic battle. This was a great opposition to both King and Du Bois, who argued that backs should be socially, politically, and economically equal. Additionally, because