Obstacles to Civil Rights in the USA Before the 1950's

• When was slavery abolished?

  1865
• In 1892, a mixed-race man called Homer Plessey sat on a railway seat reserved for white people only. When he refused to move, he was arrested immediately.
• The Plessey case made it to the Supreme Court, in which the 7 vs 1 majority 'separate but equal' decision was made that Plessey was guilty of a crime, and that segregation was perfectly legal.
• The Plessey case was important because illustrates that even those chosen to be the highest judges, who should strive to see justice given to all Americans wronged, would ignore the sufferage of black Americans because of the colour of their skin.
• To illustrate the analysis point, one of the Supreme Court judges at the time, Henry Brown, is stated saying this about Plessey's defence argument: "The underlying fallacy [consists] in the assumption that the enforced separation [...] stamps the coloured race with a badge of inferiority."
• The 'separate but equal' decision would go on to have a long lasting impact in the form of Jim Crow laws within Southern states. There were separate buses, schools and even cemeteries which were not up to standard with their white counterparts’ facilities, and there were no consequences for this.
• The existence of Jim Crow laws is important because it proves that 'separate but equal' was just a legal phrase, and did nothing de facto to secure better treatment of black Americans, instead excusing blatent racism to continue unchecked.
• The main aim of the Ku Klux Klan was to intimidate and traumatise black Americans for the sole fact that they had a difference colour of skin. One common horrific act committed by the Klan was lynching. They would target a specific black person, accused them of a 'crime', and proceed to torture/hang them as 'punishment', in front of a crowd of excited onlookers.
• Lynching was important because it often scared black Americans into staying silent about their views on civil rights, as they knew that supporting the cause could potentially make them a target of violence and harassment.
• The connections of the Klan were important because it suggests that the Federal government was fully aware of the appalling actions of the Klan, yet they showed complete ignorance towards the matter to keep racist white voters on their side.
• Although, in 1925, there was a period of alarm within the Klan as a result of the murder conviction of the Indiana leader, David Stephenson. After his arrest, he released a list of public officials who had taken bribery payments from the KKK, which consequently severely damaged the Klan’s reputation, and membership rates fell by the thousands.
• During World War 1, the Great Migration occured, in which thousands of black Americans moved North to fill in roles in war-work. Around 152,000 black Americans had moved to New York by 1920 because of this. However, within city ghettos such as Harlem, poverty was common and people suffered a lack of access to basic human needs, such as food and education.
• The deprivation seen within places such as Harlem was important because the calls for help were ignored by State governments and the struggling black Americans were left to 'fend for themselves', which demonstrates how the government would use their labour, yet ignore their suffering.
• However, black American culture flourished in these places, where jazz music became increasingly popular within white communities, which helped to break down some of the preconsieved prejudicial ideas held within said white communities.
• When white soldiers returned from the frontlines, the black Americans had their jobs taken away from them. This was a contributing factor to the race riots in the Summer of 1919. Riots erupted all across the U.S.A. with black Americans more frustrated than ever. Many people were injured, some even killed during the violence which persisted for almost 2 weeks. Thousands of black families were left homeless and had friends or family missing.
• The race riots were important because black Americans were blamed by authorities for the destruction and chaos caused by them, despite the fact that violence was oftenly instigated by white agressors. This directly contributed to a rise in prejudical views.
• Popular prejudice was the most important factor because the entire debate about civil rights would not have happened if there had not been an extremely common prejudice against black people, as they would have been given rights initially. All reasons against civil rights are, at their core, rooted in prejudiced values.
• Popular prejudice was more important than legal impediments because the idea behind segregation was that black people were worth less than white people, and so did not deserve to share public spaces with them, which is an inherently prejudice view.
• Popular prejudice was more important than the activities of the Ku Klux Klan because the KKK is a hate group entirely founded on prejudical ideas against black Americans, and so if racism was not the majority view, they would've received bigger consequences for their crimes and had many less members.