African-Americans Fighting for Equality Essay

African-Americans have been vexing for checkity and freedom every since they were taken from Africa as slaves. They were stolen from their families and separated only to be servants to others as they were be itsy-bitsyd, beaten, put down and enured as nonhing. Many things have changed over the centuries, except African-Americans still fight everyday for different types of acknowledgements and pairity. They have fought hard over the centuries to decision segregation, favoritism, and isolation to attain pitity and civilised veraciouss.Through the Civil Rights Movement African Americans played important roles American history with courage, strength, and struggling to live equal in America. We have learned about important people and events passim history, solely the fight against discrimination, segregation and isolation have not ever been focused on. This paper will highlight how some of the well cognise and un cognise people contributed towards the Civil Rights Movement, in which continues to be fought in enter cartridge clip.Racial segregation was a system derived from the efforts of white Americans to keep African Americans in a subordinate status by denying them equal introduction to public facilities and ensuring that benighteds lived apart from whites (Lawson, 2009). Slaves lived in quarters far away from the professional person houses on the plantations, the only anes that lived in the house were the special chosen. By the time the irresponsible Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) that African Americans were not U. S. citizens, Federal whites had excluded blacks from seats on public transportation and barred their entry, except as servants, from most hotels and restaurants.When allowed into auditoriums and theaters, blacks occupied separate sections they withal attended discriminate enlightens. notwithstanding about churches, too, were segregated. (Lawson, 2009). Rosa park was famous for her courage to stand for her righ t to tease where ever she wanted on a bus, but she was not the jumpborn or only one to make this choice. at that place was a 15 year old girl that was arrested nine months earlier, but she was not attributed to the piece because of her status of being a foul mouth tomboy and get pregnant right after the incident (Young, 2000).Also when Rosa put was approached by the bus driver to move there were other African- American people sitting next to her, but because she spoke up first history gives her credit and was noticed by Dr. Martin Luther nance. It needs to be known that many people were courageous in their act to fight for equal rights. Basically Parks was at the right place at the right time, Parks arrest sparked a chain reaction that started the bus ostracise that launched the civil rights movement that transformed the apartheid of Americas southern states from a local idiosyncrasy to an international scandal.It was her individual courage that triggered the collective q ueer of defiance that turned a previously unknown 26-year-old preacher, Martin Luther King, into a mob name (Younge, 2000). Dr. Martin Luther King name goes down in history as the most well known activists through the years. He was known as a non violent activist, in which he adapted the philosophy from Gandhi, which was value not only by the black race but also by all other races. Kings speech I Have a Dream became what African-Americans live by for centuries to come.Also there was the, We Shall Overcome speech on August 23, 1963. Kings words at the capital that day were a specify moment of the Civil Rights movement (Bowles, 2011). King fought for civil rights until the day he was killed. There was a protest at Fisk University in Nashville in which three students was disgusted at the fact blacks could not sit at the tiffin counters to eat. C. T. Vivian, Diane Nash and Bernard Lafayette protested with others in Nashville on April 19, 1960. Nash confronted Mayor Ben West. In what she calls a divine inspiration, she asked the mayor to end racial segregation.He appealed to all not to discriminate. She asked him if he meant that to include lunch counters. He sidestepped. She said, Mayor, do you recommend that the lunch counters be desegregated? West said, Yes, and the battle was won. Within days, integration began (Weier, 2001). While civil rights activists were fighting on the home front, African American men and women uprightly performed their duties in two world wars. They bravely entered a military that was at odds about their presence and the appropriate roles for blacks.While more than 400,000 African American soldiers were going through basic training, receiving their assignments or facing the adversarys bullets in World War I, riots against black citizens were escalating in the unite States. By the time the Second World War ended, over one million black forces returned home to the U. S. equivalent of apartheid. Yet, with the knowledge of conditions at home, black soldiers still distinguished themselves in battles for freedoms, which they were unable to enjoy (Blakely, 1999).Discrimination was prevalent in the 1900s and African-Americans stood up to be treated as equal Americans as the whites, especially in the World War II. While ordain to fight for their country, some also made a stand against