Civil Rights in the US (document anglais)

For all the African-American, the Civil Rights Movement was in 1954 until 1968. In fact, black people wanted to obtain the suffrage (=right to vote). For that, it was necessary to fight against the racial segregation (1875-1960). The civil rights movement wasn’t violent; they just wanted the equality about politics rights for each American citizen. Symbol of this movement is Martin Luther King.

Because of Jim Crow Laws the population was separated and the segregation was legal in the Southern United States. The Ku Klux Klan (organization with white people which are protestant) practiced the lynching, violence and intimidation on black people.

Ku Klux Klan Lynching

In 1954-56, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination. So, after the protestations the federal government took legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

The most important achievements of African-American civil rights movements have been the post-Civil War constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and established the citizenship status of blacks and the judicial decisions and legislation based on these amendments, notably the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision of 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Supreme Court said segregation schools are unconstitutional, black people tried to convince her to do the same for public places.

Another reason for the Civil rights movement was the arrest of Rosa Parks. This black American woman didn’t want to give her seat in the bus to a white person. So, she was arrested and the movement of the bus boycott begins. It lasted more than a year; it was like an act of solidarity between black people. King was the leader of this movement and developed a kind of strategy non-violent to rebel ( = protestation).

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