The American History I classes are studying about Civil Rights history both old and new.

If the original Civil Rights acts would have been enforced there would have been no

need for the 1960’s Civil Rights movements.

In 1875, Congress passed the Civil Rights act signed by President Grant. The act provided

That: “All persons … shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement.” If enforced it would have basically been the same Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were two main reasons why this was not enforced. First, with the Compromise of 1877,

President Hayes removed federal troops from the South in 1877. In effect, African Americans no longer had direct protection from the White House and Congress. Then in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments denied state governments, not private individuals, from violating civil rights. This would be overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The students have been studying the Civil Rights in a variety of ways. One of the lessons was to divide the students in several groups and rotate stations. One station consisted of short videos on Linda Brown, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The second station was reading and discussing the problems faced after the Civil War like the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws.

The final station was reading and writing about Civil Rights vocabulary. The final project will

be writing a paper on the problems we faced with the enforcement of the Civil Rights.