Civil Rights Movement: The Role Of Segregation In Schools

civil rights movement because they created their own interests, cultural resources and styles of political engagement, in order to fight against discrimination. However, the legislative process to pass a law is complicated. There are many steps to take before a law is passed. Specifically, the bill has to be approved by the House of Representatives, the House of Senates and the President before it becomes a law and is enforced or the President can veto the Bill (Garcia-Bedolla, 2016d). Thus, it is generally difficult to change or pass educational policies. However, if the advantaged target population will have a higher chance of passing an educational law that will benefit them because they have a lot of political power. In addition, it would …show more content…
This resulted in racial disparities in housing policies and education. In 1896 after the ruling of Plessy v Ferguson, the federal and state government allowed the segregation of African Americans in schools, housing, public facilities etc (Garcia-Bedolla, 2016e). In addition, African Americans were discriminated under the excuse of the “separate, but equal” doctrine (King, 2000, p. 141). Thus, Plessy v. Ferguson legalized racial segregation and discrimination in the American society. When the government promised equal education for all, this did not include African Americans, as a result many African American organizations like the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) started advocating and working towards segregation of schools because to African Americans, education was a route to citizenship and freedom. According to Moss (2009), schools can facilitate the advancement of civil rights movement for all black people (p. 7). Thus, in 1954 the Brown v. Board of Education case abolished the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, because the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of races were unconstitutional, as a result all the schools had to desegregate (Garcia-Bedolla, 2016e). After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, many non-white parents attempted to integrate their children into the all white schools. For example, Mendez tried to enroll his children into Westminister Elementary School, an all white school, however his children was rejected because they were Mexican. In California segregation by race was still part of the law, so under the state law the district argued that segregation was necessary to Americanize Mexican children (Garcia-Bedolla, 2016e) . However, the court ruled in favor of Mendez, which will be the first time, the