A history of the US civil rights movement - Essay Example

still contended with discriminatory tendencies, disenfranchisement, segregation and different kinds of oppression such as violence that is racially propelled. Moreover, laws at the state and local levels such as the Jim Crow laws, effectively prohibited African Americans from theatres, train cars, juries, legislatures, bathrooms and classrooms (Jackson, 15). However, in 1954, the Supreme Court abolished the “separate but equal doctrine” that was the force behind a state condoned segregation and discrimination.

This act of the U.S. Supreme Court attracted considerable attention to the suffering of black Americans in the United States and set a platform for a civil rights movement (1954 - 1968) aimed at bringing change to the land of the free peoples. The activists utilized various tactics in marching towards their objectives. Some of these included direct action, boycotts, civil disobedience, civil resistance, voter registration, community education and other nonviolent avenues. The results of the civil rights movement eventually included the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

These acts resulted in crisis circumstances that often prompted useful dialogue between the government and the civil rights activists. The government (whether local, state or federal), communities and businesses were manipulated into urgent reactions to the various circumstances that demonstrated injustice faced by the black Americans (Levy, 312). The African-American civil rights movement has a special place in the United States’ history. Because of the movements, there was realized a clear definition of the conceptions that prevailed regarding the nature of civil rights, the role of the government and importantly secured for the black Americans their citizenship rights (Jackson, 12).

An important consequence of the movement was the amendment of the constitution that saw to the abolition of slavery in all its forms, and the legislation