1950s Civil Rights Essay (APUSH)

Please keep in mind that I wrote this essay in a time span of 50 minutes, so it's not perfect. PLEASE do not copy this essay or plagiarize it in any way-- cite my blog if you are using this essay. Thanks!

The prompt of this essay:
"The civil rights advances of the 1950s were more a result of government actions than of initiatives by the African-Americans themselves."

Assess the validity of this statement.

My essay:

After World War II, an influx of African-American people began to move to the northern cities, bringing their culture as well as their want for civil rights. As many of these people were prevented from expressing their opinions (especially in the South) and as segregation became more prominent, a movement toward civil rights began to form. Through the actions of the government and the African-American people alike, the 1950s brought the first civil rights legislation since the Reconstruction. The statement above is only partially valid because while the government's legislation had the ability to enforce the new legislation, African-Americans were the ones who drove the government to make that new civil rights legislation.

Most of the resistance coming from the South, various actions by African-Americans caused legislation in their own states and made resounding effects throughout the rest of the country. In the South, the Jim Crow laws had been passed, discriminating against African-Americans and making the call for civil rights more important in the South. The brutality of these laws as well as the hostile atmosphere of the South was shown when members of the KKK murdered Emmett Till and were left with a lax la sentence. Till's mutilated body was sent back north; an open casket and a horrified public made Till one of the images of the civil rights movement, his death making him somewhat a martyr for civil rights. Till's mother could also be seen as an advocate for the cause as she was the one who insisted on the open casket. Others, such as Rosa Parks, found other ways to help. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, causing the Montgomery bus boycott. With the support of Martin Luther Kin Jr. and many other African-Americans, the government took notice and made legislation to better the situation. While some change was confined to a single state, the federal government also made legislation to help African-Americans across the nation. In the case of Brown v. the Board of Education, it was ruled that schools should be desegregated because the "separate but equal" idea of Plessy v. Ferguson was not being enforced, and equality could not be reached at all with the idea of separation. Marshall documented this in his pictures of the poor conditions of schools for African-Americans. Starting with Meridith's admittance into law school, integration had begun. Meridith was admitted into a white law school because there were no law schools for African-Americans at the time, violating the idea of "separate but equal." With lots of media coverage, the integration in states such as Arkansas did not go well, but government enforcement (I should have talked about Eisenhower here, about how he deployed federal troops to strike down the riots) and the will of African-Americans (such as Elizabeth Eckford) brought this victory for civil rights. More legislation was passed, such as the Civil Rights Bill of 1957, showing the government's weak but present enforcement. While African-Americans brought about some aspects of the civil rights movement, the movement was enforced by the government.

With leaders among the African-American community as well as the government, civil rights were attained. Without the voting influence and initiative by the African-Americans, the government would not have felt the pressure to pass and enforce so much civil rights legislation. Clearly, the statement is only partially valid because the efforts of both the government and the African-Americans themselves brought about civil rights advances.

Things I should have talked about/ expanded upon more:

-government intervention (extend)
-"The Invisible Man"


Well, that was my essay. I now realize how poor it was but I hope that it helps you a little! Maybe I'll go back and fix it one day if I have time. If this helped, I can put up some other essays and stuff, just let me know. Oh, and in my defense, I was unprepared for this essay because I thought we were doing to get an essay comparing and contrasting Eisenhower and JFK's strategies, which I made a chart for. I will put that up when I find it in the mess that is also known as my room.

(This wasn't to procrastinate from cleaning my room, for the record. But off the record, it totally was.)

Lux