The Segregated African Americans – The Relationship between American Movies and Segregation Policy
Ornek, S., & Ultan, M. Ö.
Abstract:
In 19th century, the American Civil War caused the emancipation of American slaves. By the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution, some of the basic civil rights were secured. However, there was a struggle of putting these rights under the protection of federal level, states continued their segregation policies in practice. In Southern states, African Americans were segregated and struggled with various kinds of oppression, especially race-inspired violence. This segregation policy had gained a legal framework by Jim Crow Laws that seperated African Americans and White Americans from all parts of daily life, such as theaters, schools, restaurants, parks, sports, transportation and so on. By the second half of the 1950s, civil rights protests increased. These civil rights movements included boycotts, sit-ins and marches. The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) in Alabama, the Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina, the March on Washington (1963) and the Selma to Montgomery Marches (1965) in Alabama were the examples of these protests. The aim of these social movements was to make racial segregation against African Americans unworkable. As a result, in 1964, Civil Rights Act was accepted which intended to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. Moreover, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 were also the other remarkable legislative developments. Although some legal regulations put into practice for ensuring positive discrimination through African Americans, the segregation can still be seen in some part of America. In order to emphatize with African Americans, some American movies began to discuss segregation issues. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the movies are used as a political instrument that emphasized the African Americans’ problems. And also it will be analyzed the possibility to understand the feelings of African Americans for White Americans, via these movies.
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APA citation
- Ornek, S., & Ultan, M. Ö. (2014). The Segregated African Americans – The Relationship between American Movies and Segregation Policy. International Journal of Social Sciences, III(1), 78–88.