...How Free Were Free Blacks in the North? “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves,” (Abraham Lincoln) In the 1800’s free African Americans lived very restricted lives, although they were able to earn money, own property and legally marry, they could no socialize with white people or participate in anything political. The first African Americans came to Jamestown in 1619 and soon after they were enslaved. Slavery in the United States lasted for around 245 years, that is a very long time considering people have been living in America for almost 400 years. Around the early 1800’s most Northern African Americans were no longer slaves but they lived very deprived lives, they were not allowed to vote, have jury duty or socialize...
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...African-Americans would not stand for slavery any longer. Now that the war had commenced, they would find ways to escape from the hole they had been trapped in. Not only would they travel to the North, but they would also fight in the Union army. The minority would come to avail the Union. They would fight for freedom and citizenship. It may have seemed easy, but going from the Confederacy to the Union wasn’t an easy task at all. African-Americans were willing to give all that they had to have liberation and citizenship in the U.S. Frederick Douglas was an African-American abolitionist who had escaped to the North for his freedom. He was also the author of a newspaper he had called The North Star. The North Star was called that because if you followed the North Star, you would make it to the Union, or the free half of the U.S (OI). The Negroes were inclined to give their lives and expose themselves to bullets in order to have freedom (Doc. 1). This was dangerous for them to travel to the Union because since they were in the war, the ways to get from the South to the North was guarded by soldiers. So on their way there, there were chances of them getting killed if the Union thought...
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...Discrimination I am an African American. African Americans came to America in a few different ways. The majority of African American were captured from Africa and shipped over to the United States to be sold inside slave trade. Cotton was a big business in the United States and a lot of times land owners would have too much land for them to work so they would hire slaves to work the land for them. They didn’t pay the slaves money; instead they used fear to motivate the slaves to work as hard as possible. With this type of strategy going on African Americans quickly began to be seen as less than human and far less equal to the white men. Over time this began to grow into a dislike and hatred against African Americans who were living in America. Soon the north part of the United States began to change their views on African Americans and start to realize they that also should be counted as being equal people. The civil war broke out and African Americans eventually ended up gaining their freedom. After African Americans gained there freedom they still had a lot of complications that they needed to overcome. White people felt like they were much better than the African Americans so they began to have disgust towards African Americans. African Americans weren’t allowed to go to the same schools as white people, drink out of the same water fountains, and many other things. Groups were formed like the Ku Klux Klan that openly showed hatred for the African Americans and they often committed...
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...The KKK was trying to say that blacks cannot be Christians. They would burn the crosses to not disrespect but more like to say go Christianity, and sadly KKK's are still around despite everything. The happiest day for African people/ freedman's were when the segregation finally ended which was in July 2, 1964 they got better opportunities than they had, equal opportunities as the whites. Their kids had better education system because they were now studying in the same place as whites, their work they had better chances of finding a job now that they had equal opportunities they were paid the same amount plus things like eat they could eat in the same place as white people and drink in the water fountain that only white's could drink in, they could sit in the bus. Last and definitely not the least they were now allowed to vote, which was the ultimate proof that African Americans had the same equality as the white people when they were allowed to...
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...America has come very far considering race relations. African american in the past have been treated with extreme cruelty. The white people of America always considered themselves superior to any other race until thing began to change starting with the Civil rights movement. While society has maintained some levels of discrimination towards African Americans and continual African American culture, race relations such as segregation being legally abolished and societies views of African americans in politics and civil rights have significantly changed between 1940’s-2000’s. Throughout American history, African Americans made many sacrifices to get rid of segregation. During the 1950’s segregation was at its peak and African Americans began fight for their rights. During this process they...
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...people and black people were not allowed to be socially equal in the eyes of Jim Crow. “It went so far that if a white person asked a black person a question, the black person had to respond the answer that the white person wanted to hear, regardless of the truth.” Woodward was unquestionably correct when he states that African Americans were not treated equally because of segregation caused by the Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws enforced the segregation of races in the United States. These laws were started in the late 1870’s and lasted until the...
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...Slavery to Freedom – African American History Nimra Jilani Los Angles Harbor College History 012 Professor KJ Hitt April 28th 2012 [pic] Slavery to Freedom – African American History The first African American arrived in the North America as servants and worked under contract from sixteenth to nineteenth century. They were brought from Africa by European Traders. In the past they were known by many names such as Negroes, Blacks and Coloureds. The term Nigger was also used for the African Americans mostly in south. More than half of the population of the African American lived in the Southern States of the America. Slavery first began in the late 16th century When African Americans were brought to American Colonies, they were bought by white masters and they had to work on tobacco and cotton farms in the South. They were not paid anything for all their hard work and living conditions were terrible for them. Slave work was very difficult. Most African American women cooked, cleaned the house and raised the children of their white owners, where as the men were trained to become carpenter or masons but most of them remained to be farmers. Most of the African Americans lived in the South where the percentage of the slavery was at its extreme. The racism towards the African Americans was at its extreme. A very famous historian Karl Marx stated In Wage Labor and Capital, Written twelve years before the civil war that: “What is a negro slave...
