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Segregation"[Segregation] gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, it gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. 1958 The only things these African-Americans wanted to do was play baseball and earn equal rights, but they had to fight through one of the most cruel things first; Segregation. After the Civil War, a large number of formerly enslaved African Americans looked to join the world and society as equal citizens. Although some whites welcomed African Americans as citizens, others were racist and ignorant. They tried their hardest to spread their dislike for blacks, and it worked. The support for African Americans was always overshadowed by hate. In the 1900's, a racist and segregated society that ignored African Americans had begun to take shape. Both sides would not go down without a fight. After deleting slavery from the United States society, three amendments were passed on the Constitution to introduce the African American legal position: The Thirteenth amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment offered United States citizenship, and lastly, the Fifteenth gave them the right to vote. of slavery in the United States, three Constitutional amendments were passed to grant newly freed African Americans legal status: the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth provided citizenship, and the Fifteenth gave them the right to vote. In the effort of these civil rights acts to keep the amendments enforced, the Supreme Court introduced decisions that virtually erased what had been done. Whites and blacks were separated by law in transportation, in public settings, restrooms, armed forces, schools, and even prisons. Any white service to blacks was frowned upon then. Legal separation was held by the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which claimed to have separate but equal facilities and buildings for the different races. It was also claimed that these separate facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1909, a small group of activists created the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They struggled to demolish segregation and racial discrimination, but they kept fighting. By the mid-twentieth century, they their eyes on public-school segregation and how they could erase it. In 1950, two victories before the Supreme Court led the small group of activists towards completely demolishing the so-called "separate-but-equal" ruling. Marin Luther King Jr.
Martin was a baptist minister who led the Civil Rights Movement until his assassination in 1968. In short, he was the most important civil-rights activists in history alone. King led walks with a huge number of African Americans and whites that were determined to end racial discrimination and segregation.
In downtown Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, King organized a demonstration which entire families could attend and did attend. In the efforts of Martin, he was arrested and threwn in jail with a number of his followers. Both whites and blacks criticized King for taking dangerous risks, which drew nationwide attention. While spending his time in jail, he had deeper thoughts than usual. "Nonviolent direction action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to negotiate, is forced to confront the issue." He spent eleven days in jail, and in those eleven days, he got deeper into his mind and thoughts, and thought of new ways to begin ending racism. King was arrested 30 times in his lifetime, just trying to make things equal. Who knows what would have happened if he wasn't brave enough to do what he did? |