Essay On African American History

Looking at the great things that happened during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, it is hard to think that something such as race would still be so prevalent in everyday life. With failed attempts at reconstruction, partially successful attempts at reconstruction, often brutal oppression of African Americans, things like the Jim Crow Laws, Eugenics, public lynchings and some southern states not allowing blacks to vote America reached an all-time low in race relations. Author Rayford W. Logan in his book The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir 1877-1901 (1954) presented the idea that this period was the low point or “nadir” for the African American population .
The end of the Civil War marked the start of a period in American history where the greatest amount of civil change happened. Four million slaves were freed at once without a real plan to integrate them into society. The economy of the South was in shambles. The slaves represented the majority of the previous workforce for an economy based on agriculture and had been considered property worth between $500 and $1,000. This means that when the slaves were freed the South lost between $500,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 in “property”. Slaves didn’t own any land, have any capital and were uneducated but they embraced freedom and organized to realize their newfound rights.
This didn’t matter much as Negroes were viewed by whites as a lower race and not worthy of the same rights as whites. This opinion was widespread and even President Lincoln shared many of these ideals, such as being, “…in favor or having the superior position assigned to the white race.” After the war Negroes were free men and women and not property which made them ...

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... justice in all of American history. Racism and the justifications for it were everywhere in American society, including within some portions of Black America. Blacks were victimized based on the color of their skin and faulty science that created racial stereotypes. The reactionary events and lack of detailed planning for the incorporation of poor, uneducated freed blacks into American society after the end of the Civil War led to a hundred years of horrific discrimination. Nevertheless freedom and the spirit it kindles always finds a way over oppression. I think that Claude McKay said it best in his 1919 poem, If We Must Die:

“…Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”