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Desegregation

By Eloise Greenfield

We walk the long path                    First Stanza: I think this stanza is about how all these

lined with shouting                          people have been fighting for their rights.

nightmare faces,

nightmare voices.

Inside the school,                           Second Stanza: People are staring at the new colored

there are eyes that are distant.      People in the school but they try not to make it obviou

We wish for our friends.                 Third Stanza: They want everything to be normal

We wish for our old,                       where everyone was happy and friendly.

laughing selves.

We hold our heads up,                   Fourth Stanza: they are trying to be brave and

hold our tears in.                            positive even though they are all going through a lot

The grown-ups have said               Filth Stanza: This stanza is saying how it's the kids turn to

we must be brave,                            stand up for what is right so that it carries on.

that only the children

can save the country now.

I think the theme of this poem is that things are so difficult right now and people are treating black people differently but only the kids and the younger generations can save the world now.

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The slugger:

Our national pastime by the name

Of baseball was once mired in shame.

A prejudice-sized fear

Whitewashed the truth when history wrote

An unforgivable footnote-

The asterisk career.

Tape-measuring his home-run success,

800 of em more or less.

Won't get you very far,

Josh gibson always knew the score…

Only to die three months before

The black man broke the bar.

He hit a milde the Jim Crow snub-

“No coloreds in a white man's club.”

All anyone could do

Was name him in the hall of fame,

A tower in the tarnished game

That Gibson never knew.

This poem is about black civil rights and how they don’t have many rights, so that when a black man that played baseball broke the bar all they could do was put his name in the hall of fame. The theme of this poem is everyone should have equal rights no matter what color of skin people have.

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The Voting Acts Right of 1965

Strained Race Relationships

African Americans first became citizens in the 1860’s

Also had the rights to vote in 1870

The congress made 3 new amendments after the civil war to protect and free slaves

The 13th constitution ended all slavery

The 14th Amendment gave citizenship to every person born in the U.S., including recently freed slaves.

The 15th Amendment reinforced the right to vote for all male citizens, regardless of race.

Whites wanted to keep blacks from having an equal place in society

After that they prevented the Blacks from voting

Literacy tests so they could understand the english ballot

All of the Laws they created was to prevent one thing which was to prohibit members of racial minority groups from voting

Change on the Horizon

All the rules stayed in place until the civil rights movement in 1950’s

One of the leaders of the movement was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Writer and activist who believed that african americans should have the same rights as whites.

Rallys were created for equal rights in Selma in 1965

Police and troops violently attacked the peaceful and non harming protesters

“Bloody Sunday”

Broadcasted on TV

The Voting Rights of 1965

Johnson was working on a bill that would help create the change that the protesters were demanding

tactics used in the South, such as literacy tests and poll taxes

prohibits gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing voting districts to have as few minority voters as possible.

Voting Rights Act wanted everyone to be able to vote, and wanted everyone’s vote to matter equally.

Second, it identified areas in the country with large numbers of minority voters,

required that ballots be provided in multiple languages in those areas.

it picked out certain regions with a history of severe racism.

special requirements that any changes they made to their voting rules had to be cleared with the federal government.

no local government would try to reverse the rules laid out in the new Voting Rights Act

Long Term Effects

Women were not granted the right to vote in the United States until the passage of 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919.

Nearly 250,000 black citizens registered to vote in 1965 alone. By 1967,

The number of African-Americans elected to government offices more than tripled by 1980.

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Saturday’s Child

By: Countee Cullen

Some are teethed on a silver spoon,

With the stars strung for a rattle;

I cut my teeth as the black racoon—

For implements of battle.

Some are swaddled in silk and down,

And heralded by a star;

They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown

On a night that was black as tar.

For some, godfather and goddame

The opulent fairies be;

Dame Poverty gave me my name,

And Pain godfathered me.

For I was born on Saturday—

"Bad time for planting a seed,"

Was all my father had to say,

And, "One mouth more to feed."

