Past Colored Challenges

The United States have been divided between the conflicting interests of the North and the South after the end of the American Civil War. The latter was totally in control of the African American slaves and stopping every opportunity for them to acquire civil rights. However by the end of the Reconstruction in 1877, this granted the black population some civil liberties on the South where they fled out of the factories and headed to the nearest cities (Jenkins 107).

The freemen did not have access to education and could not get a decent job due to social discrimination. On the other hand, those who were educated were able to join the political arena but there were just minor numbers. The period from 1877-1919 became a tedious battle of the black population to achieve basic rights (education and healthcare) in order to be economically independent and as well as the right for suffrage. Pursuing for the equal rights of the black people gave birth to the journey of the Civil Rights Movement.

During the 1920s-1930s, small groups organize protests (usually in the form of boycotts) regarding the poor conditions of the blacks in areas of education and labor (Jaynes and Williams 220). It became a full-blown movement in terms of national mobilization when the case of Brown vs. Board Education (segregation in education) happened in 1954 and the next year, Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat for a white person.

These subsequent events ignited the long kept dissatisfaction of the Black people to the government’s blind eye in giving the rights of the black people. Mass mobilization was organized and led by Martin Luther King. The significant support that the movement gained resulted into the passing of the Civil Rights Legislation in the 1960s. However, the black people from the South have not been granted the right to vote. As from the words of Malcom X, “I’m not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner.

Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. ” Malcom X uttered this after the legislation was passed. The words written on the legislation did not make any sense unless those were implemented. Unless no change has actually materialized, the Black Americans will always be considered as outsiders. Works Cited Jenkins, Wilber. Climbing Up to Glory. USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Jaynes, Gerald David and Robin Murphy Williams. A Common Destiny. Washinton, DC: National Academy Press, 1989.

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