The Struggle for Freedom and Equality in the 20th Century
Assignment 2: The Struggle for Freedom and Equality in the 20th Century Due Week 9 and worth 180 points As illustrated within the text, the twentieth century saw highs and lows in the arena of civil rights for African-Americans. At every opportunity—whether through war or legislation—black and white activists worked to overcome unjust treatment of African-Americans. Such activity reached a crescendo in the 1950s and 1960s but waned in the 1970s. Within this assignment, you will explore the timeline of the struggle for equality and highlight the successes and the eventual pitfalls of the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century. To prepare, use the Internet or Strayer databases to research major events of the Civil Rights Movement in the twentieth century. For additional information, explore the encyclopedia found on The King Center’s Website, located at http://mlk-kpp01(dot)stanford(dot)edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia_contents. Write a five to six (5-6) page paper in which you: 1. Examine at least two (2) of the primary methods that African-Americans in the early twentieth century used in order to overcome the policies of segregation that were codified at the federal, state, or local level, and determine the effectiveness of the methods in question. Provide a rationale for your response. 2. Specify two (2) catalysts that contributed to the beginnings of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Justify your response. 3. Determine two (2) goals of the Civil Rights Movement, and explore the fundamental reasons these goals had limited effect during and after the 1960s. Focus on the areas of class, gender, and sexuality. Justify your response. 4. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length. The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are: Discuss African-Americans’ experiences for a better understanding of their relation to the national history. Distinguish primary and secondary historical sources and evaluate them critically. Describe and evaluate the roles and contributions of African-American women and men in the history and culture of the U.S. and the world. Evaluate the different, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations of historians on important aspects of African-American history. Explain the origins and development of contemporary discussions about race in U.S. society. Identify the varied cultural expressions within African-American communities and their impact on U.S. culture. Explain the key social forces and legal battles pertinent to African-Americans since the nation’s founding. Use technology and information resources to research issues in African-American history. Write clearly and concisely about African-American history using critical and analytical thought.
The Struggle for Freedom and Equality
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The Struggle for Freedom and Equality
The African Americans that lived in South had encountered a progressive system of legalized unfairness around the end of reconstruction in the twentieth century. The legalized discrimination was later to be termed as “Jim Crow”. Starting the year one thousand eight hundred and eighties, the states of southern sides passed laws which mandated the division of the races in public areas. The disfranchisement laws were effective enough around the turn of the century, such that almost all African Americans from Southern area had been robbed of their right to vote (King, 2010). Moreover, the white southerners chose to apply racial intimidation and violence, while the victims did have limited option in the courts. Find herein, the methods used by the African Americans to overcome the codified segregation at federal, state, or local level, and a determination of the methods through personal rationale. There is evidence that various catalysts also contributed to modern Civil Rights Movement that had several goals, even though fundamental reasons contributed to limited effects around the nineteen sixties.
The African Americans could not simply tolerate the increasing attacks from the whites on the freedom. They had tried to abolish it through daily resistance, public protests as well as court challenges. This group in conjunction with the white activists had continuously insisted that the African Americans were entitled to the rights that the other citizens had. However, different groups of African American had different opinions of the ways of responding to the increased abrogation of their rights. Two different groups responded in two different ways depending on their right understanding of the possible solution. Some of the African Americans were led by Booker T. Washington, who believed that the most appropriate way of engendering the respect of the whites was to pursue economic and industrial education uplift. Washington extolled the advantages of hard work and individual thrift as well as building a powerful black institutions. This method of overcoming the segregation through uplift of his race had a reasonable numbers of African American followers. Moreover, it helped in offering pragmatic reaction to a deterioration racial climate at the times that African Americans had limited options open to them. However, this method was criticized by some people who felt that this approach was too lenient of oppressive conditions and segregation (McGuire & Dittmer, 2011).
The personal rationale would be that even though the method was helpful to the African Americans in that they were able to develop economically and raise their standards of living, through establishment of multi-million dollar companies, institutions of higher learning and daily observational newspaper, yet it was ineffective in overcoming the segregation. The whites would still continue with the legal discrimination and would not publicly acknowledge economic efforts and contributions made by the blacks. On the other hand, W.E.B. DuBois led another team of African Americans who insisted that the real and effective key to attaining the respect of the whites in engaging in real political and civil equality. Du Bois advocated direct as well as unending protest against all the forms of racial discrimination, where he led twenty-nine African American activists in the year one thousand nine hundred and five. The motive was to form the Niagara movement that made demands of all the rights that belonged to a free-born American, whether in civil, social or political aspect. This movement made little advancement but it became a forerunner for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is an organization of civil rights and has been very helpful in that area. These two methods were applied by the respective groups in the eagerness to overcome the dehumanizing issues that were facing the African Americans at the specific time.
The civil rights war was greatly contributed by the rise of oppression of the blacks in the twentieth century. However, the during the greatest mass movement in the history of America, the demonstrations of African Americans were all over the nation. The aims of demonstrations were to seek constitutional fairness at the national level plus ending the massive resistance that was going on ...