African American Hardships
During pre-colonial African kinship and inheritance, it provided the bases 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 decease. Land was not owned in many parts of Africa during the pre-colonial period. It was yet held and distributed by African American men. Access to the land by women depended on their obligations or duties within the gendered division of labor. Agriculture was the job of many African women. Men believed in having several wives that would all work together as farm workers and do whatever duties necessary as required.
Africa is considered to be a multi-lingual country. There are eleven officially recognized languages their, many of which are often spoken but not widespread. English is generally understood across the country. It is one of the eleven common spoken languages but it only ranks 5th out of the eleven spoken languages. During the 15th and the 19th century, major changes had happened to the African and North American continents. Europeans ventured to Africa where they began a trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many Africans were taken as free people and then forced into slavery in South America, the Caribbean and North America. This slave trade had brought about a different type of racism. It was the color of your skin that determined whether a person would be a free citizen or be enslaved for life. This slave trade also devastated African lives and their heritage.
Some slaves were sold and traded more than once, often in a slave market. Families were torn apart, children hysterically cried while t...
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...t units to serve in the civil war. Most blacks did not care about what the issues of the war was. They joined because it provided a better income which was an alternative way of making money compared to the poorly paid domestic labor that most blacks had endure. The civil war resulted in the 13th Amendment of the Constitution which abolished slavery all together. Although black soldiers fought in the war which eventually ended slavery, they still did not have civil rights. The whites did not want to share political power with African Americans. This had brought about the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. African Americans were now guaranteed civil rights. This change opened doors for African Americans so that they can progress and excel in the political system. Public schools were now established and access to jobs outside domestic labor was now available.
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
We saw the Thirteenth Amendment occur to abolish slavery. We also saw the Civil Rights Acts which gave full citizenship, as well as the prohibiting the denial of due process, etc. Having the civil rights laws enabled African Americans to new freedoms which they did not used to have. There was positive change occurring in the lives of African Americans. However, there was still a fight to suppress African Americans and maintain the racial hierarchy by poll taxes and lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Sadly, this is when Jim Crow laws appeared. During this time African Americans were losing their stride, there was an increase in prison populations and convict labor, and the convicts were
The population of African Americans from 1865 to 1900 had limited social freedom. Social limitations are limitations that relate “…to society and the way people interact with each other,” as defined by the lesson. One example of a social limitation African Americans experienced at the time is the white supremacy terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan or the KKK. The KKK started as a social club formed by former confederate soldiers, which rapidly became a domestic terrorist organization. The KKK members were white supremacists who’s objective was to ward off African Americans from using their new political power. In an attempts to achieve their objective, Klansmen would burn African American schools, scare and threaten voters, destroy the homes of African Americans and also the homes of whites who supported African American rights. The greatest terror the KKK imposed was that of lynching. Lynching may be defined via the lesson as, “…public hanging for an alleged offense without benefit of trial.” As one can imagine these tactics struck fear into African Americans and the KKK was achiev...
For the beginning, in the middle and in the ending of the Civil War in the United States, the Black Americans were central as soldier and civilian. At first, people tried hard to get around this fact. Even President Abraham Lincoln administration sent Black volunteers home with an understanding that the war was a ''White man's war". The policy was eventually changed not because of humanitarianism but because of the Confederation's battlefield brilliance. The South brought the North to a realization that it was in a real brawl that it needed all the weapons it could lay hands on.
In 1619, slaves from Africa started being shipped to America. In the years that followed, the slave population grew and the southern states became more dependent on the slaves for their plantations. Then in the 1800s slavery began to divide America, and this became a national conflict which lead to the Civil War. Throughout history, groups in the minority have risen up to fight for their freedom. In the United States, at the time of the Civil War African Americans had to fight for their freedom. African Americans used various methods to fight for their freedom during the Civil War such as passing information and supplies to the Union Army, escaping to Union territory, and serving in the Union’s army. These actions affected the African Americans and the United States by helping the African Americans earn citizenship and abolishing slavery in the United States.
