How Did African Americans Influence The Civil Rights Movement

Decent Essays
Not only had African Americans struggled with education and income during the 1960s, but Native Americans and Hispanics too. The minorities wanted equal rights and improved economic, education, and health opportunities. Native Americans and Hispanics joined their voices demanding acknowledgment for their needs and asked the federal government for support. Riots, movements and protests were organized to demand a change. At the time, President Kennedy and Johnson helped the Indians along with other minorities’ classes and signed the Indian Civil Rights Act thus giving them more power. Also, most working in fields were not covered by Social Security. In result, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez created the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    A search for a steady income and a better life with equal rights and opportunities led to the Great Migration, a term coined to describe the mass migration of more than one million black Americans from the South to the North. It allowed black Americans to gain better representation in politics such that it brought to light the numerous regional and equality problems that plagued black Americans in the United States. This led to a growing generation of black leaders who fought for the rights of black Americans, also known as, the Civil Rights Movement. During a time of racial injustice and the protestation of Blacks for their entitlement to basic human rights, music played an influential role. Famous musical groups wrote social commentary songs to discuss current issues that plagued them.…

    • 1927 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In 1963, President Johnson became the 36th president of the United States of America. His attempts to fortify the nation were undermined as Johnson entered a period filled with deep-rooted prejudice, widespread poverty, and transgression of the law due to de facto segregation. However, revolutionary changes were made which significantly influenced the Civil Rights Movement during his presidency. These included the legislation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the regulation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the hopes of the “Great Society”.…

    • 83 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    6) The Dust Bowl: The Impact on Economic Prosperity for Blacks and Whites (Notes) Hailey Gunter a) The Dust Bowl was a drought from 1934 to 1937 it affected the land and made it hard for grass to grow. Without the grass the soil had no anchcor, so the wind would pick up the top soil and swirl it into dense dust clouds.…

