The history of a dream

Long before Martin Luther King was born, the racial conflict already existed. And if the Civil Rights Act of 1875 would have remained in force, he might never have been killed April 4^th, 1968.

The Civil Rights Act stated that “ all persons … shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations … of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement …  applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.”[1] This law however was rarely used and in 1883, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional on the basis of Government not able to control the behavior of individuals since the Fourteenth Amendment only prohibited discrimination by the State and not by individuals. Many other court decisions limited the rights of African Americans during the next century.

It started in 1890, when a law in Louisiana was passed that there should be equal but separate accommodation for white and colored races on trains. During the Plessy vs. Ferguson case in 1896, the Supreme Court decided that this law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equal treatment under the law for all Americans. Plessy vs. Ferguson “encouraged”  states throughout the nation, but especially in the South, to enforce Jim Crow laws which were laws to separate the races. The result of these laws was separate schools, waiting rooms, public restrooms, water fountains, elevators and many other public areas. It was also forbidden for African Americans and whites to marry.

In the 1900’s, African Americans decided to move to the North to escape southern segregation. However in the northern states racial prejudice and segregation patterns also existed. For many African Americans, housing was only possible in all black neighborhoods. The white population felt they had to compete with the African Americans for work, which eventually led to violence.

Around the events of World War II, 3 factors set the civil rights movement in motion:

·         In the 1940’s there was a high demand of soldiers and because of the segregation laws, soldiers could only be white male laborers. This created job opportunities for African Americans, Latinos and white women.

·         During the war, the armed forces needed so many fighting men that about 700.000 African Americans joined and this led to the end of discriminatory rules in the army. When they returned from war, the African Americans were ready to fight for their rights.

·         During the war, civil rights organizations campaigned for African American voting rights and challenged the Jim Crow laws. As a result of this, Roosevelt introduced a directive that prohibited racial discrimination by federal agencies and all companies that were engaged in war work.

These changes gave the African American people hope and were the groundwork for more campaigns to end segregation throughout the United States.

The story of Rosa Parks changed the lives of many African Americans, Martin Luther King’s included. It began December 1, 1955 in the city of Montgomery, Alabama where segregation on busses was a law. Rosa Parks took the bus home that afternoon, after a long day of work. When the bus got too full, the African American people were told to go sit at the back of the bus by the bus driver. However, Rosa Parks refused and said she wasn’t going to move because she wasn’t sitting in the ‘white’ section. To which the bus driver replied that he decided where the sections started and ended, and that if she wouldn’t move he would have her arrested. Rosa Parks replied calmly, “You may do that”. The news of her arrest spread quickly throughout the African American community and leaders of the community, E.D. Nixon (leader of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and many ministers decided to organize a bus boycott. They asked the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the boycott. King agreed and for 381 days, African Americans in Montgomery refused to take the bus. In late 1956, the Supreme Court abolished segregation in busses as a result of a lawsuit filed by the boycotters and African Americans were allowed to sit in the front of the bus.

On August 28, 1963, more than 250.000 people, including 75.000 whites, joined in a massive march on Washington DC organized by two veteran leaders of the SCLC. Their goal was to persuade Congress to pass a bill send by President Kennedy which guaranteed equal access to all public accommodations. They assembled near the Lincoln Monument where the movement’s leaders held speeches. One of the speakers was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He started reading his prepared text but after a while he improvised which led to his famous speech “I have a dream”.