Death cut the strings that gave me life,

And handed me to Sorrow,

The only kind of middle wife

My folks could beg or borrow.

I believe that this poem has a theme of comparing children born into poverty versus children who were born into wealthy families. All of these stanzas relate to each other as shown that segregation and racial equality were and are huge factors in how all races of children grow up. In this poem it talked about how a boy born in poverty, on a Saturday, has always felt less fortunate than some of the other kids. The text states, “Some are swaddled in silk and down, And heralded by a star; They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown On a night that was black as tar”(Cullen). This shows the comparison of how a wealthier baby would be wrapper versus how he was wrapped, and that the night on which he was born was pitch black. The text also states, “For I was born on Saturday—’Bad time for planting a seed,’ Was all my father had to say, And, "One mouth more to feed.’”(Cullen). This piece of text shows that even his father was resentful of him just as a baby because they had to constantly worry about money and food. He feels as if he was never wanted because he was another burden to his family and to poverty.

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Short story (excerpt chapter 2) (The movement)-

Turning 15 on the road to freedom by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

Lynda’s grandmother took her to her first Martin Luther King Jr hearing at 13 years old. The way he spoke,confidently, made people want to do what he was saying, Just like Lynda. He talked about the rights to vote as an African American. He was very strong about nonviolence and loving confrontation. “Steady, Loving confrontation” were words that Lynda would never forgot. She didn’t realize it but at that time she was already in the civil rights movement.Everyone's goal was to have the right to vote. 700 people showed up to march for their rights, The KKK was riding around them trying to scare them because they didn’t like African Americans. Dr. King walked in and told them to prepare that they might go to jail. “Our cry… is a simple one. Give us the Ballot” he said before they marched. Black people would try to vote and they would get fired from their jobs anyway they would want to fire them. Lynda was confused why smart people could not vote like her teachers. They were proud of her for marching and let them skip school.After a week or so police started to arrest people. The theme for my chapter is,”Don't let other people make you forget about what you believe in” text evidence that makes me think of this theme is, “Before we left, the adults would tell us, your going to jail Do not fight back.”

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I read the short story, Freedom Summer by J. Patrick Lewis. This short story is about a three men that were supporting black rights and the KKK started coming after them because of what they believed. Even thought the KKK was coming after them they still had hope through the story.

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In the story “The School Is Not White” by Doreen Rappaport it talks about how a African American family is starting to go an all white school. The family is being made fun of and threaten because they are attending the school. Everyday people are telling them they shouldn’t be doing this, but then they didn’t listen. Finally at the end of the story it was all worth the struggle. The theme in this story is to never give up, because throughout the story they wanted to give up and quit the school, but they knew they shouldn't. For example on page 14 of the book the little boys says “I’m not going back, Mama.” (Rappaport 14). However, at the end they made a difference “The courage gave courage to other black families, and black children signed up for the white schools. The Carter children knew that their struggle had made a difference” (Rappaport 20).  As you can see the theme goes with this book because they could not give up they need to keep pushing in order to make their point and rights.

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I read the short story called Rosa by Nikki Giovanni. This was about how Rosa Parks was a black women who was just trying to get home from work and the black section was full so she sat in the neutral section of the bus but the bus driver said she had to move so a white person could sit there. Rosa refused to get up and other people supported her and her decision. She ended up getting arrested and did get out. The next day and the days after there were signs saying, “Don’t ride the buses; support Mrs. Parks”. Soon almost a half a year after the incident, there was a law passed that segregation on buses and schools was illegal.

The theme of the story is to never give up even though everyone around you is telling you to.

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This short story was about a man, Bob Weil, who was traveling from Atlanta to Mississippi with the SNCC. Him and a farmer were in a city near Oxford, which is where the University of Mississippi is located, so they went to go visit the Faulkner house. In that house there was a woman who was very ill, but Bob talked about how conscientiously she spoke to them for that little amount of time. The two men had a conversation about the irony of how the way William Faulkner wrote is the same way that this woman talked. They then proceeded to ask about this women, and as it turned out she had helped raise William Faulkner because she was a domestic in that house. William Faulkner went on to win a Nobel Prize for his work of writing but never gave this woman any credit or even recognition for the impact she had on him. Bob then continued to talk about the point that the labor of African Americans going on at this time was not only inhuman and were taking away their lives, but were taking away their culture. I think the theme of this story is that even though the lives of the innocent were taken away, the souls of those people continue to live on through other lives. The text stated “And there's actually been a couple of recent things — a couple of years ago there was a book called Was Huck Black? which I can't go into but very convincingly argued that Mark Twain based Huckleberry Finn on a young Black boy that he had known. And there was a recent article just a couple of weeks ago, as it happens, in the New York Times about a journal of a Holly Springs plantation owner that his grandson or great- grandson had had that Faulkner was familiar with, and the article was about how he apparently drew some of his stories from that journal. So apparently he did draw on those kinds of sources”(Weil). I think that this is a very good example of the theme previously stated because of the connection between the two. In conclusion, this short story demonstrates many objective relating to the theme of the Civil Rights Movement.

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The Jim Crow Laws was a body of laws that legalized racial segregation. These laws lasted about 100 years, from the civil war to 1968.  Death and violence would come to the communities who would try to refuse the Jim Crow Laws. These laws were very hard for the african american race, and many people went to high standard to try to defy them. The Jim Crow Laws were mostly in the southern states, and they traveled to the big cities with the southern states. These laws would affect and control the african American lives. African Americans had their own restroom, public drinking fountains, parks, and etc. Also African Americans were not allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as white people. As you can see, segregation was very big during this time period, and really affected the African American lives (Jim Crow). The laws made it so the whites were always superior and more important than African Americans at everything. For example, the African Americans were not allowed to shake the hand of a white because it was a way of showing them equal, and that wasn’t allowed. The african americans had little say in any abuse of things that happened to them, because all of the police judges etc were all white (What was Jim Crow).

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March on washington was a march on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was on August 28 1963. It was a protest to that gathered in front of Lincoln Memorial. Their goal was to draw attention to the challenges of African Americans. Over 200,000 people joined this protest without harm. They wanted to help demand equal rights for citizens under the law. They had the courage to come out and do this because of Martin Luther King Jr “I have a Dream” speech. It was a successful protest and it made John F Kennedy to establish a federal civil rights bill in the congress.

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Thurgood Marshall was born in baltimore July 2, 1908 an advocate for the civil rights, and he led the litigation that ruined the legal motives of the Jim Crow segregation (History.com staff). Also, he was chosen to be the first colored supreme court justice in 1967, and served for 24 years until 1991. He won the brown v board of education case, which led an end to segregation in the public school. During his early years of careers he traveled around winning cases for people in court. Thurgood Marshall goes down in history next to Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, as one of the most important people of the American civil rights movement (Thurgood marshall).

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This U.S. Supreme Court case is yet another decision about the terms “separate but equal” if it was constitutional or not. Brown Vs. The Board of Education claimed that the separation of white and black children was unconstitutional because the education was in fact, not equal. This case also relates to Plessy Vs. Ferguson which took place back in the late 1800’s; both decisions have the same argument in common, the term “separate but equal” in unconstitutional and not true at all. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were working nonstop to interrogate segregation laws in public schools, and filed lawsuits about this topic in states such as South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. Even though this case did not solve segregation between races, it has had a massive impact on civil rights.

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This was where the African Americans protested segregation and didn’t ride the busses in Montgomery, Alabama. It lasted over a year and was the first large-scale U.S demonstration against segregation.

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It was an act to US labor law in the united states that took out discrimination based on their race, color, religion,gender,or national origin. Lyndon Johnson had to sign the law which was to end discrimination in public places.This act was the most extensive civil rights legislation since the reconstruction .It was first proposed by John F Kennedy and had strong opposition in the south members of the congress.

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Martin Luther King was an American man that became the most recognizable spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King became a pastor in 1954 at a church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was still a strong worker for civil rights though. His race was very important to him. After he had become a pastor, he later  became a leader of the first negro nonviolent demonstration. He then was in a boycott call the “bus boycott” that had lasted for 382 days. After this boycott was over blacks and whites now would ride the buses as equals. Martin Luther King got arrested during days of a boycott and his home was got bombed. After this he later became a president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This was an event that organized leadership for the civil rights movement. He spoke 25 hundred times about civil rights and wrote over 5 books and numerous articles. He also had created a peaceful march in Washington D.C to protest rights. Martin luther king was a symbolic leader of american blacks and a great leader.

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Plessy Vs. Ferguson was a United States Supreme Court decision in 1896 that sustained the idea of racial segregation about “separate but equal” doctrine. Homer Plessy was on a train but he refused to sit with the African American passengers. He then complained that his constitutional rights were violated but the court disagreed because the state law implied that there must be a distinction between the two races. Its reasonings were not overturned until the Brown Vs. Board of Education decision of 1954. John Marshall Harlan urged that they had previously ignored the purpose of the Separate Car Act and it violated the Thirteenth Amendment. In conclusion, this particular case was a very longing and argumentative case but had one clear point of that everyone is equal, no matter what race.

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Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides. It caused violence and they were confronted by arresting police officers. They drew international attention to their cause. They would protest against political segregation due to black and whites who rode the bus in 1961. Seven black and whites left washington D.C and took 2 public buses to the deep south. Their goal was to test the supreme court ruling in boynton vs virginia. Which they declared segregation on the interstate bus and railroad station.Later it caused violence and issues with police and people who didn’t believe in what they were saying. It started in May and ended in December of the same year.

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The Klu Klux Klan (also known as KKK) was founded in 1866 and extended into almost all the southern states in 1870. The Klan was against any black or white republican leaders. The Klan had later declined but it became bigger again in the 2oth century. The Klan was lead by white supresistes and they would burn crosses, stage rallies, parades and marches against the immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and blacks. During the civil rights movement in the 1960s the KKK seemed to become more popular. They would bomb black churches and would be violent towards the black and white activists in the South.

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This stands for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This organization is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. They want everyone equal so they have objectives they try and meet. Some objectives they have are to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes, to seek enactment and enforcement of federal, state, and local laws securing civil rights, and to  inform the public of the adverse effects of racial discrimination and to seek its elimination.

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Malcolm X was a leader, inspirationist, role model, and hero to so many. His early years with family were very tough and challenging. His mother resorted to cooking dandelions for him and his sibling to eat, but she was later put into an insane asylum that caused Malcolm and the rest of his family into foster homes. Due to these traumatic times, he then rebelled and became known as “Detroit Red” because of his reddish colored hair. He was a street hustler, drug dealer, and the leader of a gang. Then because of these events, he was sent to jail from 1946-1952 but during that time he joined the Nations of Islam. Which is an African American movement that adds in factors of Islam with black nationalism. This decision had the most enormous impact of his life because it completely changed him, so after this transition he changed his surname of “Little” to X because of religious reasons. After being released from prison he accomplished many things having to do with civil rights and the nation of Islam. In 1952 he met Elijah Muhammad who, together, they organized temples for numerous major cities, he founded the Nation’s newspaper, and assembled the Nation’s racial doctrines on the inherit of evil of whites and natural superiority of blacks. Then he was the minister of a temple, in which he founded, in Boston and then the minister of a temple in Harlem. Elijah Muhammad identified his success and rewarded him by naming him the National Representative of the Nation of Islam. During the Civil Rights movement he spoke at various universities, marched the streets, and even challenged Martin Luther King Jr. During his many years of life, Malcolm X was a leader to many and accomplished so much in his lifetime.

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This was a group or party that was found in 1966 and it was to challenge police brutality against the African Americans. At its peak in 1968, the party had 2,000 members. All the members of the party would dress in black hats and black leather jackets.