African Americans helped shape the Civil War from various perspectives. Actually, they were the underlying foundation for the war if you think about it in depth. African Americans were slaves and had been dealt with like property since they arrived in America. The likelihood of opportunity for these slaves created an enormous commotion in the South. The issue of equal rights for African Americans brought on a gap between the states. The United States Civil War began as an effort to save the Union, and ended in a fight to abolish slavery. The Civil War, frequently known as the War Between the States in the United States, which was a Civil War battled from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states proclaimed their severance and framed the Confederate States of the United States. More Americans died in the Civil War than in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined. Two thirds of the individuals that were killed in the Civil War died of disease. The medical world at the time of the Civil War and advanced disinfectants, did not exist which could have enormously lessen the spread of disease and illnesses. After years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 soldier’s dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, & the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing rights to the freed slaves began. By December 1865 the 13th Amendment had abolished slavery throughout the United States (Waldstreicher).
-There were many similarities and differences among European, Native American and African societies. The first similarity thing is the role gender played in their societies, and they assigned work based upon gender. In Native American and African world, the men were the ones who do heavy lifting work, and the women were the ones perform the domestic duties. Likewise, men were usually the breadwinners and working outside the home, either women worked in their own
Though social problems affect a wide variety of people from all races, classes, and cultures; minorities, specifically African Americans, encounter social problems on a multi-dimensional basis. Poverty, employment rates, discrimination, and other social problems strike African Americans in such a way that it is nearly impossible to separate them; each individual has different background, socially and physically, that would determine in which order his or her social problems need to be solved. Impoverished blacks in the inner city may have difficulty finding or keeping jobs, while others may have jobs, but face troubles with work discrimination that prevent them from moving upward .Underemployment, workplace inequalities, and unbalanced medical attention are three closely related social problems that, if ameliorated together, could increase upward mobility, decrease poverty levels, and tighten the lifespan gaps for not only blacks, but also other minority groups. The purpose of this paper is to show what effects these three problems have for blacks.
African Americans who came to America to live the golden dream have been plagued with racism, discrimination and segregation throughout a long and complicated history of events that took place in the United States dating back to slavery to the civil rights movements. Today, African American history is celebrated annually in the United States during the month of February which is designated Black History Month. This paper will look back into history beginning in the late 1800’s through modern day America and describe specific events where African Americans have endured discrimination, segregation, racism and have progressively gained rights and freedoms by pushing civil rights movement across America.
African Americans were very questionable at first in the Civil War. The Union Navy had been already been accepting African American volunteers. Frederick Douglass thought that the military would help the African Americans have equal rights if they fought with them. Many children helped in the Civil War also, no matter how old they were. Because the African Americans were unfavorable, black units were not used in combat as they might have been. Nevertheless, the African Americans fought in numerous battles. African Americans fought gallantly. Northern leaders also saw another reason to have African Americans in the Civil War is that the Union needed soldiers. Congress aloud them to enlist them because they thought they might as well have more soldiers.
the civil rights movement dramatically changed the face of the nation and gave a sense of dignity and power to black Americans. Most of all, the millions of Americans who participated in the movement brought about changes that reinforced our nation’s basic constitutional rights for all Americans- black and white, men and women, young and old.
Another positive change that was an outcome to the Civil War was that different races such as African Americans and women were eventually given equal rights to a white male. As Document E states, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion, etc. It also ended segregation in public facilities and in public education forever. When this act was passed, it was able to make the nation a lot better than it originally was due to the fact that everyone is now considered equally regardless of race, gender, nationality, and color. Although it was a very large struggle to get to this stage in equality, it was finally achieved and made possible with the Civil War ending and every enslaved person being freed and fighting for their rights.
For various southern African Americans, their journey westward usually began as slaves. In 1825, when the Mexican government enticed Americans westward through land grants, various slave owners moved in the hopes of becoming wealthy. These American immigrants into Mexico brought with them their wives, children, and property, including slaves. In the vast North American west, African Americans found new opportunities to put their skills to work. Many of these skills, which included herding cattle in Ghana and Gambia, had been passed down generation to generation through oral histories. Plantation owners, now ranchers in the West, employed their slaves’ skills in managing their plan...
...n their efforts to make America truly democratic by ensuring full citizenship for its entire people. Black soldiers, who continued to serve in segregated units, were involved in protest against racial injustice on the home front and abroad. The introduction of black troops left a profound effect on Europe. More than
“African Americans were bought and sold like merchandise. Families split, babies were ripped away from their mother’s chest, and children were sold to masters wit...