Segregation and the Civil Rights Movement Essay -- Black struggle for

Protest against injustice is deeply rooted in the African American experience. The origins of the civil rights movement date much further back than the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which said, "separate but equal" schools violated the Constitution. From the earliest slave revolts in this country over 400 years ago, African Americans strove to gain full participation in every aspect of political, economic and social life in the United States. Segregation was an attempt by white Southerners to separate the races in every sphere of life and to achieve supremacy over blacks. Segregation was often called the Jim Crow system, after a minstrel show character from the 1830s that was an old, crippled, black slave who embodied negative stereotypes of blacks. Segregation became common in the Southern states following the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The system of segregation also included the denial of voting rights, known as disfranchisement. Between 1890 and 1910 all Southern states passed laws imposing requirements for voting that were used to prevent blacks from voting, in spite of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which had been designed to protect black voting rights. These requirements included: the ability to read and write, which disqualified the many blacks who had not had access to education; property ownership, something few blacks were able to acquire; and paying a toll tax, which was too great a burden on most Southern Blacks, who were very poor. Because blacks could not vote, they were virtually powerless to prevent whites from segregating all aspects of Southern life. Blacks fought against discrimination whenever possible. In the ... ...d a struggle without end, as black citizens sought education, employment, respect, and freedom in a discriminatory society. The history of African Americans in this country is one of tragedy and violence, but it is also one of courage and strength, filled with determination and hope. Bibliography "Civil Rights." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 04 June 2013. . "Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)." Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956). The Martin Luther King Jr Research and Education Institute, n.d. Web. 04 June 2013. . Wilson, Louis. "Taking on Segregation." The Americans. By Gerald Danzer. N.p.: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 701. Print.