Inequality In The Civil Rights Movement

Since the time of reconstruction and slavery, black people have faced inequalities and unequal treatment to white people. Continuing one hundred years later with the Civil Rights Movement, changes were made. However, not enough to majorly effect the social imbalance, and, to this current day, black people still face inequality. Throughout history, the definition and fight for equality for black people has changed due to changes in environment and social movements. such as the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s.
The oppression and inequality black people face can be dated back to the period of slavery and reconstruction. During the period of slavery, slaves were usually forbidden to read or write. “I had no regular teacher” Frederick Douglass …show more content…
The segregation of schools between black and white were representations of the oppression black people still faced. The white schools were generally nicer and more respectable, as they were nicer with newer facilities and materials. Maya Angelou writes about her black school, saying, “unlike the white high school.. having neither lawn, nor hedges, nor tennis court, nor climbing ivy” (Angelou 2). The way black people were treated and the occupations they had to attain are another example of the inequality. They were regarded as “maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous” (Angelou 45). They were constantly reminded of how little they meant to everyone else, which had a direct impact on how some of the race thought about themselves. Angelou recalls that “it was awful to be negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense” (Angelou 47). Although the definition of ‘equality’ changed drastically from the slavery era to the 1940s, inequality and oppression was still the reality of black people in America during this …show more content…
He tells the facts about black athletes, saying “in reality, an African-American youngster has about as much of a chance of becoming a professional athlete as he or she does of winning the lottery” (Gates 8). However, he mentions multiple times many people don’t accept or believe this. He mentions that many young black students pay more attention to their sports than school, as they’ve been taught. Gates proves this by bringing up the fact that “only 26.6% of black athletes at the collegiate level earn their degrees” (Gates 11). Equality to Gates is when “colleges stop using young blacks as cannon fodder in the big-buisness wars of so-called non-professional sports” (Gates 14). This means that colleges and people in general should stop putting black athletes’ skill level before their education, and, in theory, only using them for their athletic ability. Gates wraps up the essay well, ending with “until training a young black’s mind becomes as important as training his or her body, we will continue to perpetuate a system akin to that of the Roman gladiators, sacrificing a class of people for the entertainment of the mob” (Gates 14). The sad truth of this is that equality is still something that needs to be won for black people, although it is something different from the years before, it still continues to exist in our