CIVIC LITERACY ESSAY Civil Rights: Segregation and Desegregation…

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Question Answered step-by-step CIVIC LITERACY ESSAY Civil Rights: Segregation and Desegregation… CIVIC LITERACY ESSAY Civil Rights: Segregation and Desegregation This Civic Literacy essay is based on the accompanying documents. The question is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents. Some of these documents have been edited for the purpose of this question. As you analyze the documents, take into account the source of each document and any point of view that may be presented in the document. Keep in mind that the language and images used in a document may reflect the historical context of the time in which it was created.  Historical Context: Civil Rights: Segregation and DesegregationThroughout United States history, many constitutional and civic issues have been debated by Americans. These debates have resulted in efforts by individuals, groups, and governments to address these issues. These efforts have achieved varying degrees of success. One of these constitutional and civic issues is segregation and desegregation. Task: Read and analyze the documents. Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, write an essay  Describe the historical circumstances surrounding this constitutional or civic issueExplain efforts to address this constitutional or civic issue by individuals, groups, and/or governmentsDiscuss the extent to which these efforts were successful Describe means “to illustrate something in words or tell about it”  Explain means “to make plain or understandable; to give reasons for or causes of; to show the logical development or relationship of”  Discuss means “to make observations about something using facts, reasoning, and argument; to present in some detail”Document 1:The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution aresometimes called the “Reconstruction Amendments.” They were passed inorder to abolish slavery and to establish the rights of former slaves. 13th Amendment: 1865Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as apunishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to theirJurisdiction. 14th Amendment: 1868Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . arecitizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No Stateshall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges orimmunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive anyperson of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny toany person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 15th Amendment: 1870Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not bedenied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race,color, or previous condition of servitude.Document 2:Alabama: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed.All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races.It shall be unlawful for a negro and a white person to play together or in the company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes, or checkers. Nebraska:  Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood. Wyoming:  When there are 15 or more colored children within any school district, the board of directors thereof, with the approval of the county superintendent of schools, may provide for a separate school for instruction of colored children. North Carolina:  Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them.The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals. Georgia:  It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls. Document 3:Historical Context:  In 1892, Homer Plessy, a man who was ⅛ black, sat in the Whites only compartment of a train in Louisiana.  In compliance with the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890, he was arrested promptly.  He appealed his arrest all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States; the main argument was that the Separate Car Act of Louisiana (1890) violated the 13th and 14th Amendments. The following document is an excerpt from Justice Henry Brown’s majority opinion on the case that confirmed the idea that “separate but equal” was legal.  The judgment was delivered in 1896 and the court case is normally referred to as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). That [the Separate Car Act] does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery…is too clear for argument…the act has nothing to do with slavery…A law which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races — a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color — has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude…  …The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.  Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.  The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced. …Laws are powerless to erase racist feelings or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences…If the civil and political rights of both races are equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically.  If one race is inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.      ocument 5: The Atlanta Compromise (original document): On September 18 1895, Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, this speech became known as the “Atlanta Compromise”.  …the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.  Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden. A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”… Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions…. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.  … The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized…The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-houseDocument 6: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. . . . In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . . . Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually inter preted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental devel opment of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system. . . . We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated  for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by  the Fourteenth Amendment.   Document 8:The Freedom Rides were first conceived in 1947 when CORE and the Fellowship of Reconciliation organized an interracial bus ride across state lines to test a Supreme Court decision that declared segregation on interstate buses unconstitutional.    Document 9: “I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of Democracy. I urgeevery member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors,from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shapea turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was atLexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it waslast week in Selma, Alabama. There, long suffering men and women peace-fully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many of them werebrutally assaulted. One good man—a man of God—was killed. . . .Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult.But about this there can and should be no argument: every American citizenmust have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse thedenial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us thanthe duty we have to insure that right. Yet the harsh fact is that in manyplaces in this country men and women are kept from voting simply becausethey are Negroes. . . .We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend thatConstitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath. Wednesday, I willsend to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right tovote. . . .But even if we pass this bill the battle will not be over. What happenedin Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every sectionand state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure forthemselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our causetoo. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us, who must over-come the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.And we shall overcome.”—President Lyndon B. Johnson, announcing his proposal  History World History HISTORY 123 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)

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