Understanding
Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still inhabited a starkly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. Despite the efforts of RADICAL RECONSTRUCTIONISTS, the American South emerged from the CIVIL WAR with a system of laws that undermined the freedom of African Americans and preserved many elements of white privilege. No major successful attack was launched on the segregation system until the 1950s. Beginning with the Supreme Court's school integration ruling of 1954, the American legal system seemed sympathetic to African American demands that their FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT CIVIL RIGHTS be protected. |
Changes made for the BETTER!
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The most important achievements of African-American civil rights movements have been the post-Civil War constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and established the citizenship status of blacks and the judicial decisions and legislation based on these amendments, notably the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topekadecision of 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Public opinion polls across the nation and the world revealed a great deal of sympathy for African Americans. The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations gave the Civil Rights Movement at least tacit support. Although many obstacles to complete racial equity remained, by 1965 most legal forms of discrimination had been abolished. |
After tremendous strides following the Civil War, our country's nation had a long and tedious journey down a road that needed repairing and strengthening to better itself and the life of African Americans who were citizens and had the right to live life as the rest of Americans.