Oppression In The Civil Rights Movement
The United States of America was founded on the concept that all men are created equal; however, it has taken us until the last fifty years to make significant strides toward equality for many minority groups. Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still inhabited a vastly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence (www.history.com, 2015). In 1960, the black Americans made up 10.5% of the total population and 55% of them were living in poverty (http://www.shmoop.com/, 2015). This is just one example of how a century of oppression can affect a whole demographic.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s included …show more content…
The four police officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer. The trial was held in a predominately white suburb of Los Angeles because the defense attorneys argued that the police officers would not be able to get a fair trial because of the publicity. The four men were all acquitted by an almost entirely white jury. This resulted in the L.A. riots of 1992. These riots took an enormous toll on the city resulting in 9,500 arrests, more than 2,000 people injured, more than 50 people killed, and $1 billion dollars in property …show more content…
Woodrow Wilson High School is located in Long Beach and was experiencing some difficult circumstances during the time period of the L. A. riots. In 1994, Woodrow Wilson High has been transformed from a high achieving school with little diversity to a struggling school with a wide range of diversity due to the voluntary integration program implemented by the school district. This program involved bussing students from different areas of the district forming somewhat of a “melting pot” at Woodrow Wilson High. With this diversity, there were also high levels of racial tension among the different ethnic groups at the school. This ethnic diversity included African-American, Cambodian, Caucasian, and Vietnamese students. Each group of students remained close to their own ethnicity and rarely interacted with students from other ethnic
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s included …show more content…
The four police officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force by a police officer. The trial was held in a predominately white suburb of Los Angeles because the defense attorneys argued that the police officers would not be able to get a fair trial because of the publicity. The four men were all acquitted by an almost entirely white jury. This resulted in the L.A. riots of 1992. These riots took an enormous toll on the city resulting in 9,500 arrests, more than 2,000 people injured, more than 50 people killed, and $1 billion dollars in property …show more content…
Woodrow Wilson High School is located in Long Beach and was experiencing some difficult circumstances during the time period of the L. A. riots. In 1994, Woodrow Wilson High has been transformed from a high achieving school with little diversity to a struggling school with a wide range of diversity due to the voluntary integration program implemented by the school district. This program involved bussing students from different areas of the district forming somewhat of a “melting pot” at Woodrow Wilson High. With this diversity, there were also high levels of racial tension among the different ethnic groups at the school. This ethnic diversity included African-American, Cambodian, Caucasian, and Vietnamese students. Each group of students remained close to their own ethnicity and rarely interacted with students from other ethnic