The Civil Rights Era EOTO

The Civil Rights Era has been one of the most pivotal eras in the United States. The era lasted from the early 1950s and lasted throughout the late 1960s. The main goals of this era were to end racial segregation, fight for actual equal rights for all across the board, and just simply mistreatment towards African Americans. Throughout this era, many notable events set the foundation for future conversations and movements that soon came after. Some of these events include:

The Montgomery Bus Boycott 

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was started after Rosa Parks's arrest. She was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Although Mrs.Parks was not the first person to refuse to give up her seat, she was the most respected because she was an older woman. 

Her arrest fueled the drive for MLK Jr. and other local Civil Rights leaders. They organized carpools and pick-up locations for African Americans throughout the city of Montgomery, Alabama. This boycott lasted 381 days. For these 381 days, African Americans walked, carpooled, or used any other means of transportation other than buses. Over that period of time, the company's annual revenue dropped 69%. 

Freedom Rides

The Freedom Rides were a group of 13 activists from Washington D.C., a mixture of whites and blacks who deliberately violated Jim Crow Laws. They traveled through numerous southern states and did not abide by the segregation rules set into place by the states. The whites and blacks all sat mixed up wherever they wanted to sit on the bus. They were attacked by mobs, threatened by angry white people, beaten, and the bus was even firebombed in Alabama. These original 13 young adults were just the beginning of these rides, there were over 60 rides that took place and over 400 participants. In the end, mandated desegregation was the result of their hard work and weeks in jail. 

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that were set into place. In areas where there was a strong history of discriminatory practices, federal oversight was placed in the area to oversee the voting registering process. Their presence was also used to protect voters from harassment and intimidation. This event was the Catalyst for the broader Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. 

In conclusion, there were so many events during the civil rights movement that played a large part in the movement being one of the most transformational eras in history. The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and the main faces behind the movement still live on to this day and continue to inspire many young activists.

Brown v Board React Post:

 

Today, we got to sit in on a Mock Trial of Brown v Board. This historical court case was a landmark case of the Supreme Court that declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.  When a young black girl was denied entry to an all-white public school near her home in Topeka, Kansas, because it was not her “segregated school,” her parents, along with a few other parents, took matters into their own hands and sued the local school district. 

The Plessy v Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine was overruled by this case because it was determined that the white and black separate facilities were, in fact, not equal. After this, the Supreme Court declared that schools across the United States had to be desegregated. 

Today in the courtroom, we heard arguments from both Brown and the Board, and there were many valid points made by both parties. 

One impactful point that came from Brown’s party was made by Alsyon. She, along with her other teammates, made a great argument, but something that stood out the most was her part of the speech where she mentioned the fact that there were many other cases in the past before this case that argued for similar and the exact things that this case argued. She highlighted the fact that the argument for equal opportunities and true equality for African Americans has been argued for so long and that this one case was not a random case that came out of the blue.

During this period, before and after, African Americans faced many hardships, and many of those stemmed from systematic racism and inequality that needed to be addressed. Not only was it a continuing factor in educational facilities for African Americans, but it was also a continuing factor in everyday life for African Americans, and ruling in favor of Brown could become a start to something more positive. Arguing with each school and individual school board for an equal education for all should not have been a large problem at that time. 

But when it came to the board, many arguments were worded so well that you could change your mind about anything you first believed when you stepped into the courtroom that day.

The team that had to argue for the board made an immense amount of points that Brown had not taken into account when they made their decisions. 

While each person had great arguments, Cam's argument stood out the most to me because he brought up the mental well-being of the little black children who would have to face the white supremacists and racists during desegregation. Adults and teenagers can handle racism and the potential of physical endangerment much more and much more easily than a young child could. 

Integrating a school could take a major toll on the mental and physical health of the children, that is a major argument as to why it may be better off if the students went to their own segregated schools. Another major point he brought up was the fact that African American students and White students were on different levels education-wise, and it would not be beneficial to place them in the same classroom if half of the class was more advanced than the other. 

Although I did not agree with every point that was made by each person, there were still a lot of points that were made that made me think and helped me learn more about the period that I had not known before. This may have been my favorite mock trial to date!

University of California V Bakke Legal Argument

The case of the University of California vs. Bakke was more than an I did not get in, so I am upset with the school argument. This is a case of the law, treatment, Fourteenth Amen to be exact. 

The Fourteenth Amendment extended the rights and liberties of the Bill of Rights to formerly enslaved people. But when we add affirmative action to the mix, the lines of fairness blur. 

Bakke is trying to say that we - California - are violating the equal protection clause of the amendment by discriminating against him as a white man and not granting him a spot in our class. 

However, the clause is not just about treating everyone the same but also about creating fairness for all. Affirmative action is set in place to help historically underrepresented groups gain an increased number of equal opportunities. 

Therefore, this is not the same as the unfair discrimination against white people that Bakke is insisting that we have shown. We also did not break the equal protection clause because we were not discriminating against white people, we, as an institution, were trying to balance fairness and create a diverse future for America starting here at our institution. 

Then, the argument trickles down to “Narrow Tailoring.” The law states that any policy that uses race has to pass a legal test called strict scrutiny. Meaning that the policy has to serve a compelling interest, and in our case, this interest is race. 

Our main goal is to increase and encourage diversity in educational spaces. 

The next requirement is that the policy has to be narrowly tailored, meaning that it cannot be too broad or go further than necessary to reach the goal. 

In our defense, we meet these requirements because we only reserved a number of spots for minorities - but we did not exclude white applicants, nor did we discriminate against them. It is not our goal to harm anyone or wrongfully reject anyone from our school- we simply want to promote diversity and lessen systematic racism as well as systematic discrimination.