What Is This Movement About?
About one hundred years after Congress passed the 13th Amendment, on January 31, 1865, under President Abraham Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the United States. However, there was still widespread segregation, discrimination, and racially motivated violence that permeated all personal and structural aspects of life for African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement was a decentralized, political and religious movement comprised primarily of African Americans who sought to undermine and overturn the humiliating and oppressive system of segregation, often called Jim Crow Laws, that segregated African Americans in classrooms, bathrooms, and many public services throughout the United States.
Major Goals
The Civil Rights Movement had many goals in the 1950s. At first, African Americans worked on abolishing slavery by serving and joining the military during the Civil War pressuring the government to end segregation in the military and later abolished slavery completely. By the end of the Civil War, African Americans fought for equal voting rights for all African Americans citizens and not just the ones that owned properties, paid taxes, or passed a literacy or civics exam. Another primary goal of the movement was to end segregation in schools. The NAACP strategized to bring local lawsuits to courts, arguing that separate was not equal and that every child deserves a first-class education. The movement also focused on economic equalities such as equal job opportunities and desegregation in public services in all aspects of life.
Other students in this POL 4900 seminar are researching other U.S. social movements. You can learn about their research here.