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The Jim Crow laws was an expanded period of time in which the U.S. government had harsh racial segregation and local statues. They prevented African Americans from voting, education, and holding jobs. Those whom did not follow the laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence, beating, and death. This was a huge problem because it separated blacks from society.
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Ida B. Wells is an early civil rights movement leader, a journalist, and an anti-lynching activist. She wanted America to see the brutality other cultures are going through. The complexity of her writing allowed Americans to realize how bad lynching was and show society how horrific it is.
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Jesse Washington was a 17 year old boy with a disability. De facto segregation was used to trick Jesse into signing a confession even though he didn’t know what it meant. It was the body of a white woman was found on his family’s farm. He was arrested and charged with the woman’s death with no evidence. He was then lynched violently in front of a crowd who wanted to watch. This shows they thought African Americans/Black people or people with disabilities were automatically criminals.
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Nine African American teens were accused and convicted of assaulting and raping two white women aboard a Southern Railroad freight train in northern Alabama. The boys had no legal representation. It was going of off what the white woman said. This is significant because the boys weren’t adults, had no legal representation, fighting white older woman. De jure segregation was used because they went off of the white ladies word simply because they were white.
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Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black boy, who was brutally murdered in Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman. He was kidnapped, beaten, shot, and thrown into a river. His mother’s decision to hold an open-casket funeral showed racial violence, sparking national outrage. An all-white jury acquitted his killers, fueling the Civil Rights Movement. His death became a fuel for change, showing the public the deep injustice of segregation and racial violence towards blacks.
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Rosa parks was a black woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. In turn, fellow African Americans got upset and started boycotting the bussing systems. This is vital because in society back then blacks were the main group of bus users, so government funding from public transportation would slow and decrease radically. This is important because it pushed southern states to end segregation laws and further move the civil rights movement.
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The first 9 black students whom were admitted into white schools after the desegregation rules were passed. Majority of white people were unhappy with the situation and were harassing and promoting harassment on the black students. Eventually each of the 9 student were escorted daily by a military guard and later on the governor ended up shutting down the school. This is important to the civil rights movement because it shows how horrible African Americans were treated by just society itself.
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The Selma March also known as Bloody Sunday happened on March 7, 1965. Peaceful protesters were brutally attacked by police as they marched for voting rights. Led by John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., the march from Selma to Montgomery exposed racial injustice nationwide. This pushed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning discriminatory practices. This march was a turning point in the civil rights movement because it helps secure greater protections for Black voters.
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The Central Park Five case involved five Black teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of the 1989 assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after DNA evidence and a confession from the true perpetrator proved their innocence. Their case revealed the systemic racism within the justice system, it further advanced the civil rights movement and calls for criminal justice reform, especially regarding wrongful convictions.
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George Floyd was a 46 year old gentlemen who died on May 25th 2020 by being suffocated by an officers knee during his arrest. His death became a push for the Black Lives Matter movement, leading to calls for police reform and racial equality. This is important because it shows how the government and society today is making police accountability more important and how both de facto and de jure segregation is unacceptable.