Black Civil Rights Essay
In the mid 1950’sthe status of Black Americans was well below that of White Americans. This can be seen in areas such as segregation, education, employment, politics, housing and health throughout the Southern and Northern States. However, there were moves made to change up to 1962 in education, transport and other public areas.
Discrimination differed between Northern and Southern States. In the North, although there were no laws on segregation there were still discriminary practises called De Facto segregation which was done within the community, making the Blacks feel unwanted and unwelcomed in public places such as cafes, schools and libraries. Anyone who opposed the segregation was punished by the community which usually was violent. Blacks migrated to the North for a better life and more work opportunities and to build the black culture. However discrimination meant most Blacks could not choose where to live so large ghettos were developed which consisted of poverty and bad health. Employment was another area of crisis as well paid jobs were out of reach for blacks as the Whites believed that Blacks shouldn’t rise economically. They were also out of reach because Blacks didn’t receive the same training. Schools were segregated according to colour. Individual States and school districts allocated money to fund the schools, however spending on Black schools was below that of Whites. While Blacks could vote there were very few politicians to represent their interests
Discrimination was worse for Blacks living in the Southern States. Segregation was the major issue as laws in the South enforced the complete separation of races. This was called “Jim Crow” and was based on the idea “separate but equal”, so there would be white cafes and black cafes, white trains and black trains, white stores and black stores, white schools and black schools etc. It was acceptable as long as the facilities for both races were of equal standard, but...