Dbq Civil Rights Movement Analysis

The twentieth century mark a huge milestone for the Civil RIghts Movement. New laws were being implemented to have voting rights as well as prohibit discrimination against race and gender in the work force. Integration was now enforced, opening more opportunities to African-Americans. Evolution of race relations changed drastically during 1914-1965, whether it be beneficial or not. The relations were evidently changing economically, politically, and most notably: socially.
Birmingham, Alabama, was heavily divided by race, and blacks were treated poorly. There was a lot of economic disparity: with not many jobs available to blacks, and if there was any the job would be of manual labor. The income of black people was half of what white people
Southerners made it clear that if black people wanted to vote, then they either had to have a literacy test, pay a poll tax, or both. During the Civil Rights Movement, activists for voting rights in the South were subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence. It’s evident that before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, on average, 35.8% of blacks were registered to vote (Doc. 2). The Act, passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, invalidated the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal examiners to register voters in states that had disenfranchised blacks. After the Act was passed, the average of registered black voters went up to an average 55.5%. The south was heavily segregated, and became the norm throughout the states, with Mississippi having no blacks attending white schools (Doc. 8) even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The 1964 Act enforced that integration was to be put into schools, and many were against of eliminating segregation, to the point where officials would shut down schools until there was none that are open. Even with laws helping eliminate segregation, there was still room for
Now more than ever, minorities make up more than half of the country’s population. The United States has truly become a ‘melting-pot’ of people from different backgrounds. The rise of diversity is not the only thing on the rise: race tensions are returning across America, largely after post-Ferguson. With the police brutality and the wrongful arrests of minorities, it’s evident that it’s too late to help. African-Americans bear the burden of being incarcerated solely because of the color of their skin. Furthermore, Americans will more likely say that race is a bigger issue than if said 20 years prior. The current presidential election has also dug the racial relations deeper into the grave. Voters are not only paying attention to see which candidate will side with them in terms of basic human rights, but also which candidates are digging their own