Focus Task

1) The first optimistic view for blacks was the Brown v. Board of Education Topeka case. The turn out of the case was that the judge ruled all segregated schools, unequal schools. All the southern states had to open up integrated schools. Another example of an optimistic view was in Little Rock, Arkansas. The president at the time, Eisenhower, had troops stationed in Little Rock outside the high school to allow safety for the nine black students attending the previously all white school. Before Rosa Parks, all the black people riding the buses had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats for whites if there were no other seats available. Rosa Parks refused, and was arrested. The black community then boycotted the buses for over a year, and when the bus company lost 60% of their profits, the buses were then integrated. Blacks and whites together formed anti-violent protest organizations like SCLC, SNCC, and CORE. This was hopeful for the blacks because that showed them that not all whites were racist and against them.

2) For pessimistic views;

• Blacks were intimidated into not voting.
• Blacks couldn't get the best education for university.
• Many southern states refused to integrate their schools for many years after the governor demanded it.
• When a white man killed a black man, they were not arrested or sent to prison.
• In the case of Medgar Evers, who was killed by a racist white man, his killer was sent to trial, but was not evicted.
• Protesters were hosed by the fire department or arrested.
• Homes and buses of black people were bombed.

3) I think there were more reasons for optimism because blacks had white people on their side and were making progress. Black people could then vote, they could go to a white school, they could fight in a war for America, they could sit wherever they wanted on a bus. Before, they couldn't have done any of that if they didn't try. No one let them give up, and they didn't. Even though they were arrested or beat down for protesting for what was right, they didn't give up and that's what made them progress in the Civil Rights Movement.