The Struggle
In the 1960’s, African Americans were people who society taught to shun. The blacks’ life was extremely difficult because of racial prejudice. In the southern United States, the African Americans were not treated as people, and they did not have a place in society. The whites did not want to treat them as people or give them their equal rights. The African Americans thought they were a disgrace to society. It took bravery for the African Americans to stand up for themselves all they wanted was to be equal, and have all the same treatment, and they risked their lives to do so.
African Americans were always treated horribly as far back as 1619 when they were put to work as slaves. In slavery, it was illegal to get an education,
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A perfect example would be the book The Starplace. There are two main characters, both with different skin colors. One of the girls has white skin, Frannie, and the other girl is colored, Celeste, yet they still manage to have a great friendship through all of the racism. Celeste goes to a school in Oklahoma to integrate the school, and all of the people think she is not worthy of going to school with the whites. Celeste and her family were brave to do what they were doing because in Oklahoma all of the blacks lived in Minetown but Celeste’s family was moving to Brinetown an all-white city. Their family faced lots of hatred in this town, but they faced it so that Celeste could get an equal education. Everything in that town was segregated, “Negros have to sit in the back of buses in some places… And some places have separate bathrooms for colored people” (Grove 56). Frannie helped Celeste because she was beating herself up about her skin and not feeling like she has a chance to certain things the whites do. Frannie kept telling Celeste to keep her head up and believe in herself, “Tell yourself you’ve got a shot that’s what teaches you courage, every single day that you’ve got a shot, whether you believe that or not” (Grove 102). This helped Celeste have courage in what she was doing was right and that she had a shot to
Throughout the 1800’s and 1900’s in the southern region of the United States, all African Americans were treated like they didn’t belong here in this country. Almost all white males that were wealthy owned a plethora of African Americans as their personal slaves. They would work days upon days for their respective owners. Whether it was picking cotton or doing whatever their owner asked of them, they were pretty much treated like they were anything but human beings. They were treated poorly and their living conditions can probably be considered inhumane.
The Americans of African and European Ancestry did not have a very good relationship during the Civil war. They were a major cause of the Civil War. But, did they fix or rebuild that relationship after the war from the years 1865 to 1900? My opinion would be no. I do not believe that the Americans of African and European ancestry successfully rebuilt their relationship right after the Civil war. Even though slavery was finally slowly getting abolished, there was still much discrimination against the African Americans. The Jim Crow laws and the black codes discriminated against black people. The Ku Klux Klan in particular discriminated against black people. Even though the United States government tried to put laws into the Constitution to protect black people, the African Americans were discriminated in every aspect of life from housing, working, educating, and even going to public restrooms!
Honestly, living from a time and place where racism played a part had to change some people’s lives, because during the 1960s it was hard for anyone to demand a change. People were frustrated and fed up with depression in which they were forced to live in. African American leaders who really made a difference in society in the 1960s like, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks were altering black America right before our eyes. People like them were going through the Civil Rights movement, in which they brought change that impacted today’s society.
uneducated and not on the same level as white Americans, so blacks were treated so
What is theology? The word “theology” comes from two Greek words that combined mean “the study of God. There are more than 20 types of theologies. Black liberation started the American struggles of the 1960’s. In liberation theology there are 2 groups, the oppressed and the oppressor. The poor are the oppressed and the rich are their oppressors. This kind of theology contextualizes Christianity in an attempt to help those of African descent overcome oppression. This paper will focus on Black Liberation Theology and will explain how it discovers God and how the Biblical God inspire the prophetic work of black liberation theology.
African American Hardships During pre-colonial African kinship and inheritance, it provided the basis of organization of many African American communities. African American men were recognized for the purpose of inheritance. They also inherited their clan names based on their accomplishments, as well as other things when one died. Land was not owned in many parts of Africa during the pre-colonial period. It was yet held and distributed by African American men.
African-Americans are not the only ones being treated like this either. Native Americans and Hispanics were treated the same way that African-Americans were. The United States used to treat immigrants inadequately. The Black Codes made life very hard for African-Americans. Most states came up with their own Black Codes.
The year was 1915, Carter G. Woodson had recently traveled from Washington D.C to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation. This gave him and thousands of other African Americans the ability to appreciate displays highlighting the progress African Americans had made since the abolishment of slavery. This occasion inspired Woodson and four others to form the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now Association for the Study of African American Life and History or ASALH). This organization’s purpose was to recognize and promote the accomplishments and history of African Americans that often went unnoticed. In 1916, Woodson created The Journal of Negro History in hopes that it would familiarize people with the findings and achievements of African Americans. But Woodson wanted more; he wanted all people to celebrate and be aware of the great things African Americans had and were accomplishing. He wanted both whites and blacks to have strong, positive affiliations. Woodson decided the best way to accomplish these things was to create Negro Achievement Week.
In general, there were many changes during the Reconstruction years as blacks learned to adapted to their new struggles as free people. They went from the Southern plantations working for no pay to migrating west to making their own way. In the process, they learned to be self-independent of the whites by having building their own churches, schools and the role of black leaders starts to emerge to ignite the black race. The famous leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois during the Reconstruction years made an impact on African American history.
The 1960’s were a time of freedom, deliverance, developing and molding for African-American people all over the United States. The Civil Rights Movement consisted of black people in the south fighting for equal rights. Although, years earlier by law Africans were considered free from slavery but that wasn’t enough they wanted to be treated equal as well. Many black people were fed up with the segregation laws such as giving up their seats on a public bus to a white woman, man, or child. They didn’t want separate bathrooms and water fountains and they wanted to be able to eat in a restaurant and sit wherever they wanted to and be served just like any other person.
Harlem Race Riot of 1964 was one of the most violent riot of American history. The riots started on July 16, 1964 when an African American student James Powell was shot and killed by a white, off-duty Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan (Samuel). The riot lasted six days from July 16 to the night of July 22. The race riots “highlighted the racial injustice and growing civil unrest” in the country (Civil rights digital library).
The United States rests upon a foundation of freedom, where its citizens can enjoy many civil liberties as the result of decades of colonial struggles. However, African Americans did not achieve freedom concurrently with whites, revealing a contradiction within the “nation of liberty”. It has been stated that "For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place." African Americans gained freedom through the changing economic nature of slavery and historical events like the Haitian Revolution policies, whereas whites received freedom
The Civil Rights Movement is the story of the struggle of African-American people and their fight for equality. Although exceptional leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ralph Abernathy fought long and hard and carried the burden of the movement on their shoulders, they were not alone. The struggle was fueled by the commitment and the hard work of thousands of everyday people who decided that the time had come to take a stand.
As I reflect on who I am and which culture I identify with, I am met with reservation. My parents are both Black Americans, they were both born and raised in the United States, their parent were also born and raised in the US. It is obvious that we derive from African descent; our skin color and physical features yet I find it difficult to relate or identify with my African heritage as slavery has played a pivotal role in separating us from our African origin. African enslavement left us devoid of a way to define ourselves. It severed familial ties and deprived us of any viable opportunity to reclaim them.(www.huffpost.com) We are descendants of African slaves but when I speak to someone who was born in Africa or research African culture, I
It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s. During the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place, it was the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools....