American History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

American History - Essay Example This act of civil disobedience became the spark that ignited the masses during the 1950’s and 1960’s in protesting the racial inequalities. The government, today widely viewed as a body that finds solutions to such social problems, was the entity that created this problem in the first place. The Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised black voters ensured that only white opinions mattered in the political process. Segregation, during the Jim Crow era, was not limited to transportation mediums. In Alabama, hospitals, whether public or private, could not require a white nurse to care for blacks (â€Å"Jim Crow Laws†, 1998). The subject of segregation became a much discussed topic during World War II. The nation that hailed itself as the symbol of freedom sent its young men to fight and die in a war to make the world safe for democracy. An embarrassing aspect of this high idealistic struggle was that U.S. blacks were subjugated within the very armed forces that were supp osed to stand for freedom of all nations. The black soldiers, of course, very much resented this lower class distinction as they bled the same color red as the white soldiers. The heroic actions by many black soldiers during the war began a change of direction in the attitude of whites throughout the country regarding race relations. The U.S. Constitution provided the lawful assurance that non-violent strategies were defensible in court. This allowed for the protests which inevitably led to the awakening to the black plight of many unwary whites who then joined the cause leading to the eradication of racist Jim Crow type laws forever. People, both black and white, were now willing to violate absurd, archaic local segregationist laws because they believed they were abiding and defending a ‘higher law,’ the Constitution. The original objective of the Southern Christian Leadership