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Civil Rights Several events in the history of Americas civil rights movement marked turning points that changed or illuminated aspects of the movement. For example, when a governor from Arkansas closed down the school system to prevent Black children from attending white schools, it brought up the resistance the movement would face. A turning point in the movement was the formation of the Black Panther party, marking a change from nonviolent protest. These events in the history of the movement are the reasons why the public received such apprehension into the situation, and why many new civil rights acts and laws were passed in the long run. An important event was the ill-fated march of Selma, Alabama.
Dr. Martin Luther King, one of the leaders of the movement, began a voting registration drive in Selma in early 1965. Black people trying to register were met though with abuse and violence from white employees, county police, and unfair literacy tests. To bring up the Black publics moral, Dr.
King proposed a allusive march between Selma and Montgomery. This march would take several days to complete because it it stretched over 54 miles. Unfortunately, the first attempts for this march were met with tear gas and mounted state troopers near the border of Selma. These events sparked outrage from the public, and from president Linden B.
Johnson. The brutality of the city officials and state troopers showed the public and the national government the field of White resistance. It sparked the Voting rights act of 1965, soon after made the 15 th amendment. It abolished the unfair literacy tests, poll taxes, or any other similar legal device that would have inhibited voters. The act helped other minority groups because the literacy tests and poll taxes inhibited them too. The march of Selma is also related to the 14 th amendment that nationalizes the Bill of rights.
This means the 14 th amendment makes the 1 st amendment applicable to the states, and one of the guarantees of the 1 st amendment is the right to peaceful assembly, which the march of Selma was. After two more tries, the Selma march proceeded without being stopped on Sunday, March 21, 1965. It was 25, 000 strong, which was a great increase compared to the 3, 200 in the first attempt. James Meredith was one of the first Black students to attend previously all White schools. The governor of Mississippi then was Ross Burnett. To ambush Meredith and the NAACP, he called upon the Doctrine of Interpolation to prevent Meredith from registering.
The Doctrine was an old pre Civil War law that gave the states power to stop laws from the federal government. This Doctrine became abolished when the Confederacy lost the war. Although it may seem asinine, the issue about the use of the Doctrine would have dragged on with pointless debating while Meredith was still banned from attending the University. President Kennedy, determined to see Meredith in Mississippi University, sent U.
S. Marshals to the University while he made a public broadcast explaining his actions an the need for Meredith to be allowed to go to Old Miss. A fight arouse between the White public and Marshals, but eventually, Meredith was accepted. Meredith was fighting for Equality before the Law and the Equal Protection Clause in the 14 th amendment. There had been a Separate-but-Equal Doctrine that was a constitutional basis for segregation laws that were aimed at the Black minority group, but also effected the other ethnic groups as well.
The Doctrine was formed when in 1896 the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring the segregation of Whites and Blacks in rail coaches. It held that the law didnt violate the Equal Protection Clause because the separate facilities for Blacks were equal to those for Whites. Cases like Meredith's, chipped away at the Doctrine, causing Supreme Court decisions like the confirmation that segregation by race in public school is unconstitutional. This helped the other ethnic groups because they were being segregated against too.
These events in the history of the civil rights movement were critical for its success. They didnt benefit just the Blacks but others as well. They helped change the way the Constitution was interpreted to benefit the other minority groups as well. Schools today arent just made up of White and Black people, but also consist of many other races. They shed some light on the social situation at that time, and were turning points in a long struggle. These single events, if interpreted corrected, can explain the whole course of the movement.
Free research essays on topics related to: 1 st amendment, civil rights movement, equal protection clause, literacy tests, 14 th amendment
Research essay sample on Equal Protection Clause Civil Rights Movement
