Conclusion Flashcards
Conculsion
Conculsion
In conclusion, it is clear that organisations such as the KKK were a significant barrier to blacks in achieving their constitutional civil rights because they were willing to use fear, terror and the threat of lynching as tactics to ensure that the vast majority of blacks were quite simply too scared to try to improve their status. However, the evidence suggests that the existence of popular racial prejudice was by far the most significant barrier. Organisations such as the KKK would never have gained such prominence had not America been a deeply racist nation. Furthermore, only racist politicians would seek to initiate a system of racial segregation designed to keep blacks in their place or to deprive them of their political voice through widespread disenfranchisement of black voters. Only a racist Supreme Court could ever have decreed that segregation was constitutional on the grounds that distinctions based on colour were not only acceptable but preferable to racial equality. In the final analysis, while significant, the KKK was not as vital as the existence of racism in preventing blacks from achieving their civil rights in the period to 1941.
