Civil Rights in the Gilded Thesis

Only with the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964 and Voting Rights Act 1965 did the legacy of 'Jim Crow' truly end, many years after Plessy v. Ferguson was declared legally invalid in Brown. These two acts gave legislative 'teeth' to the Brown decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1965 Act, signed into law by the Southern President Lyndon B. Johnson, outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes and other means of keeping African-Americans disenfranchised. The 1964 Act outlawed all forms of racial discrimination in education, employment, and in social places. It would still be many years before the consequences of these acts would be manifest in the form of more blacks attending institutions of higher learning, penetrating the higher levels of the professional class in record numbers, and before blacks and whites would live King's vision of brotherhood.However, they remain important steps in the fight for legislative equality, as Brown v. Board of Education was a vital blow for black legal equality in America.

Works Cited

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