Segregation Case

The topic I have chosen to write about is how African Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to obtain equality and civil rights. African Americans play a major and important role in American history because of the Civil Rights Movement and their courage, strength, and struggle to live well in America. Of course, we have learned about important people and events throughout history, but some of the most important people as well as events in African American history remain untold. This paper will reflect on their struggle for freedom, equal rights, with accomplishments they have pursued for decades; as well as the outcome of their decisions. African Americans have endured extreme racial harassment and discrimination for centuries.

First off I will like to inform you on what segregation, discrimination, and isolation is. Segregation is the practice of keeping ethnic, racial, religious, or gender groups separate, especially by enforcing the use of separate schools, transportation, housing, and other facilities, and usually discriminating against a minority group.

Isolation is the process of separating somebody or something from others, or the fact of being alone and separated from others. And discrimination is unfair treatment of one person or group, usually because of prejudice about race, ethnicity, age, religion, or gender. Segregation was a by-product of the slaves being freed. Of course they were segregated before but that was because they were believed to be property not people.

After the slaves were freed is when the problem began because they were not given rights when they were freed so many tried to restrict where they could go, what they could do. Many whites were mad about this and did not want to eat, go to school, use the water fountain, use the bathroom, are do anything else with blacks.

Segregation was not politically noticed until the Plessey versus Ferguson case. Regardless of their skin color, shouldn't all children be entitled to attend the same public schools and get the same education? This was the key question before the United States Supreme Court in 1954. When Oliver Brown's daughter was refused entry into a local school reserved for white children, he sued the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Declaring that separate schools for blacks and whites were in fact unequal, the United States Supreme Court reversed its infamous "separate but equal" decision of 1896 known as Plessy v. Ferguson. Many would argue that the controversy that followed the Brown decision still exists today.

Every since the African Americans were slaves they have had to come a long way to get where they are today. Some have even held positions in political offices, managed corporations, and gained all the rights that everyone else has. But, it's never always been that way. African Americans were treated unjustly and had to go through things that most people cannot understand and have never had to endure.

Over the generations African Americans have had to deal with many different struggles. Some of these struggles were unnecessary. Such as, them having to be a witness to their parent's death, men would be witness to the rape of their mothers or wives, children being murdered or beaten. Back in those days the African Americans had no voice or rights.

On top of this and other struggles, African Americans had to bare unmentionable punishments. They were sprayed with high power water hoses, beaten with sticks and wipes, arrested for no apparent reason, and even murdered.

Some thirty years ago, a peaceful revolution took place in the United States, as African Americans sought equal rights. That revolution, which occurred between 1954 and 1968, is called the civil rights movement. Actually, African Americans have been struggling for their civil rights for as long as they have been in this country. When they first came to the United States, African Americans were sold into slavery, which meant them or family members were auctioned to the slave owners.

Men, women, and children forced to abandon their lives and families in Africa; brutally chained while transported to the United States in huge numbers under unfathomable conditions. Upon arrival they were sold to plantation owners and forced to work on plantations in the South for years; some even after the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the Emancipation postponed many of the slave's freedom due to the Jim Crow Law (www.ourdocumentsgov.com). Abolishment of slavery, racism and segregation would take longer for some.

These were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1968; that mandated racial segregation in public facilities with a supposedly separate and equal status for African Americans. "Jim Crow" is a name that originated from a character in an early nineteenth century minstrel show song. These were state and local laws in the United States enacted from 1876 to 1968; that mandated racial segregation in public facilities with a supposedly separate and equal status for African Americans. These laws directly undermined the status of blacks placing unfair restrictions on everything; with voting rights to segregation of water fountains.

Before the Civil War, brave abolitionists were calling out for an end to the injustice and cruelty of slavery. Even after the Civil War freed slaves, African Americans were still forced to fight other forms of racism and discrimination-segregation and prejudice. This movement still continues today as people of color battle racial hatred and economic exploitation all over the world.

Between the 1950's and 1970's many people took part in actions to end the segregation, discrimination, and isolation among the African Americans. Some of these people included, Ella Baker, Stokely Carmicheal, Fannie Lou Hamer, Jessie Jackson, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr., these are just a few of the thousands of brave people who worked in the civil rights movement. They risked their homes and their jobs-and some gave their lives-to secure rights and freedoms that we now enjoy and often taken for granted.

Most of us know the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the nonviolent leader of the movement, which involved sit-ins, boycotts, marches and other peaceful types of protests. But others were just as important may not be as familiar as Rosa Parks. For example, On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks who was also known as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Because she was disobedient by law she was arrested, tried, and convicted for misconduct. Her actions started a bus boycott that changed a segregation law and sparked a movement.

Ella Baker was instrumental in founding two