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Martin Luther King

Frederick H Birts Jr
U.S History since 1945
Professor Archdeacon
28 May 2005

During the 1960's the nature of the American social compact was shifting.   With the growing presence of immigrants, who had migrated to America during the late 19th and early 20th century, America's social compact had changed.   Jews, Irish and Italians were now finding themselves working as unskilled workers in a blue collar industrial New York.   Together they were forming unions, to better their labor conditions and receive better benefits.   As the makeup of this social background was changing, another revolution was taking place in America that was affecting the nature of the American social compact.   Blacks were standing up for their civil rights and equal liberties. This stance was a universal theme circulating throughout African- American communities.   The Ocean Hill Brownsville incident, in 1968, was just one example of the stance African-Americans were taking in hopes of at least establishing their own place among America's social compact.
The affects that slavery had on the African-American race are undescribable.   African-Americans were deemed and treated as less than human during the slave era. After the end of the   Slavery era, Blacks were granted certain freedoms.   However, through laws called Black laws or Jim Crow laws, Blacks were not able to fully exercise the rights granted to them.   Blacks were simply nothing in the eyes of White people and Whites would do anything to prevent Blacks ability to gain full freedom. By instilling fear in Blacks through savage beatings and killings Blacks were   scared of standing up for themselves.   This fear finally led to the organization of Black civil rights groups, such as the NAACP National Advancement for the Association of Colored people, designed to fight and help gain the liberties Blacks were denied.   At this same time prominent leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm
X joined the fight in gaining equal rights...