African American Women In The 19th Century Essay

980 Words2 Pages

All throughout American history people have been experiencing prejudice, whether it is because of their race, their class, their ethnicity, etc. Another deciding characteristic of inequality is gender. American women during the turn of the 19th century were constantly treated like they were inferior to men. Men got better everything from food, to clothes, to opportunities and jobs. Women didn’t have control over their belongings, their ideas, or even their bodies. They faced a constant struggle of conflict between standing up for themselves, and remaining obedient to the men in their lives. Women of all races and ethnicities were prone to discrimination, although women that were not white endured the worst. Not only did they have to serve …show more content…

African Americans were being tortured and killed without any kind of legal help or justice, like a trial or a lawyer. People of all ages, genders, and class were subject to lynching for various reasons. Some of these reasons were disruption, theft, or even just disrespect. A major cause of lynching involved women, specifically white women. Foner wrote that men “considered preserving the purity of white womanhood a justification for extralegal vengeance” (Foner, 58). It wasn’t really okay for a black man to even look at a white woman too long, let alone talk to her or be with her alone. When a white man or woman suspected a black man of mistreating a white woman the consequences could very well be deadly. This was the case even if the suspicion was incorrect. In a document Foner also wrote about a sheriff that suspected a black man and “led the mob against him in order to save his daughters reputation” (Foner, 60). In this specific case, the sheriff lied about what happened so that the other people in his town didn’t look down on his family. Whether or not this man was at fault didn’t mean anything to the sheriff or anyone else involved. White men during this time were blind to fairness as long as their women remained pristine, whether or not the women wanted

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