The Decade of the 1960's - Essay Example

Human rights advanced during the decade but not without an extended, sometimes bloody fight. It was a collection of revolutionary acts designed to gain the heart and mind of American society. Following WWII, black Americans, who had fought in segregated units, began to wonder out loud why they returned to an oppressive situation in a country they risked their lives to defend. Legal equality and economic opportunity was elusive for blacks, particularly in Southern States. "Jim Crow" laws segregated blacks from schools, sections of town, restaurants and restrooms while preventing them from serving on juries, voting and using various methods of transportation.

The 1954 "Brown vs. Board of Education" Supreme Court decision invalidated the excuse of separate was equal thus ending public segregation but the South didnt agree and for awhile didnt budge. The plight of black Americans was put into the spotlight by the decision then the next year. Rosa Parks broke the law in Alabama by not moving to the back of a Montgomery city bus. A steady stream of public civil rights actions followed, making the 1964 Civil Rights Act inevitable. Racism, prevalent throughout the nation, was now in full demonstrative display in full color into everyones homes.

The movement was, in itself a revolution involving great sacrifice. It certainly looked like one as televisions showed the National Guard transforming schools in Little Rock, Arkansas and Oxford, MS. into battlefields so black kids could attend. Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcom X and other prominent movement leaders were assassinated, students registering blacks to vote during "Freedom Summer" murdered and protesters beaten. As opposed to a famous saying, the revolution was indeed televised.

(Vox, 2014). While the nation deeply mourned President John Kennedys assassination in Dallas and the Vietnam War was ramping up, President Johnson introduced a range of programs designed to