Once again, it's been too long. Since I wrote last we have dug further into our civil rights unit. We started looking at the major faces of the time period: Booker T. Washington, who believed equality would take time and that African Americans should learn a trade, earn money, and that from this they will gain the respect of whites. Second, is W.E.B. DuBoise who wanted equality immediately, and believed that if changes were not made, blacks would always be inferior to whites. He also was the founder of the NAACP. Lastly, is Marcus Garvey, who was a major activist for black nationalism, who preached for separation and the return of African Americans to their home land. With Garvey's leadership, and the UNIA there was a major migration of blacks from the south to the north. Eventually, Harlem became a center for African American culture to flourish.
After this, we began our investigation of the Scottsboro trials, the arrests and convictions of 9 young, African American males accused of assault and rape on a train ride to Paint Rock, Alabama. After, many, many trials and debates, 6 out of the 9 were convicted. Many of the convictions ending with life in prison.
Today we look a look at segregation in the south, the idea that was allowed after the Plessey v. Ferguson case, passed by the Supreme Court; stating that segregation is illegal as long as the separate facilities are equal. As we all know, this was not the case. Especially in regards to education. This was the bases of the Brown v. Board of Education case in which the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments of five separate cases, all regarding the constitutionality of segregation in schools, all under one collective case title. In the end, the courts did decide that segregation in schools is unconstitutional and that the desegregation of schools must commence "with all deliberate speed." Not quite the win activists were hoping for.
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