Living in the South
Growing up in the south during the civil right movement between the late fifties and early sixties as an African American was tough. As a black person you went through a lot of racial profiling, discrimination and of course racism throughout the south just because they wanted a change and was tired of being miss treated by the whites. Superiority meant a lot to the whites so; they were not going to allow the blacks to take over in any kind of way. So, blacks and people known as the minorities took their chances to try to make a change because their rights were not be protected as in the first Amendment said it would. Many people were threatened, beaten and harassed by a group known as Ku Klux Klan trying to fight for what was right like voting privilege. Although, they struggled to get their voice heard it was worth the probable cause even if that meant putting their life in danger.
The South did not come easy especially for minorities living in America like Edesha said, Whites had sworn since before reconstruction that we blacks would not only know our place but stay in it forever. This showed that after slavery was abolished some white people did not want to make a change in society under the law some whites still wanted to be separated from all blacks and those who did not fit their description. It seems like the whites were afraid that African Americans would someday take over and treat them the same way they were being treated, and that was mentally, verbally, and physically abuse just cause of their skin color and ethnicity.
Voting rights was one of the number one issues that black people had to face because those who were in charge of the voting poll made it hard for black folks. For example, they ...
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...ent blacks from mixing with whites socially, from voting, and from prospering financially.” This showed; the group did not want change. For instance, they try to keep blacks away from whites, voting poll, and becoming wealthy by using violence as their number weapon towards minorities. It seemed like whites was not scared of committing any crimes because they knew there was not going to be any punishments plus all the supremacists in the court was under all white male. It sad how the justice system worked for whites and blacks. Under the Consitution, it said all men are equal, but the system was full of it because anyone that was not of white descent was treat unfairly with un cruelty punishment. Sometimes African Americans did not even get a trail when they were accused of a crime they were just found guilty and punished for a crime they probably did not commit.
Even in Post-Civil War times, they still maintained the master and slave relationship until the 13th amendment came about. After the 14th amendment came about, the colored had more breathing room but that didn 't stop the whites from looking down on them. That was part of their culture where the blacks were still slaves in their minds but the times are changing and they just couldn’t cope with that. During the Supreme court case “Plessy v. Ferguson” the majority of the Justices ruled that separate and equal was the precedent. This shows that changing the law alone wouldn 't change the southern attitude towards race! This man named Homer Plessy is 1/8th black and is still considered black, they made separate bathrooms and water fountains specifically for each race because sharing just was not an option. This shows that whites at the time had a hard time coping with the
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
After World War II, “ A wind is rising, a wind of determination by the have-nots of the world to share the benefit of the freedom and prosperity” which had been kept “exclusively from them” (Takaki, p.p. 383), and people of color in United States, especially the black people, who had been degraded and unfairly treated for centuries, had realized that they did as hard as whites did for the winning of the war, so they should receive the same treatments as whites had. Civil rights movement emerged, with thousands of activists who were willing to scarify everything for Black peoples’ civil rights, such as Rosa Parks, who refused to give her seat to a white man in a segregated bus and
...r right to vote. Social and economic segregation were added to the black American’s loss of political power. In some cases, to keep white supremacy, a group called “Ku Klux Klan” would intimidate black males who had voted or who tried to vote. The Ku Klux Klan along with other groups would often burn their homes, churches, and schools down. Some even resorted to murder. A number of these blacks were killed while attempting to defend their right to vote.
For many years in the early 1900s the question for African Americans stayed remained the same. No one could understand how they could willingly accept all of the abuse they received at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. More than that people wanted to know why no one ever successfully fought back. The strength was in the numbers. African Americans made up a huge majority of the populations in the major cities and states in the south. If they had them out numbered why didn’t they fight back?
Despite the 14th and 15th constitutional amendments that guarantee citizenship and voting right regardless of race and religion, southern states, in practice, denied African Americans the right to vote by setting up literacy tests and charging a poll tax that was designed only to disqualify them as voters. In 1955, African Americans still had significantly less political power than their white counterparts. As a result, they were powerless to prevent the white from segregating all aspects of their lives and could not stop racial discrimination in public accommodations, education, and economic opportunities. Following the 1954 Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, it remained a hot issue in 1955. That year, however, it was the murder of the fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till that directed the nation’s attention to the racial discrimination in America.
During the time of reconstruction, the 13th amendment abolished slavery. As the Nation was attempting to pick up their broken pieces and mend the brokenness of the states, former slaves were getting the opportunity to start their new, free lives. This however, created tension between the Northerners and the Southerners once again. The Southerners hated the fact that their slaves were being freed and did not belong to them anymore. The plantations were suffering without the slaves laboring and the owners were running out of solutions. This created tension between the Southern planation owners and the now freed African Americans. There were many laws throughout the North and the South that were made purposely to discriminate the African Americans.
Even though whites and blacks protested together, not all of them got punished in the same ways. Even though it wasn’t folderol committed by either race, racists saw it as this and would do anything to keep segregation intact. Sometimes, the whites would be shunned, by society, and not hurt physically. While the blacks, on the other hand, were brutally kille...
To wrap it up, African Americans lived an unfair past in the south, such as Alabama, during the 1930s because of discrimination and the misleading thoughts towards them. The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws and the way they were generally treated in southern states all exemplify this merciless time period of the behavior towards them. They were not given the same respect, impression, and prospect as the rest of the citizens of America, and instead they were tortured. Therefore, one group should never be singled out and should be given the same first intuition as the rest of the people, and should never be judged by color, but instead by character.
Imagine yourself being denied of having the freedom to own civil rights and liberties due to your indifference of having a different skin colour.The Civil Rights was one of the most influential periods of American history.The civil rights movement was the fight for freedom against the struggle for social injustice that was present during the 1960s for coloured people to gain the same privileges and opportunities rights of an American Citizen.But it was not until Malcolm X and Martin Luther King(MLK) created the momentum that was needed for the movement to spread worldwide gaining media attention. Without doubt the two most influential African Americans of its time used their voices
As in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there was a great deal of injustice in the south in the early 1900s and before. Things only seemed to get worse when the depression. “We were always poor, but the Depression was definitely worse”(Johnson). The fiction in the book could very well be based on real facts of the way the blacks were treated in the past. Blacks of the time could not get a fair chance in real life or in the book. For that reason Tom Robinson could never have gotten a fair trial in Alabama in the 1930’s.
The movement and movements after the legislative ruling that gave Black Americans the ability to vote played a huge role in the development of the Black American identity. After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed the perception of Black Americans shifted. They were now more of citizen than they had ever been, they were granted one of the most powerful American liberties, voting locally and nationally. As far as the grand narrative of the civil rights movement is concerned all the work for African Americans as citizens was completed. It was at this moment that I believe that the black identity began to have more freedom in their perception of America. It is amazing to believe that less than 60 years ago African-Americans were given the right to vote. Voting I an
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....
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 ...