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prior to The Declaration of Independence, African Americans had a significant amount of presence during the Revolutionary War. The Boston Massacre was an approach that led to the beginning of the first critical event in the American effort to separate themselves from the British and its leaders. The first person that led to a revolutionary attack was a black descendent: Crispus Attucks, which upon following the Boston Massacre, African Americans participated in several other outbursts of aggression between the settlers and the British force. By the time of the Revolution, blacks and Indians were frequently excluded from the society that was building up in their own eyes. The rich and wealthy had a lot of the power among themselves, establishing rules and creating a system Colonies began recruiting and enlisting blacks during the 1700s, participating in the French and Indian war, Washington did prohibit the enlistment of blacks and enemies of liberty to America.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Mercer Langston was an esteemed, African-American lawyer and politician who made groundbreaking strides in the African-American community. Throughout his life, Langston held many esteemed positions in state, local, and national government, in addition to serving his community as an educator and helping to run colleges. Because of his contributions in politics, education, and achieving equal rights, John Mercer Langston was one of the most influential African-Americans of his time. He had a huge impact on the country.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the time period when World War I was coming to an end, opportunities for African Americans were very limited. Racism and segregation were still prominent, the greatest evidence of that being the fact that African Americans were not allowed to fight in World War I. Because they were not allowed to fight, they began to feel as if they did not have a place in society. So, many African Americans became excellent poets and jazz players in order to prove that they were worth something. On top of all of the racism and segregation that surrounded the African American community, the Great Depression hit, which changed the lives of millions of people. While living during the Great Depression was hard for everyone, it was especially draining for…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The thirteen colonies that became the United States had long been governed by the British Empire, however in the late 1700’s the citizens of these colonies had gotten past fed up with British rule, and the first seeds of the American Revolution grew. People of color as well as women longed for access to equal rights and suffrage in democracy. Although white men were already treated with this sense of social equality, they were displeased with the taxation without representation and inability to govern themselves. Although each category of citizens had a different reason for doing so, they all stood in support of the American Revolution as an attempt to promote their own personal freedoms. Free blacks in northern states sought to utilize the progressiveness of the Revolution and its fundamental ideals as grounds to push forward their claims to the same rights that all other men claimed when the founding fathers wrote the declaration of independence.…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The transition from liberal to conservative ideas was caused by the Civil Rights Movement, American involvement in Vietnam, and the mistrust of the government. The general population was ready to move past the civil rights movement in which the democrats in office were so invested. The Vietnam War was deepened solely by democratic presidents. The corruption within the Democratic Party pushed them out of office. Though each factor allowed for the transition, the end of the democratic rule started with the Civil Rights Movement.…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Both sides wanted equality for all minority groups, however each side had different methods and efforts hampered by respective causes. Presidents of this period of civil rights movements, namely Kennedy and Johnson, pressed for civil rights in the form of a national law, however their efforts were made difficult as Kennedy was assassinated before his act was put into fruition and dissenting opinions from Congress made it hard for Johnson to sign the act into law immediately. Civil rights activists were full of unrest from being discriminated against and formed organizations to stage boycotts in attempt to spread and enforce the idea of social justice and equality, but their endeavor was made difficult with the fact that there was nothing to ground their efforts as well protect them from opposing white citizens. It would be useful to have an additional document in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson to reflect the efforts of both John F. Kennedy and Johnson to firmly outlaw discrimination based on race, gender, or religious preference as well as to show the significant impact of the federal government’s on the outcome of the civil rights movement by assuring its…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For African Americans in the South, life after slavery was a world transformed. After the civil war, and the achievement of their new-found freedom, African Americans, struggled to gain the same or near the same rights that the white people had. Along with the fact that most had to restart their lives from the beginning. But little by little African Americans slowly gained their rights and equality.…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Initially, no one really was in favor of the idea but as the war wore on and more soldiers died, people became more interested in the idea. Abraham Lincoln eventually supported it, understanding that they were willing to fight and taking advantage of that fact. Despite how unpopular the idea was in general, he went ahead and allowed the creation of all-black regiments because he knew that whites were, at this point, uninterested in fighting to free the slaves while the African Americans were ready to go fight and possibly even die for the sake of their brethren and the preservation of the Union (Doc. C). Once it became a major war aim of the Union to end slavery, African Americans in the north were subject to random acts of violence, especially once a draft began for the Union army. Draft riots began, the most violent occurring in New York City.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history many a people have struggled with rights. Weather that Be getting them to start with or just up holding what they already have. There have been many people who have the fight for rights especially for african americans such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. people such as these two have had different but very influential effects on african american rights as well as other less oppressed races.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In Africa women were in a class below men but above slaves. This means that they were able to work but were selected based on their skills. For example they were chosen to work in mines if they were smaller and fields if they were stronger. Slaves are different than the ones we had is early America, mainly because they were usually prisoners of war. Slaves were either sacrificed, turned into a soldier or put on a plantation (a slaves worst job).…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    African Americans have had tremendous influence on the course of U.S. history and culture. Issues revolving around African Americans, such as the issue of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement, were some of the most important in history. Significant African Americans such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King, were also some of the most influential Americans to ever live. I will be taking you on a whirlwind tour of some of the most important African-American heritage sites in each region of the United States.…

    • 1131 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The outward, explicit racism that so commonly occurred during the World Wars, the Great Depression, and the following two decades had a lasting effect on today 's racial minorities and is seen in more implicit ways, particularly towards North Americans of African heritage. People of colour were much more frequently found to be the victims of racial profiling and police brutality, especially Blacks protesting for equal rights during the Civil Rights Movement. Coloured people are still more likely to be targeted by officers, or arrested for nonviolent crimes. From the First World War up to the end of the Civil Rights Movement in the late sixties, Afro-Americans and other people of colour could be denied employment based on their race, therefore causing a significant pay gap that remains today. Jim Crow laws in the United States and Native reserves in Canada created extremely segregated areas, dividing cities along racial and economic…

    • 1358 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays