Civil Rights Movement

Submitted By sillyguy81
Words: 356
Pages: 2

How the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s legislation has been used by more than just Black Americans
After the Emanipation Proclamation African Americans in Southern states inhabited a unequal world of disfranchisement, segregation, and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. The Jim Crow laws at the local and state levels banned them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination, drawing national and international attention to African Americans' difficulty. Civil Rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Many leaders within the African American community and other places rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era. During the era of slavery, most African Americans resided in the south, mainly in rural areas. Under many circumstances, segregation did not prove necessary as the boundaries between free citizens and people held in bondage remained clear. Therefore, blacks and whites lived in close proximity on farms and plantations and geographical isolation made contract between neighbors infrequent. The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans were