Introduction African American women posed as critical juncture in the wide-scale efforts of the Civil Rights Movement (1954 - 1968), looking to integrate public services and obtain rights as citizens. Although the importance of their actions was often neglected by the media, their victories led to the movement’s ultimate success. During the Civil Rights Movement, African American women played a crucial role in the definition of citizenship and fight for racial equality against white vigilante groups and violence through organized groups of resistance. African American women raised awareness to outline the ways in which citizenship was being denied, and pursues an expansion in the definition to include African American women, as equal
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The Klan was founded in 1865, in direct action to the South’s defeat in the Civil War. The vigilante group targeted African Americans with threats, violence, brutality, and intimidation. The KKK believed that desegregation would lead to the impurity of the white, “superior” race. In 1919, there was quite an increase in KKK membership due to post-war migration, and the expansion of women’s roles in the KKK. The women’s Klan (WKKK) of the 1920s promoted racist and intolerant views, like the KKK, but also served as a social setting, where the women could interact and use their societal connections to damage reputations and organize consumer boycotts (Blee, 3). Initially women served as a buffer for the Klan, representing their support of womanhood, hiding the Klan’s lack of acknowledgement, in favor, of women’s rights. The WKKK soon became more involved in political acts of discrimination, and Blee argues that, the WKKK eventually led to the fall of the KKK, for the women’s expanding role threatened male domination in the Klan …show more content…
The laws enforced a “separate, but equal” mindset, which permitted white people, and within that, governments to treat black people as inferior, as they believed this to be. Black people were sent through different doors, forced to sit at the back of the bus, and could be punished, by law, for mingling, or even looking, with the other race; essentially, the Jim Crow laws, “employed a variety of means to disenfranchise black citizens” (Cunningham, 22). During the Civil Rights Movement, several protests were in regards to the Jim Crow laws. Peaceful protests and sit-ins became quite popular in the early 1960s against public areas that “exemplified Jim Crow-style racial separation” (qtd. Cunningham, 165). In February 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, four African American first year students at A & T College asked to be served at a segregated lunch counter. In this type of peaceful demonstration, the students approached the counter, were asked the be served, and if they were, they would move on, but if they were not served, the students would stand there until they were (Hansan). When the students were not served, they left peacefully at the end of the day, and returned the following day with more students (Cunningham,
The Klan was founded in 1865, in direct action to the South’s defeat in the Civil War. The vigilante group targeted African Americans with threats, violence, brutality, and intimidation. The KKK believed that desegregation would lead to the impurity of the white, “superior” race. In 1919, there was quite an increase in KKK membership due to post-war migration, and the expansion of women’s roles in the KKK. The women’s Klan (WKKK) of the 1920s promoted racist and intolerant views, like the KKK, but also served as a social setting, where the women could interact and use their societal connections to damage reputations and organize consumer boycotts (Blee, 3). Initially women served as a buffer for the Klan, representing their support of womanhood, hiding the Klan’s lack of acknowledgement, in favor, of women’s rights. The WKKK soon became more involved in political acts of discrimination, and Blee argues that, the WKKK eventually led to the fall of the KKK, for the women’s expanding role threatened male domination in the Klan …show more content…
The laws enforced a “separate, but equal” mindset, which permitted white people, and within that, governments to treat black people as inferior, as they believed this to be. Black people were sent through different doors, forced to sit at the back of the bus, and could be punished, by law, for mingling, or even looking, with the other race; essentially, the Jim Crow laws, “employed a variety of means to disenfranchise black citizens” (Cunningham, 22). During the Civil Rights Movement, several protests were in regards to the Jim Crow laws. Peaceful protests and sit-ins became quite popular in the early 1960s against public areas that “exemplified Jim Crow-style racial separation” (qtd. Cunningham, 165). In February 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, four African American first year students at A & T College asked to be served at a segregated lunch counter. In this type of peaceful demonstration, the students approached the counter, were asked the be served, and if they were, they would move on, but if they were not served, the students would stand there until they were (Hansan). When the students were not served, they left peacefully at the end of the day, and returned the following day with more students (Cunningham,