Brown vs. Board of Education

Brown vs. The Board of Education challenged segregation, mainly in the South. They wanted to integrate public schools, as well as other public places. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to end segregation peacefully and non-violent direct action. However, there was another group who thought the only way to end segregation was through violence, this group was called the Black Power. 

The President; Harry S. Truman organised The Civil Rights Committee. The Committee protected and strengthened the people’s Civil Rights. Jackie Robinson was the first African-American Man to break the color Barrier in professional sports. Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools had to be integrated. Organised  movements such as Boycotts, Peace Walks, Marchs, sit-ins and freedom rides primarily happened in the South. They did this for publicity, to show the rest of the country that they were not going to engage in violence, and to expose the extreme racism in the South. Emmet Till’s murder was an example of this. His mother fought for her son’s casket to be open during the funeral, to show how beaten his body was.

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote several letters from the Birmingham Jail,  explaining his non-violent tragedy to end segregation. He sought to remain peaceful during marches, using the example of Jesus going to the cross peacefully to show people how wrong Segregation was.  In 1963, at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous ‘I Have a Dream’; speech. One of his main points in his speech was that ‘people should be judged on their character, not the color of their skin.’ In 1964 the 24th Amendment was passed, it abolished poll taxes; poll taxes were created so that people had to pay to vote. 

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on April 4th, 1968. After his death, people began losing hope in the fact that they could achieve their dream of integration with peace. They began thinking that in order to have integration they needed violence. The Black Panthers were an armed melicia who supported this idea. This kind of violence came from the nation of Islam. However, as they went on they realized that they wanted to remain segregated. They wanted to be powerful and have their own separate culture. 

Martin Luther King Jr had core beliefs. He had sown the seeds of the Declaration of Independence. He brought back the founding idea of freedom as well as exercising their rights. There were two very different views to integration; peace and violence, Christian and Islam. The question, which one do we want to follow?