African American in American society

In the late 19th century, after Reconstruction ended, state governments in the South and some other states began passing laws restricting the rights of freed slaves in order to maintain African Americans as second-class citizens. Jim Crow laws required African American children to attend schools separate from whites. African Americans had to use racially segregated sections of waiting rooms and railroad cars and "colored only" drinking fountains and rest rooms and were banned from "white only" hotels and restaurants. A legal challenged to Jim Crow laws resulted in the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which stated that racially segregated facilities were constitutional as long as they were equal in quality. The Court stated

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The Voting Rights Act (1965) authorized federal intervention to ensure that African Americans could register and vote. Congress passed a major civil rights law in 1964 that made discrimination in employment and public accommodations illegal.

African Americans had become increasingly resentful of the indignities and limitations imposed by Jim Crow laws. Sit-ins, demonstrations, voting rights drives, and legal action opposed Jim Crow laws.

In 1957 a major challenge to the Brown ruling developed in Little Rock, Arkansas. Topeka Board of Education (1954) decision that reversed the Plessy ruling by stating that racial segregation was inherently unequal and, therefore, a violation of the equal protection of the law principle in the 14th amendment. Three years after World War II, President Harry S. Many white Americans also became more sensitive to the unfairness of segregation. that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applied to political, not social, equality. African Americans no longer suffer the indignities of being told to move to the back of the bus, being expected to give up their seats to whites, or being denied entry to restaurants and motels. He addressed the nation to explain why he was ordering federal troops to escort the nine students into the school. The "separate, but equal" doctrine dominated the social and economic life of African Americans in the South for more than half a century. Much has been accomplished; much remains to be done. Today African Americans in the South have been elected to state legislatures and Congress and as mayors of major cities. Armed with a lower court desegregation order, nine African Americans students attempted to integrate Central high School.

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