What rights didn't Black Americans have in the 1930's?

Answer 1

In the 1930's black people did not have alot of rights, they could not vote, they could not sit in the same parts of resturants as white people or the bus. They had separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, they couldn't even walk into the front door of a building. Black people were second class. An incident shocked America when a black lady, Rosa Parks was on a full bus and a white man wanted to get on, after being told to get off she refused to move an inch! This was all changed when Martin Luther King Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement in the 30's. He also said the famous "I Have A Dream" speech. This stopped most of the segregation in the South and black people were given more rights.

Blacks actually gained the right to vote in 1870, long before the '30s. Also, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929. There is no way he lead the civil rights movement at 1-10 years old! The Harlem Renaissance took place around the '30s, and the civil rights movement took place from about 1955-1968.

The REAL answer lies somewhere in the middle. True, all MALE citizens of the US were granted the right to vote in the 1800s, but in reality, most Blacks were not allowed to vote given the 3/5th amendment of the Constitution (blacks were not even counted as a whole person); and South's Jim Crow Laws as well as Grandfather codes--i.e., the idea that one could vote if their grandfathers had voted. Which of course was an impossibility for Blacks who were enslaved and indentured. Those who risked exercising their "right to vote" were lynched, hanged, burned, etc. All of this is well-documented, and not a matter of conjecture. Had it been true that Blacks actually did vote earlier, as the second answer maintains, then the Civil Rights era of the 60s would have lost one of its main tenets. Also note, abolitionists took up the cause for Civil Rights long before Martin Luther King Jr, came on the scene--also well documented. However, it wasn't until the Civil Rights Act that Blacks could actually exercise their full rights as citizens to use public services and seek full redress, or expect proper representation from their government. As an end note, the Harlem Renaissance was an artistic era. In the 1930's black people did not have alot of rights.

But the thing is is that black people did HAVE rights written in the constitution its just that the south didn't treat black or just "colored people" in general like they didn't have any. So they could ride the same bus or go into the same bus as whites its just that some white people didn't like that they had different skin and they treated them like they had to listen to them and lsiten to the "law" that they made even though that black people had as many rights as white people, they just don't treat them like they do.

Answer 2

They didn't have most any rights that a white man had in the United States. For example: The Rosa Parks Incident. Rosa Parks didn't give away her chair to a white man because she was saving it for Chuck Norris. No, that's just a joke. But, she actually didn't give up her chair in a city bus to a white man and she was arrested.

Answer 3

very little, in fact this was why Martin Luther King started the peaceful protest that eventually led to his huge speech, that was the real change in the rights the got. They were given the opisite of priority on buses, they couldnt find jobs easily and were expected to do the things they were told to.