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...As stated by John Winthrop in the 17th Century, Americans have committed the cardinal sin of putting their own good ahead of the common good of the nation. However, Americans of different races, classes, and genders have experienced a variety of obstacles in maintaining their own good. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these obstacles caused conflicting and changing meanings of individualism, community, and freedom according to Foner, Plunkitt, Etulain, Buder, Gilfoyle, Bernstein, Leuchtenburg, Degler, Friedan, and Horwitz. As stated by Eric Foner, in the 1860s after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln, Congress ratified multiple new amendments and added them to the Constitution. First,...
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...Tireless Road1 A Tireless Road HIS204: American History Since 1865 February 10, 2014 A Tireless Road2 It was long and tiring for African Americans on the road to freedom. Slavery was abolished in 1865 but not as they had hoped. It took many decades for it to come full circle and be properly finished. There were so many people and events that finally led to the complete freedom and equality for African Americans. I believe that the most significant events that led to a final resolution were the Amendments and Civil Rights Acts passed and signed by our government. Although, it was hard for proper implementation of the laws at first, I believe that they were all extremely important building blocks for the movement to finally get to where it is today. The first event that started the Civil Rights Movement was the abolishment of slavery. Ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment did just this, it restricted state power federally and outlawed involuntary servitude. What this meant is that nationwide, it was illegal to claim ownership over another person. “Although its full effect was not achieved for nearly a century, it began the process of dismantling involuntary servitude as a widespread form of labor relations” (Rutherglen, 2012). With that being said, this was the first real law of its kind, so its implementation was crudely regulated. Yes, slaves were free to now go about and live as they see fit, however, even with freedom they could not regulate their own lives...
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...Turning the tide of the Civil War to the Union side allowed for President Lincoln to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, thus setting all slaves in the rebellious Southern states free. This was the first step towards African Americans entering society as free individuals. Furthermore, the Reconstruction era proved to be both a time of heightened equality and a time of intense racism and persecution for African Americans. Although the Reconstruction Period in America, from 1865 to 1900, was focused primarily on incorporating African Americans into society as equal citizens, this idea was soon altered as Southern white Democrats regained control and Jim Crow Laws were being passed. Despite the fact that African Americans experienced brief...
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...The Dred Scott Case Throughout American history, there have been numerous blunders within our legal system. Perhaps the most intriguing failure within our American legal system was the Dred Scott Case. The Dred Scott Case is perhaps the most infamous case in American history as Dred Scott, a slave who had been free for a rather long period of time, sued the Missouri court system and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court for his freedom and was denied. Numerous excellent arguments were made by the legal team of Dred Scott, however, perhaps the most intriguing that Americans truly take for granted was the debate as to whether being free for an extended period of time entitles someone to freedom for the rest of their life. This case became so intense that...
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...From 1877 to 1981, black people’s position in American society had progressed drastically from newly freed slaves to, in the eyes of the law, equal citizens of America and politically and legally integrated within the country. War had a monumental impact on the progression in this period, as it provided African-Americans with an opportunity to prove their worthiness of American citizenship, experience life and racial tolerance outside of the America and resulted in gaining mass international exposure. The international opinion that arose from this publicity, the change in white attitudes towards Civil Rights and legality during 1877-1981 all also respectively impacted the advancement, and in some cases, the hindrance, of Civil Rights. America’s declaration of war on Germany in 1917 to ensure political liberty and the...
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...publick”. Through his pamphlet, Swift denounced the English’s treatment of the Irish community by proposing a “modest” solution to end Irish poverty. During the Civil Rights movement in 1963 , Martin Luther King Jr. (hereafter referred as King) gave a speech entitled “I have a dream” (Sipra and Rashid 29). Through his speech, King exposed America’s discrimination against the African-American (AA) community, and advocated for a peaceful social revolution. Both classical works of rhetoric exposed the injustice inflicted upon their marginalized community and urged their audience to take action against these injustice. Although Swift’s pamphlet held relevance to his readers, King’s speech was more persuasive than Swift’s pamphlet. King’s vigorous...
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...Since the day Africans were taken captive and forced into slavery, they have been struggling to gain freedom and equality for their people. From the 1900 to the 2000’s this fight for freedom and equality is truly distinguishable. Powerful speeches by these African Americans who advocated for Civil Rights show the impactive emotions they felt throughout their endeavor to gain equal rights, people like W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Mary Church Teller. These powerful speeches and articles brought about great hope and zeal for the fight for African American independence. W.E.B. Dubois would eventually emerge as a founder of the NAACP, a leading human rights activists and the most important African American intellectual of the 20th Century. However...
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...-900s, Africans were not treated fairly. One of the main parts of their mistreatment was segregation. A lot of buildings were segregated such as restaurants, bathrooms, workshops, and schools. People of color were not allowed to be with the white population. In Little Rock Arkansas, Central High School was strictly segregated. However, the school board in Arkansas won a court order that allowed nine African-American students to attend Central High School. This order upset the white families who had their children attending Central High School. There were white mobs and Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guards to prevent these nine students from entering the campus. Many people, including President...
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