During the early 1900s post reconstruction era, African Americans faced extreme injustice and prejudice in society. By being denied rights guaranteed in the Constitution, and being subject to outright racism, African Americans saw their democratic rights slowly being taken away from them. The Jim Crow laws were the facilitator of this democratic infringement through intimidation, as well as by the failings of our prized judicial system. By denying African Americans certain unalienable rights guaranteed to all American citizens, the Jim Crow laws were one of the greatest contractions of democracy in American history. The Black codes were the predecessor too, and served as a blueprint for, the Jim Crow Laws. With the emancipation recently freeing thousands of slaves from bondage, whites Americans were now worried about what they would do about the enormous loss of manpower. Having no previous work experience, men and women didn’t know how to function without the slaves and servants they had become so accustomed to. (Wormser) Men were particularly worried about the loss of manpower in their fields. (Wormser) With cotton still the driving crop of the South, farmers needed hundreds of able-bodied men to be able to harvest enough cotton to meet the rising demands. In the home, women were terrified of losing their house slaves. Having no previous experience living home without servants or maids, wives and mothers did not know how to cook, clean, or even take care of their children. (Wormser) To combat this, the Black Codes were enacted to make sure that, regardless of their recent emancipation, African Americans were never really free (fofweb.com). The "… codes were based on an assumption that freedmen were immature and unable to make d... ... middle of paper ... ...s- The Story Behind the Bus," The Henry Ford, last modified 2002, http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/rosaparks/story.asp. "Rosa Parks- The Story," The Henry Ford. Sandra L. West, ed., "Northern Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)," Facts on File History, last modified 2013, accessed November 16, 2013, http://www.fofweb.com/NuHistory/default.asp?ItemID=WE01. Richard Wormser, "The Emancipation Proclimation," The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, last modified 2002, accessed November 17, 2013, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_emancipate.html. Keesha Gaskins, "Jim Crow Legacy Continues Today," Brennan Center for Justice, last modified April 12, 2012, accessed November 17, 2013, http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/jim-crow-legacy-continues-today. The NAACP moved to gain as much support as they could to prove the inequality behind the Jim
John A. Kirk, History Toady volume 52 issue 2, The Long Road to Equality for African-Americans
Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
The book, the Strange Career of Jim Crow is a wonderful piece of history. C. Vann Woodard crafts a book that explains the history of Jim Crow and segregation in simple terms. It is a book that presents more than just the facts and figures, it presents a clear and a very accurate portrayal of the rise and fall of Jim Crow and segregation. The book has become one of the most influential of its time earning the praise of great figures in Twentieth Century American History. It is a book that holds up to its weighty praise of being “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The book is present in a light that is free from petty bias and that is shaped by a clear point of view that considers all facts equally. It is a book that will remain one of the best explanations of this time period.
The NAACP was a coalition of black and white radicals which sought to remove legal barriers to full citizenship for Negroes.
“A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People... “ PBSOnline, February 21, 2012 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h456.html
For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.
Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the
The main idea of the Jim Crow laws was to keep black people away from whites, to live separately but equally. Most often this did not happen, which the whites were expecting the “Negros” to be lower than themselves and unable to function without them, until a community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, was started by blacks in 1908. They lived in a community called Greenwood. With only fifteen thousand residents, the blacks built their own little country despite the adversity they had received. Their community was one of the richest in the USA. So, it seems the Jim Crow laws that was meant to leave them destitute, was the option for the blacks to thrive. Blacks had their own businesses, schools, movie theaters, churches, transportation system, and they even had their own airlines. They were their own doctors, teachers, architects, pastors, artists, and musicians. As a bonus they were also very oil rich as well.
Since the early twentieth century, the NAACP pursued avenues of legal change in order to gradually dismantle Jim Crowism. By the middle of the twentieth century it
Moynihan, Daniel P. "The Moynihan Report (1965)." The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. Humanities Washington, 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2012.
The history of the NAACP is one of blood sweat and tears. From bold investigations of mob brutality, protests of mass murders, segregation and discrimination, to testimony before congressional committees on the vicious tactics used to bar African Americans from the ballot box, it was the talent and tenacity of NAACP members that saved lives and changed many negative aspects of American society. While much of its history is chronicled in books, articles, pamphlets and magazines, the true movement lies in the faces---black, white, yellow, red, and brown---united to awaken the conscientiousness of people, and a nation.
The symbol of diversity and the epitome of cultural amalgamation, the United States had been a country in which racial discrimination and segregation were the norms of the day. The African Americans and myriads of people of color had faced terrible hardships in the country’s south during the period of the prevalence of the Jim Crow customs and laws. The Jim Crow era was an era in which the blacks were considered everything but human beings deserving equal treatment within the society and before the law. It was a period when the non-whites were considered sub-humans by the whites and starting from the social institutions to the political arenas the blacks were discriminated on the basis of skin color, race, and ethnicity. Going through the narratives
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...
Racial Discrimination in the United States has been a pressing issue ever since Europeans first brought slaves from Africa to the United States. African slaves were established as inferior to their white owners and subjected to oppressive and cruel treatment. Not all African Americans were slaves, but even these “free blacks” were given very few rights. Even after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery African Americans in the South were subjected to the harsh and discriminatory Jim Crow laws. During the 1950s and early 1960s it was evident that Black leaders were ready and willing for change in the African American community. There were a number of different methods and strategies proposed by civil right activists such as Martin Luther