It cannot be argued that African Americans have persevered to overcome and diminish the obstacles on the path to racial equality. Starting with the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery, the southern states found other ways to prevent African Americans from acting as equal members of society. Even in present day, with the election of President Barack Obama, African Americans are still faced with being treated as less than equal members of society.
The 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolished slavery and gave actual hope of freedom and equality. Though slavery was abolished, southern states found different methods to continuously set African Americans …show more content…
This church was often used for civil rights movement meetings. Though never arrested it is believed that the Ku Klux Klan were responsible for the bombing of the church in an attempt to disrupt the civil rights movement. It is also believed that the J Edgar Hoover, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at that time, had information on the bombing but chose not to act on it only to die a few years later. Blacks rioted violently in …show more content…
Malcolm X was also a civil rights leader that approached the civil rights movement differently than Martin Luther King. X preached a more militant approach due in part to his time spent in jail. Malcolm X developed distrust for white America in his childhood. The Ku Klux Klan burned down his house and murdered his father. Malcolm X turned to crime that landed him in jail. It was his time in prison that changed his way of life. X began to educate himself and eventually convert to Islam. Malcolm felt his lineage had been destroyed by slavery, which influenced his decision to change his last name to the variable X. He felt that blacks should turn to each other in difficult times and find their own solutions to their problems. X felt that violence was justifiable response racism as long as it was self-defense. Malcolm X believed that a solution to the problem needed to be found by any means necessary. Malcolm X later split from the nation of Islam and turned to Mecca. After his change in religion and spiritualism, it was believed that he began to soften his approach on the civil rights movement. The rival nation of Islam assassinated Malcolm X while he was speaking at a rally in Harlem on February 21,