African Americans and Politics

The first session after lunch was about African Americans and Politics. The speaker, Todd Shaw, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. The general topic of the session concerned the impact of Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act on the African Americans and the later influence they had, mostly affirmative action. At the beginning professor described the main purpose of the African American movements in the ‘50s and ‘60s – Jim Crow’s Laws and the centuries of segregation and discrimination of the Blacks in the United States, especially in the south. All that led to the first, most known event of the movement – the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 in Mississippi, started by Rosa Parks. Then everything happened really quickly. In the ‘60s President Lyndon Johnson introduced affirmative action – which required federal contractors to remedy discrimination against race, color and gender in public facilities, jobs and education. Now, after few decades of affirmative action in use, debates broke out – one side in favor of the action and the other against it. People argue whether it fulfills its initial purpose or creates another divisions and differences among the society. The answer remains open as there is no solution that would satisfy everyone.

Marcin