How did the civil rights movement change the lives of African Americans?
The civil rights movement, which is generally dated from 1954 to 1965, changed black people's lives both politically and psychically.
The movement began in 1954 with the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared legal segregation unconstitutional and overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which allowed for public accommodations to be "separate but equal" and institutionalized Jim Crow laws. In 1954, the Supreme Court, led by the new Chief Justice Earl Warren, declared that separation suggested inequality. The decision resulted in the integration of public schools, which was the first step in allowing equal access to public accommodations such as buses (leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955) and lunch counters.
The movement was not just a push for political rights, but also a push for equal recognition under the law and greater respect from a society to which black people had contributed so much. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, disallowing discrimination in all public accommodations. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act forbade the various measures, such as poll taxes and citizenship tests, that Southern states instituted to prevent black people from voting. The act ensured black people's right to vote, which had first been legalized with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment and then with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which allowed for black women to vote. These acts helped black people feel more included in American society.
In 1965, the second phase of the civil rights movement began. This phase signaled an era of black militancy and self-determination that was marked by the radicalization of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael, and the formation of the Black Panthers in 1966. Black militants encouraged self-esteem ("Black is beautiful") and community uplift through school breakfast programs, instruction in black history and culture, and free medical clinics.
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