http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/evolution_of_civilrights/images/s...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson



A little background: the Louisiana state legislature passed a law that made it legal to segregate and make accommodations separate but equal. The Committee of Citizens persuaded Homer Plessy to get involved in a test case in the effort to get this law repealed.


This case stated that the idea of being separate but equal was acceptable and okay. The line of thinking that made this idea constitutional even under the 14th amendment was that the blacks would still be receiving the "same" opportunities and facilities as their white counterparts.

The major problem with this way of thinking was that it made it possible for whites to segregate anything as long as whatever they were segregating had an "equal" counterpart.

http://images.politico.com/global/2013/05/13/naacp_logo_rtrs328.gif
http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history

Founded Feb. 12. 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, campaigning for equal opportunity and conducting voter mobilization.

The NAACP was and is an organization put together for the namesake purpose of bettering the lives of colored people. This group was instrumental in forming demonstrations, holding rallies, fighting for the legal rights of colored people. They were behind events like Rosa Parks' and many other peoples' acts of civil disobedience.

Without the NAACP, civil rights would not be anywhere close to where they are today.

http://sites.duke.edu/docst110s_01_s2011_kgd3/files/2011/04/Brown-v.-Board-...
http://www.lawnix.com/cases/brown-board-education.html

Holding and Rule (Warren)
No. The race-based segregation of children into “separate but equal” public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is unconstitutional.
Segregation of children in the public schools solely on the basis of race denies to black children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even though the physical facilities and other may be equal. Education in public schools is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the role of public education in American life today. The separate but equal doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, which applied to transportation, has no place in the field of public education.

Separating black children from others solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The impact of segregation is greater when it has the sanction of law. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law tends to impede the educational and mental development of black children and deprives them of some of the benefits they would receive in an integrated school system. Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority and any language to the contrary in Plessy v. Ferguson is rejected.

In short, the decision was that having the idea of separate but equal was unconstitutional because even though facilities and supplies may be equal, separation is inherently unequal.

http://esg6rzdhdg9i115s.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/...
http://www.nndb.com/people/263/000073044/

Till was a 14 year old boy visiting Money, Mississippi to work for the summer. The whole story started one night when he was hanging around the store with some of his friends and he was bragging about his interactions with girls and his white girlfriend back home.
One of Till's friends then issued him a dare. He said that there was a white girl over in the store and that he bet that Till wouldn't go over and talk to her. Till got up, went into the store to buys some candy and at the counter he started talking fresh to the girl, who happened to be the owners. He didn't hear about it for a few days until some men showed up up at the house one night and took him with them. By morning, Till was battered beyond recognition and dead.

The impact of this event is that it is a horrible example of the violence and brutality that was levied against blacks at this time. It told people that something had to be done about this violence. Mamie Till added to this by making the funeral one with an open casket in order to let the world know what had happened.

Learn a little more about racial brutality in the south: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdSYxZqIXc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks


http://www.vibe.com/sites/vibe.com/files/styles/main_image/public/article_i...




On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation. Others had taken similar steps in the twentieth century, including Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and the members of the Browder v. Gayle lawsuit (Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith) arrested months before Parks. NAACP organizers believed that Parks was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws though eventually her case became bogged down in the state courts.

This act of disobedience kicked off a huge step in the civil rights movement. The blacks around Montgomery were determined to end segregation on buses as one of there baby steps toward equality. The boycotts of buses lasted nearly a year and were extremely effective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine


The Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower.

This was one of the first groups of African-Americans to exercise their right to go to the same school as the white kids

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/history/CivilRightsAct.cfm






The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the nation's benchmark civil rights legislation, and it continues to resonate in America. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Passage of the Act ended the application of "Jim Crow" laws, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court held that racial segregation purported to be "separate but equal" was constitutional. The Civil Rights Act was eventually expanded by Congress to strengthen enforcement of these fundamental civil rights.

This made all types of discrimination illegal and was another huge foothold that blacks had gained in America.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._...

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/martinlutherking/a/mlkassass.htm



At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. The .30-caliber rifle bullet entered King's right cheek, traveled through his neck, and finally stopped at his shoulder blade. King was immediately taken to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.

Violence and controversy followed. In outrage of the murder, many blacks took to the streets across the United States in a massive wave of riots. The FBI investigated the crime, but many believed them partially or fully responsible for the assassination. An escaped convict by the name of James Earl Ray was arrested, but many people, including some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s own family, believe he was innocent.

Dr. King one of the people that brought zeal and purpose to the civil rights movement. He may have lived a very short mortal life, but he will live eternally in the hearts and history books of our nation.

Check out part of King's most famous speech:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V57lotnKGF8