discrimination while they served. For example, on April 12, 1945, the U. S. Army took 101 African American officers into manpower because they directly refused an order from a superior officer. This was a serious rouse because, if convicted, they would face the death penalty (Bowles, 2011). They wanted to get acknowledged for their gallantry and accomplishments in the war just the white soldiers.America waited decades for the African American soldiers of the World War II to get the proper acknowledgements they deserve, which was too little too late. These men were willing to die for the country they were not qualified for many of the honors for their service. Though many deserved it, no African American could receive the Medal of Honor, the highest military award for bravery. Bill Clinton corrected this illusion 50 years later, bestowing the medal on seven men, but just one, Vernon Baker, was still alive (Bowles, 2011).These men were known as the Tuskegee Airmen and most of them died in the first place receiving their honors. There were numerous movements and people, even African-American women whom had a hand in battling for comparability. They had to fight not only for comparison from racism, but also transaction with being judged by their gender. The Womens Service Section (WSS) investigated federally controlled hale stations and yards at the end of World War I. Few women worked in car cleaning before the war, and sandbag management preferred to circumvent women workers, especially African Americans, from gaining any kind of foothold in railroad work.African American women were the single largest group of railroad car dry cleaners during this period but they were routinely denied adequate facilities, including toilets, locker rooms, and dining facilities throughout the railroad system. By raising the issues of facilities, workers rights, and public health, these women shaped federal indemnity and widened the agenda of the WSS to include a direct attack on segregated workplaces Muhammad, (2011). Black women wanted to have the same rights as others for going to school with safety and security. In Brown v Board of Education (1954) the Supreme Court reversed its ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson.They held that school segregation was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This drive marked the end of legal segregation in the US. There were other significant African-American movements that changed history. Starting in the 1960s, blacks in Akron began to draw for an end to discrimination using various tactics, such(prenomina l) as semipolitical action, workshops, and employment drives. Opie Evans edited the Akronite and began pushing for changes in his magazine. Protests widened to include sit-ins and other demonstrations (McClain, 1996). African-Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr .and Malcolm X have become icons of the 1950s and 1960s, but the organizational skills and grassroots activism of women such as Ella Baker , Septima Clark , Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer propelled the movement forward to many successes and inspired a new multiplication of activists. African-Americans have come a long way fighting for equality and freedom every since the slavery time. They won their freedom and more equality than the ever had along with ending segregation. Many things have changed over the centuries, but African-Americans still fight everyday for different types of acknowledgements.They have fought hard to end segregation, most of discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights. Refer ences Blakely, Gloria. (1999). The 20th degree centigrade in CP Time 1900-1949 We are a People. Sentinel,p. A8. Retrieved July 16, 2012, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID 490544881). http//proquest. umi. com/pqdweb? did=490544881&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=74379&RQT=309&VName=PQD Bowles, M. D. (2011). American History 1865- Present, End of Isolation, San Diego, CA Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved on June 11, 2012 from https//content. ashford. edu/books/AUHIS204. 11. 2/sections/sec3.7 Lawson, S. F. (2009). Segregation. immunitys Story, TeacherServe. National Humanities Center. Retrieved on July 16, 2012 from http//nationalhumanitiescenter. org/tserve/freedom/1865-1917/essays/segregation. htm Mcclain, S. R. , (1996). The Contributions of Blacks in Akron 1825-1895, A Doctoral Dissertation, Retrieved on july 17, 2012 from http//www. ci. akron. oh. us/blackhist/timeline/index. htm Muhammad, R. (2011). SEPARATE AND UNSANITARY African American Women Railroad Car Cleaners and the W omens Service Section, 1918-1920. Journal of Womens History, 23(2), 87-111,230.Retrieved July 16, 2012, from Research Library. (Document ID 2377762701). http//proquest. umi. com/pqdweb? did=2377762701&sid=3&Fmt=3&clientId=74379&RQT=309&VName=PQD Weier, A. (2001). She Socked Segregation Civil Rights Leaders simmer down Inspires Students, Madison Capital Times. Madison, WI, Retrieved July 27, 2012 from ProQuest. http//search. proquest. com/docview/395202519? accountid=32521 Younge, G. (2000). She Would Not Be Moved. The Guardian. London, UK. , Retrieved July 28, 2012 from ProQuest. http//search. proquest. com/docview/245609939? accountid=32521.