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Around 1900 the situation for blacks was dire. They suffered extreme discrimination and were frequently the victims of violence in the South. Blacks could not vote and their career opportunities remained limited. White society excluded blacks from equal participation in many areas of public life; they wanted to keep blacks in a position of economic, political, social and cultural subservience. After the Civil War, the USA offered civil rights and laws privileges to African-Americans. The USA government passed an amendment ending slavery in 1865; the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Although slavery was outlawed, it did not provide citizenship and equal rights. Therefore, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment offered citizenship and enfranchisement to all citizens, regardless of race. Nevertheless, many eligible black citizens were prevented from voting; especially in the Southern states of America. Long-standing Southern congressmen exploited their authority to halt legislation that would help blacks. The power of the state governments allowed the continuation of white supremacy and discrimination; the state governments controlled education, transportation and law enforcement. As a result, enfranchisement did not bring greater equality to the black community in America. However, external events such as the two World Wars and the Great Depression encouraged greater equality between blacks and whites. By 1930, greater political equality had not been achieved, especially in the South because most blacks were more concerned with earning a living. Northern blacks, conversely, had greater opportunity to improve their political opportunities; they could vote and participate more easily in civic affairs. Although, similar to their counterparts in the South, Northern blacks were more interested in improving their living standards. The Second World War brought about change. Northern blacks campaigned for greater equality in the war. They criticised America by pointing out that it had not attained true democracy when Southern blacks could not vote. Nonetheless, many blacks remained inactive during World War II for they did not want to appear unpatriotic and feared disorder and acts of violence. Social equality in the early part of the 20th century was non-existent. Blacks were frequent victims of violence and severe discrimination particularly in the Southern states. Segregation was legally enforced, particularly in the Southern states; public transport, churches, theatres, parks, benches, schools and housing estates were all segregated. This was reinforced by the Supreme Court decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson trial, which enshrined the "separate but equal" racial segregation as constitutional doctrine. This decision endorsed segregation in nearly every sphere of public and private life.
Equality is something that should be given to every human being and not earned or taken away. However, this idea did not present itself during the 1930’s in the southern states, including Alabama. African Americans faced overwhelming challenges because of the thought of race superiority. Therefore, racism in the southern states towards African Americans made their lives tough to live because of disparity and inhumane actions towards this particular group of people. Even though Blacks were granted independence, laws were set up to limit this accomplishment.
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.
...dom and right to vote established by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, blacks were still oppressed by strong black codes and Jim Crow laws. The federal government created strong legislation for blacks to be helped and educated, but it was ineffective due to strong opposition. Although blacks cried out to agencies, such as the Freemen's Bureau, declaring that they were "in a more unpleasant condition than our former" (Document E), their cries were often overshadowed by violence.
Following the victory of the North over the South in the civil war, Black Americans were given independence. This led to court rulings such as the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment, which granted all citizens equality before the law and stated that, the ‘right to vote should not be denied ... on account of race’. However, in practice these Amendments were not upheld, there were no measures in place to implement these rulings and no prevention of the ill treatment of Black Americans. Due to these new rulings, De Facto segregation increased especially with the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Also, in the South although the 15th Amendment gave everyone the right to vote, Jim Crow laws were put in place to deliberately prevent Black Americans from voting. Black Americans had differing views on how to deal with their situation, while some felt it was best to accept the status quo, others wanted to fight for equal rights but disagreed on whether they should integrate with whites or remain separate.
The next few paragraphs will compare blacks in the north to blacks in the south in the 1800’s. In either location blacks were thought of as incompetent and inferior. The next few paragraphs will explain each group’s lifestyle and manner of living.
Separate but Equal doctrine existed long before the Supreme Court accepted it into law, and on multiple occasions it arose as an issue before then. In 1865, southern states passed laws called “Black Codes,” which created restrictions on the freed African Americans in the South. This became the start of legal segregation as juries couldn’t have African Americans, public schools became segregated, and African Americans had restrictions on testifying against majorities. In 1887, Jim Crow Laws started to arise, and segregation becomes rooted into the way of life of southerners (“Timeline”). Then in 1890, Louisiana passed the “Separate Car Act.” This forced rail companies to provide separate rail cars for minorities and majorities. If a minority sat in the wrong car, it cost them $25 or 20 days in jail. Because of this, an enraged group of African American citizens had Homer Plessy, a man who only had one eighth African American heritage, purchase a ticket and sit in a “White only” c...
