Segregation and Civil Rights Essay -- Black Civil Rights in America

The definition of the term â€Å"American character†, in general, was in fact plagued during the 1950s. Instead of the believable â€Å"picture perfect† definition that American character was portrayed to be, it was really constructed of major struggles between different races. In particular, the significant struggles between blacks and whites. The 1950s was a crucial decade of change for African Americans. The results of the battle for nine African American children to attend Central High School (Little Rock, Arkansas) in 1957 promoted social advance for the permanent desegregation of public school systems. However, even with this nationally recognized social advance, the concept of â€Å"American character† varied between blacks and whites due to racial and social inequality. Back in 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial discrimination was constitutional. This decision gave the states permission to segregate citizens by race and to operate â€Å"separate but equal† facilities all around. Terrence Roberts, in his novel Lessons from Little Rock, shares his first-hand experience of neglect from society. Roberts states, â€Å"As a black person, I had no legal right to assume that I could participate fully in civic, educational, economic, political, or social affairs† (Roberts 19). Whites lived in great satisfactory after this decision. They remained the group with the upmost authority and continued to mistreat blacks at any cost, including denying them the right to an equal quality of education. Their definition of American character, being the wealthiest and the smartest, was still acknowledged as the existence of African Americans became more and more surreal. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Boa... ... Kirp, David L. Political Science and Politics, Retreat into Legalism: The Little Rock School Desegregation Case in Historic Perspective Vol. 30, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 443-447 Published by: American Political Science Association. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/420120) Lawson, Steven F. and Payne, Charles. ""Mob Rule Cannot Be Allowed to Override the Decisions of Our Courts": President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1957 Address on Little Rock, Arkansas." History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1998. Web. . Reumann, Miriam G. American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Roberts, Terrence J. Lessons from Little Rock. Little Rock, AR: Butler Center, 2009. Print