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Segregation

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How have African-Americans worked to end segregation, discrimination, and isolation to attain equality and civil rights?

For centuries, African Americans have played and continue to play a significant role in American history. While today, African American no longer face the laws of segregation and discrimination, they continue to fight for equality and civil rights. This continued fight is one of a long past with several triumphs and tragedies all which are an integral part of history. This essay will discuss how African Americans worked to end slavery, segregation, discrimination, freedom, and isolation. It will also discuss what led to the civil right implementation and how it was executed.

Equal rights for African Americans have been contentious, and fought for decades. They have fought to impede ethic discrimination, gain equal opportunity and their civil rights since slavery in the 1600s. When slavery started in 1620s, African Americans only made up about 3 to 4 percent of the population in America. Although the number grew slowly at first, by the end of the 17th century, the population of African American slave grew to well over 650,000. (Becker, 2000) In America, slave labor became the key component in agriculture and booming capitalist economy of the 17th & 18th centuries. (County, 1999)

In the beginning, Africans were exchanged for food and place as “indentured servants” by the Dutch. This practice was also true for many poor Englishmen who were trader for labor for passage to America. It wasn’t until around the 1680s the conception of racial-based slave system developed. (Country, 1999) African “indentured servants” were considered more valuable then poor Englishmen. Africans were skilled laborers, experts in tropical agriculture, and highly immune to tropical labor then white Englishmen. Many Native Americans were also forced to be “indentured servants” at this time. They too were skilled like Africans in area of agriculture. Often, Native Americans escaped because they knew the land and were able to adventure into unknown areas. (Kolchin, 1993) For these reasons, laws were passed that Africans would remain servants or slaves for life. (Kolchin, 1993)

America was originally founded as a world, which had pre-modern values. It was quickly becoming a world that took for granted natural human inequality for Africans. As the era of slavery grew, the force or order was introduces in the form of cruel and unusual punishment with the use of whips and chains. Since all Africans were slaves, this placed the label of inferiority on black skin and African culture. White Americans started to become convinced of white superiority and black inferiority and imposed these racial beliefs on the Africans themselves. Slave masters gave a great deal of attention to the education and training of the ideal slave. They believed in strict discipline, a sense of his own inferiority, belief in the master’s superior power, acceptance of the master’s standards, and a deep sense of his own helplessness and dependence. (Ripley, 1908) Africans started to acquire elements of new ideology that reinforced their resistance to slavery. This process of creolization, which introduced slaves to European thought, brought the actions of slaves more into line with the revolutionary movement emanating from Europe. (Becker, 2000)

In the earlier 1800s, colonies now states in the north started to abolish slavery. (County, 1999) Many states north of Mason and Dixon Line had either outright abolished slavery or passed lawed to grant freedom. Virginia, for exampled offered freedom to any slave who ran away from his master and joined the British army. (Country, 1999) These difference in belief among northern and southern states is what lead to the Civil War. (Bowles, 2011) When the Civil War concluded in 1865, it ended slavery but it did not end the racial hatred and white superior established during slavery. For the first time, African descent, (African Americans) were no longer slaves in America. After being stripped from their heritage, culture, and way of life for the past 300 years, many of them did not know what it meant to be free. (DuBois, 1903)

After the Civil War, serious challenges to white supremacy and segregation existed especially in the south where many, now freed slaves resided. (Ripley, 1908) The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868, that followed the abolishment of slavery, extended citizenship and equal protection under the law to African Americans. (Bales, 2005) It was during this time states and local laws were passed, later known as “Jim Crow laws” establishing “separate but equal” for blacks. Under “Jim Crow” many southern states segregated public school, places of business, transportation and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. Federal government, in 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, later supported these “separate but equal” laws, in the south. This Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana law provided an equal but separate accommodation for “whites” and “blacks” and did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for African Americans. (Kolchin, 1993) Although, the Supreme Court supported this decision of separate but equal, state authorities never funded education for public accommodations for African Americans. For the next 50 years, racial segregation prevailed in the south for African Americans reinforcing the inferior ideology of that of slavery. (Bales, 2005)
In the 1940s, the two areas where segregation and racial discrimination was most applied were in the housing and education of African Americans. (Bales, 2005) During this time, whites Americans continued to believe they were superior to those of blacks therefore the need of education for African Americans was not deemed necessary. A poor education guaranteed a poor lifestyle for African Americans as they would remain “in their place”. It was also the belief of white southerners, that African Americans were not intelligent enough to deserve an education. The philosophy was that an educated African Americans could be a danger. (DuBois, 1903)

Thurgood Marshall, one of the pioneers of the civil right movements, was a law student that was rejected from the University of Maryland Law School on racial grounds. After being rejected, he studied law at the historical black college of Howard University of Law School. In 1938, he was appointed chief legal advisor to the NAACP. Marshall focused his attention on the “separate but equal” in education for African Americans in the south for schools and colleges. He used the laws of the Constitution to campaign this unequal treatment. During this time, there were only two colleges for “blacks” that offered studies in medicine and law where there were many for “whites”. There were no colleges that offered a PhD program for “blacks”. Nor were there any colleges that offered education in engineering or architecture. In 1950, the Supreme Court issued two directives: Texas now had to admit African Americans into there “white only” law schools due to poor condition in there one “black only” law school and Oklahoma was banned from segregating its facilities within graduate schools. These two decisions set the tone for the future higher education for African Americans in the south.
Next, Marshall turned his attention to segregated public schools in the south. Some states in the south spent 3 to 6 times as much funding for schools of “whites” then “blacks”. Therefore, white children received better education then those of blacks in the south. To support these claims, the NAACP needed people who lived in these communities to report this abuse. Oliver Brown of Topeka, Kansas stepped up to report this abuse in the case of his 8-year old daughter that was forced to travel over 21 blocks to a “black only” school. Brown and his family lived only 7 black from a public school but was denied enrollment because the school was “white only”. In 1950, the Supreme Court case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka overturned, the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson. (Bales, 2005) This was the first of five other cases that reached the Supreme Court against segregation in southern schools.

Civil rights for African Americans became a major national political issue in the 1950s. The first federal civil rights law since the Civil War was enacted in 1957, called for the establishment of a US Commission on Civil Rights. This authorized the US attorney general to enforce voting rights. In the 1960s, these legislations strengthened and more sweeping civil rights bill outlawed racial discrimination in places of business, transportation, and accommodations. It was also during this time the term “affirmative action” or reverse discrimination was introduce to help members of minority groups obtain better employment or schooling. For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court supported the use of reverse discrimination right of employers to extend preferential treatment to minorities of all racial groups and women in order to achieve a better balanced worked force. Although affirmative action is no longer justified as a way of redressing past oppression and injustice, it was the struggles of African Americans that promoted a diversity at all levels of society. It purposes was to promote equal opportunity for all minority groups within a society.

The people, the moments, the triumphs, and tragedies of African Americans are an integral part of the history of America. Reviewing the past of how African Americans worked to end slavery for themselves, segregation and discrimination helps to paint the picture of the importance of civil right and equality for all.

References

Bales, Kevin (2005). Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford

Bowles, Mark D. (2011). American History 1865-Present. [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ashford

County, Edward (1999). How Did Slavery Begin?. [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://amazon.com

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Soul of Black Folk. [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://bartleby.com

Kolchin, Peter (1993). American Slavery 1619-1877. [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://amazon.com

Ripley, William Z. (1908) Race in the United States [Electronic version] Retrieved from http://theatlantic.com

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