Civil Rights Movement - Part 1

Hello class, welcome to civil rights movement, part one. If we're going to talk about this movement or time period in history, you need to understand what are your civil rights. These basic things that you were born with as a human being. Freedom due process being treated equally or the same in our judicial or legal system. Freedom from discrimination. That means you are not going to be treated differently based on race, gender, sex, things like that. And also equal protection under the law. So let's look at some examples. And you tell me whether, have your civil rights been violated? Example number one, a landlord refuses to allow a dog owner to stay in their apartments. No, this is not a civil rights violation. Example two, a landlord refuses to allow an African American to stay in their apartments because they want only white tenants. What do you think? Yes, definitely. The African Americans rights have been violated because they have been discriminated against or treated differently in a basic necessity like housing in favor of the white tenants over the African Americans. So as we go through this video, we're going to look at key events of the civil rights movement. And remember, it's a fight for freedom. Due process, freedom from discrimination, and equal protection under the law. So let's look at some examples. But before we do that, we need to look at the difference between segregation and integration and understand the problems this caused in society. First, segregation. This is when the races were separated. You remember this from the famous court case plessy versus Ferguson separate but equal. But things were never really equal. It created a society where whites were almost superior to blacks in society. And therefore, received different access to public facilities, better education, things like that. So integration or desegregation is a big part of the civil rights movement. To create an equal playing field where blacks and whites are together, whether it's in education or public facilities so that all people have the freedoms, the same freedoms and equal access to different things in society. All right? Let's look at one of our first example. Here we have president Truman. It used to be that black soldiers and white soldiers fought separately. President Truman issues an executive order to integrate the military, where blacks and whites would now fight side by side. Next, we have professional baseball. He used to have the Negro leagues and the professional baseball league. Jackie Robinson, a very good baseball player, came along and he was the first to break the color barrier or integrate American baseball, where you have black players and white players now playing together in professional baseball. Brown versus board of education integrates the schools. If we're talking about equality, one thing that was definitely not equal was access to public education and I'm sure you can see from these pictures here. African Americans did not receive the same quality education that white students did. With Brown versus board of education, plessy versus Ferguson is overturned and black students in white students had access to the same free quality public education. Little Rock central high school integrates. Like we've talked about in reconstruction, the federal government many times issues things and you see resistance or racism by the south. Here is one example. The federal government with Brown versus board of education orders that schools be integrated. Well, as black soldier, excuse me, as black students were entering a school in Little Rock Arkansas. They were greeted with racism and hatred. People didn't want integration there. They didn't want black students at their school. So this is an example of a very important part of our government. And it's when the president used troops to enforce a federal decision. In this case, integration. In some cases, the president uses this force to overcome situations like this because the constitution does have the supremacy clause of the federal government over the states. So this was an important example in the civil rights movement, but also in how our government operates. That concludes our video. I will see you guys in class.