CIVIL RIGHTS

1. CIVIL RIGHTS

2. The personal liberties guaranteed to citizens of a nation; the rights to full legal, social and economic equality. The question of civil rights isn't whether the government has the right to treat people differently. It is rather whether such differences in treatment is reasonable. WHAT ARECIVIL RIGHTS?

3. Before the 1960s, the political position of African-Americans made it difficult for them to advance their interests. They lacked the material and institutional support for effective political organization. For example, in places where Blacks were the majority, the White minority served as their opponents for jobs, land,etc. Remember that whites were highly represented in the political system and blacks could not vote in most places. Therefore, the views of Blacks were often repressed. THE BLACK PREDICAMENT

4. 1. Racism From 1882-1946, 4715 African Americans were lynched. In the summer of 1911, a black man charged with murdering a white man was hanged. The public paid to shoot at the swaying body of the dead man. Reasons for the Restriction of African-Americans

5. 2. Denial of fundamental rights. These fundamental rights include voting, equality and obtaining equal access to public schools and facilities. Even in places where blacks did vote, whites weren't conducive to blacks' buying homes or taking jobs on equal basis as whites.

6. The 14th Amendment I. The Fundamentals A. Definition of the Amendment - It says: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law: nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” - When it took effect: 1868 CAMPAIGN IN THE COURTS

7. B. The Issue of the Amendment Since the key phrase here is “equal protection of the laws”, the 14th Amendment can be read more than one way: The Amendment means that the Constitution has no right to distinguish people based solely on color. Thus, blacks and whites have to be treated the same. In this case, a law requiring blacks and whites to be in different schools is ruled unconstitutional. The Amendment means that blacks and whites share [the same] essential legal rights. Examples: The right to: sign contracts, serve on juries, or to buy and sell property.

8. I. Plessy v. Ferguson Adolph Plessy, who was a biracial person (he was seven-eights white and one-eight black), deliberately disobeyed Louisiana’s law that required blacks and whites to occupy separate train cars and as a result was arrested. B. The Court’s Verdict (1896) The 14th Amendment does not apply to Plessy because the Louisiana law treated blacks and whites equally, even though it required them to be on separate train cars. In this case, the equal-protection clause only secures political and legal equality, not social equality. Furthermore, the separate-but-equal doctrine, which recognizes the division of facilities (i.e. restaurants, drinking fountains, etc.) as constitutional, is being applied here. Cases Involving the 14th Amendment

9. Brown v. Board of Education - In Kansas, Linda Brown was denied admission to a school in her neighborhood for the mere reason that the school is exclusively for whites. Helped by the NAACP, Brown’s case was taken to the federal district court in Kansas. There, the judge ruled that denying Brown access to the all-white school was constitutional because the black school that she could attend is the same in quality as the white school. However, that changed when the NAACP appealed Brown’s case to the Supreme Court. B. The Final Decision: the Supreme Court’s Verdict (1954) -The Court’s (unanimous) decision, which is considered as a landmark decision, says that the separate-but-equal doctrine does not apply to public education because “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Therefore, in this case, the integration of blacks and whites is legal.

10. In order to get new civil rights laws out of Congress, one had to mobilize public opinion and overcome congressional barriers to action. However, the first focus was to get civil rights on the political agenda and one way of doing this was by dramatizing the issues at certain people, especially non racist whites that were indifferent to black problems. They used confrontations such as sit-ins and freedom rides to gain public attention. CAMPAIGN IN CONGRESS

11. The most popular confrontation was in 1955-1956 in Montgomery, Alabama where Rosa Parks, supported by Martin Luther King Jr., refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and was arrested. These confrontations along with four main developments brought the focus on civil rights. -Whites were more willing to integrate with blacks, the media made it possible for civil rights to be seen as something that must be achieved. For example, ‘Dog lunging at a black man during racial demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama), Assassination of JFK (helped built support for Johnson to pass strong civil rights bill as a memorial).

12. Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls of many societies worldwide. In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior  whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls in favor of men and boys. Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote;; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education and to serve in the military or be conscripted. WOMENS’ RIGHTS

15. Affirmative action is the practice of hiring or having students of different race and gender attending a school or working at a certain place. The practice is to enforce equality and prevent discrimination in the workplace or in the education system. However, many people disagree with the practice believing they should be equal to everyone else calling affirmative action reverse discrimination. The right to let private groups behave how they want is called the equality of opportunity. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

16. There is also the issue of preferential treatment and compensatory treatment. Preferential treatment: The assistance of disadvantaged people by proving education and training. Large groups giving promotion and college admissions to minorities because they are minorities. Compensator treatment of minorities have disagreed with preferential treatment. Affirmative action fits in all this because it only is seen as serving a quota for company. The split in the situation comes about and affirmative action depends really on what you mean by it and your racial identity. After court cases, it was decided that public jobs, and admissions to public schools no longer use race as a deciding factor.

17. Many states passed laws that declared homosexual acts between two consenting adults was illegal. The supreme court supported this view by voting that there were no constitutional reason to prevent a state to pass such a law. Also, many men were singled out by their sexual orientation.There are rulings that prevented homosexual men to join the boy scouts. It was said that the court was reaffirming the right of a private organization to define its membership, even though they were not opposing homosexuality. GAY RIGHTS

18. However, there are states who support gay rights.For example, many Colorado ordinance cities passed an amendment banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Supreme Court supported this because opposition to the ban was against the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Confusing controversy arose now since states are allowed to declare homosexual acts illegal, but can't pass a law that rejects the ban on that law. The country is still now split between this controversial issue. Presently, awareness arises for homosexuality and sexual orientation as their political importance grows.