On December 6, 1865, the thirteenth amendment to the United States constitution was ratified (Archives). This amendment effectively abolished slavery with the exception of a punishment for a crime (Archives). This was a great victory for blacks, who had been the preferred target for slaves. For many, however, the passage of the amendment failed to change the attitudes of white Americans. Blacks were clearly not welcome in many cities across the nation, with laws allowing blacks to work within a city’s limits, but requiring them to leave before sundown.
Times were looking up for African Americans, their new freedom gave them the option to go down a road of either criminal actions or to make something out of themselves. But the presence of racism and hatred was still very much so alive, Klu Klux Klan, although not as strong as they were after the Civil War was still present. Laws like Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” came into play and continued to show how racism was alive. Besides these actors of racism, blacks still started gaining a major roll in American society.
The abolition of slavery after the civil war gave blacks the same legal position as many whites in America. This initially made Blacks´ lives harder because now the Whites saw them as competitors for jobs during the 30s depression. Fear and paranoid led to the Whites believing that the Blacks desired all the whites had, including their women.
Blacks were treated unjustly due to the Jim Crow laws and the racial stigmas embedded into American society. Under these laws, whites and colored people were “separate but equal,” however this could not be further from the truth. Due to the extreme racism in the United States during this time period, especially in the South, many blacks were dehumanized by whites to ensure that they remained inferior to them. As a result of their suffering from the prejudice society of America, there was a national outcry to better the lives of colored people.
Toward the end of the Progressive Era American social inequality had stripped African Americans of their rights on a local and national level. In the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessey vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court sided with a Louisiana state law declaring segregation constitutional as long as facilities remain separate but equal. Segregation increased as legal discriminatory laws became enacted by each state but segregated facilities for whites were far superior to those provided for blacks; especially prevalent in the South were discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow laws which surged after the ruling. Such laws allowed for segregation in places such as restaurants, hospitals, parks, recreational areas, bathrooms, schools, transportation, housing, hotels, etc. Measures were taken to disenfranchise African Americans by using intimidation, violence, putting poll taxes, and literacy tests. This nearly eliminated the black vote and its political interests as 90% of the nine million blacks in America lived in the South and 1/3 were illiterate as shown in Ray Stannard Baker’s Following the Color Line (Bailey 667). For example, in Louisiana 130,334 black voters registered in 1896 but that number drastically decreased to a mere 1,342 in 1904—a 99 percent decline (Newman ). Other laws prevented black...
The 13th, 14th, and the 15th amendment was supposed to assure equal rights for African Americans, but even then there was segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the mindset that African Americans were inferior. One of the most notorious events prior to the Civil Rights Movement is the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896 which declared “Separate but equal”, meaning blacks and whites would be
African Americans have a history of struggles because of racism and prejudices. Ever since the end of the Civil War, they struggled to benefit from their full rights that the Constitution promised. The fourteenth Amendment, which defined national citizenship, was passed in 1866. Even though African Americans were promised citizenship, they were still treated as if they were unequal. The South had an extremely difficult time accepting African Americans as equals, and did anything they could to prevent the desegregation of all races. During the Reconstruction Era, there were plans to end segregation; however, past prejudices and personal beliefs elongated the process.
In the latter half of the 18th century, freed slaves possessed the right to vote in all but three states. It was not until the 19th century that states began to pass laws to disenfranchise the black population. In 1850, only 6 out of the 31 states allowed blacks to vote. 1Following the civil war, three reconstruction amendments were passed. The first and second sought to end slavery and guarantee equal rights. The third, the 15th amendment, granted suffrage regardless of color, race, or previous position of servitude.2 The 15th Amendment monumentally changed the structure of American politics as it was no longer the privileged whites who could vote. For some it was as though hell had arrived on earth, but for others, it was freedom singing. However, the song was short lived. While many political cartoons from the period show the freedom that ex-slaves have for voting because of the 15th Amendment, they often neglect to include the fact that many African Americans were coerced into voting a certain way or simply had their rights stripped from them.
Before World War II, although Abraham Lincoln had spoken the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the U.S. had gone through the Civil War around 1861, not much had significantly changed for African-Americans. Really nothing changed for African-Americans until much later, around the 1960s, when schools legally had to integrate African-Americans and whites. In relation to other events, World War II began in 1939, Jackie Robinson started on first base in 1947, and Rosa Parks was arrested in 1961. Therefore, at the time leading up to and shortly before World War II, there was not much effective action in terms of equal rights for all races. However, as seen here, after World War II, equality between races became a very prominent, pressing issue. This can partially be traced back to the effect of African-Americans in World War II.