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by Shawna Stockberger - Center Street Elementary - El Segundo Unified
Even though the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments of the constitution guaranteed all citizens equal rights under the constitution, African Americans did not attain equal rights until almost one hundred years later with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was only through the concentrated efforts of African Americans and church groups during the Civil Rights movement that freedom was attained. Let’s go back 45 years and see what it was like to live as an African American in some of the most segregated and racist cities of America when people were fighting for their inalienable rights...
African American students and white students were separated into different schools, a practice called segregation. The Supreme Court declared that separate was not equal in Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) and that schools were to be desegregated with “all deliberate speed.” Even though it was the law, many schools were not desegregated. The “colored” and “white” not only had different schools, but different drinking fountains, restrooms, and entrances. African Americans couldn’t go to most restaurants, hotels, public parks, and amusement parks. When African Americans rode the public bus, they had to pay their fare at the front, only to get off the bus and enter through the rear entrance, the only place on the bus they were allowed to sit. In many cities there was not a single African American policeman, fireman, or city employee. In many areas, realtors would not allow African Americans to purchase homes. African Americans faced segregation, degradation, fear, and in some instances violence because of the color of skin they happened to be born with.
The situation in Birmingham, Alabama was considered by some one of the worst cities to live in if one was an African American during the 1950s and 1960s. Nicknamed “Bombingham” because of all the unsolved bombings against African Americans and Baptist churches, Birmingham epitomized the need for an end to segregation. Imagine if...
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