To what extent was the early civil rights movement successful in bringing about social and political change for Black Americans between 1880 and 1945?
Although the 13 amendment legally abolished slavery and was seen as a hope for a greater future for black people, the loopholes and racist attitudes shared by most whites in America meant a constraint on black civil rights. This essay will focus on the key factors which helped the civil rights and also factors which downgraded it such as the Supreme Court and a racist congress.
The supreme court was a major limitation to the black civil rights movement, they were not very lawful and they did not grant justice to the blacks but were unfair and biased and also supported white supremacy, this could be made evident seeing that no rules were implemented on lynching, the court had been very unconstitutional by doing this. In Plessey v Ferguson (1896) the biased injustices against the black race could be seen which enhanced a gateway for white supremacy. The Supreme Court did show its injustices from the beginning, starting with legitimizing the Jim Crow Laws .
Anti-civil rights movements were also beginning to take place, creating a massive opposition to the black civil rights movement, limiting if not destroying its ability to bring about social and political change. The most powerful at the time was the infamous KKK the aims of this group was to supress the wanting of black rights through terror and violence; they called it a “resistance to radical reconstruction”, the KKK also rapidly grew “by 1921 it had more than 100`000 members” as said by R Field. Though in 1870 the force act and in 1871 the Ku Klux act was passed by president Ulysses S. Grant allowing anyone suspected of being a KKK member to be arrested if there was evidence, the damage to the black civil rights movement was done. The Supreme Court in this case