Social norms found in the relations between different races in 1950’s America was not a pretty sight. At this time in history, Jim Crow Laws--racial segregation laws enacted from 1876-1965--were still legal. The Jim Crow Laws required racial segregation in all public facilities in the former Confederacy states, hiding under a “separate but equal” claim for African Americans (“Challenging Jim Crow”). For example, though African Americans and White Americans both had public schools, the quality of the African American schools were significantly lower. It loopholed for the unfair treatment of blacks. Patterns of segregation appeared in the North as well, with high institutions using discriminatory practices. The U.S. military was also segregated.
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It was an unusual mixture of Western swing, country music, and African-American genres such as blues, jazz, and gospel music. What was so special about it, and revolutionary, was that it was music that brought both white and black people together. The most famous symbol for rock and roll was naturally Elvis Presley. His music, he readily admitted, had influence from African American music. He credited them and worked with them. Some saw him as a racist southerner who stole black music, and racists attacked rock and roll because of the mingling of black and white people it implied and achieved. It was true that African American music/works were often whitewashed: their songs covered by white people often outsold originals, implying that many Americans wanted black music without black people in it. However, rock and roll’s influence among the teenagers indicated a sign of changes to …show more content…
It was in the 1950’s decade that African Americans formed together to challenge segregation and unequal treatment, to make way for what would be the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. “Thus enacting and symbolizing inequalities, consumption neither concealed nor healed social divisions, which were aggravated by the unequal distribution of and subsidies for postwar consumer benefits. The promises of abundance were made, but not granted, to all”(Whitfield & McGovern 350). In 1954, The Defense Department announces the abolition of the last all-Negro units, completing the desegregation of the US Armed Forces. It is also in this year that the Supreme Court unanimously overruled states’ rights and declared in the Brown v. Board of Education case that “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” The reaction of racists to this judgement and to the resulting establishment of integrated schools was harsh, but African Americans would not stop there in changing the social sphere. Within the course of 2 years, tragedies and victories take place: the brutal killing of Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American boy, for supposedly whistling at a white woman, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and segregation in public transportation declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. While the 1950’s looked like a peaceful decade to the majority in the country, under the
It was an unusual mixture of Western swing, country music, and African-American genres such as blues, jazz, and gospel music. What was so special about it, and revolutionary, was that it was music that brought both white and black people together. The most famous symbol for rock and roll was naturally Elvis Presley. His music, he readily admitted, had influence from African American music. He credited them and worked with them. Some saw him as a racist southerner who stole black music, and racists attacked rock and roll because of the mingling of black and white people it implied and achieved. It was true that African American music/works were often whitewashed: their songs covered by white people often outsold originals, implying that many Americans wanted black music without black people in it. However, rock and roll’s influence among the teenagers indicated a sign of changes to …show more content…
It was in the 1950’s decade that African Americans formed together to challenge segregation and unequal treatment, to make way for what would be the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. “Thus enacting and symbolizing inequalities, consumption neither concealed nor healed social divisions, which were aggravated by the unequal distribution of and subsidies for postwar consumer benefits. The promises of abundance were made, but not granted, to all”(Whitfield & McGovern 350). In 1954, The Defense Department announces the abolition of the last all-Negro units, completing the desegregation of the US Armed Forces. It is also in this year that the Supreme Court unanimously overruled states’ rights and declared in the Brown v. Board of Education case that “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” The reaction of racists to this judgement and to the resulting establishment of integrated schools was harsh, but African Americans would not stop there in changing the social sphere. Within the course of 2 years, tragedies and victories take place: the brutal killing of Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American boy, for supposedly whistling at a white woman, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and segregation in public transportation declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. While the 1950’s looked like a peaceful decade to the majority in the country, under the