Freedom of Assembly by Kelly Wittmann

Author:Kelly Wittmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights March on Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963, to promote equality for African Americans.

DISCRIMINATION AND SEGREGATION

African Americans have suffered discrimination, harassment, and worse, especially in the US South. The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought largely over the issue of slavery: the South wanted to retain it, and the North wanted to abolish it. Eleven southern states that formed the Confederacy were eventually defeated by the Union forces of the North. All slaves were declared free on January 1, 1863, when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The period known as Reconstruction (1865–1877) was supposed to usher in an era of citizenship and equality for 4 million freed slaves. But it was not successful.

Throughout the South, governments refused to cooperate. They systematically discriminated against African Americans through racial segregation and voter fraud in a series of laws known as the Jim Crow laws. In extreme cases, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized blacks through intimidation and violence, lynching being the most extreme. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, nearly 5,000 people were lynched, three-quarters of whom were African Americans.

ADVANCES IN CIVIL RIGHTS

It took a long time, but things finally began to change after World War II, which saw many African Americans in the US military. In 1948, President Harry S. Truman desegregated the armed forces. Court cases followed, and the 1950s saw several challenges to racial segregation. A landmark event occurred in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted more than a year but managed to desegregate public transportation. This event marked the beginning of the end for the Jim Crow laws. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.