Essay On The Civil Rights Movement

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During the 20th century in America there have been many rapid changes that have shaped entire generations in many ways. The Civil Rights Movement is one of the major events in history that helped African Americans fight for their rights. The Civil Rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. Two major court cases Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education showed how the Civil Rights Movement had a significant impact on how Americans identified themselves during that century. The first well-known Court case during the civil rights movement was Plessy v. Ferguson. The court case was based on a man named Homer…show more content…
had a very important impact on the society and standing up for what is right. Martin's whole philosophy was based around peaceful protesting. For example, he would be a part of sit-ins where many blacks would gather in local restaurants and sit in the counter area and refuse to move even though they weren't allowed to be sitting there. Another way was by speeches. Martin was very famous for his " I Have a Dream" speech that inspired many people around the country to help make a change to the way people were treated in society. Martin Luther King Jr definitely impacted the American identity in a very positive way. Sadly, many African Americans were not allowed to attend the schools they wanted or that were right by their houses. Most were forced to attend schools that were made for all blacks, but they were given very poor education and economically disadvantaged schools. Which leads us to the Court case of Brown v Board of education. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. (History.com). Brown claimed that schools for black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
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