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Racism in the past
Thesis on marcus garvey
Racism changes over time
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“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” (Malcolm X) The African- American race as people have faced many challenges and has been through many struggles and oppressions. These events in history have fostered a sense of pride and for some hate in later generations. The pride that African- Americans have is usually referred to as Black Supremacy, Black Pride, and Black Power. The ideas of these prides are for black people as whole to have strong sense of who they are as a people, self-worth, self-determination, and equality. Every race should have these feelings, but some people take this to heart and find it offence because there are extremist groups who take these to beliefs above and beyond. Black Supremacy is not racism unless the Black race starts degrading other races and forming extremist groups to eliminate other based on the beliefs of pride.
Nobody denies that in the past and present there has been racial acts against the African- American race. When the Africans first arrived here from Africa as slaves, they were not treated equal or considered humans, and were called heathens because they did not worship the God of Christianity (“Racism Timeline”). Most people would find it very hypocritical that the first European settlers of America came over for freedom of religion and to escape hate of the other religions, but were so quick to hate someone they have never seen before that didn’t share the same beliefs as them. Slavery separated families, degraded black people until they felt like animals, and placed value as property on another human being. Slave owners used this hierarchy to justify slavery and support that Africans were biologically inferior; Caucasians (whites) Ethiopians (Africans) Mongolians (...
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Works Cited
Barnett, Donny C. “Marcus Mosiah Garvey.” Civil Rights in the United States. Vol 1 (2000) Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Darity A. William Ed. Jr. “Black Panthers” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2nd Ed. Vol 1.(2008): 318-320. Gale U.S. History in Context. Web. 24 Jan. 2001.
Mamiya, Lawrence H., and Charles Eric Lincoln. “Nation of Islam.” Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. 2nd Ed. Vol. 4. (2006): 1620-1624. Gale U.S. History In Context. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.
“Racism Timeline.” Leading Issues Timelines (23 Apr. 2010). SIRS Researcher. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
“Ready for War.” Intelligence Reports Iss. 131 (Fall 2008). 46-54 SIRS Researcher. Web. 03 Feb. 2011.
“The Advent of Jim Crow.” Free at Last: The Civil Rights Movement (Jan 2009) SIRS Government Reporter. Web. 03 Feb. 2011.
In 1955, C. Vann Woodward published the first edition of his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The book garnered immediate recognition and success with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eventually calling it, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” An endorsement like this one from such a prominent and respect figure in American history makes one wonder if they will find anything in the book to criticize or any faults to point out. However, with two subsequent editions of the book, one in August 1965 and another in October 1973—each adding new chapters as the Civil Rights movement progressed—one wonders if Dr. King’s assessment still holds up, if indeed The Strange Career of Jim Crow is still the historical bible of the civil rights movement. In addition, one questions the objectivity of the book considering that it gained endorsements from figures who were promoting a cause and because Woodward had also promoted that same cause.
In American history, there are centuries upon centuries of black people being deemed less than or not worthy of. Never in were black people equal, even in the sense of humanity. White people declared black people as three-fifths of a human, so to the “superior race”, because one has darker skin that automatically takes away 40% of their humanity. Now, in white history they repeatedly dominant over other nonwhite groups and especially the women of those groups because they feel anything that isn’t white is inferior.
Pement, Eric. “Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam: Part Two.” Cornerstone. 1997, vol. 26, issue 112, p. 32-36, 38. < http://answering-islam.org.uk/NoI/>.
The Nation of Islam, which Malcolm X was an important member of, is not a religious organization as the name suggests but rather an organization whose goal was to make the lives of African Americans better instead of actually teaching the proper ethics of Islam. One of the main objectives of this organization was Black Nationalism, through which Black leaders can control the areas where there is a majority of African Americans. This cause was greatl...
C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.
John A. Kirk, History Toady volume 52 issue 2, The Long Road to Equality for African-Americans
Wasserman, Steve. "Rage and Ruin: On the Black Panthers | The Nation." The Nation. N.p., 4 June 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
In the past, it is true that African American have suffered injustice, however, today there are still some wounds that needs healing from harsh treatment blacks people experience from whites people back during the civil right movement. Now, some whites are in positions where they are able to use their authority and demand unnecessary respect from minorities in certain situations, just so they could be in control. “In any case, white people, who had robbed black people of their liberty and who profited by this theft every hour that they lived, had no moral ground on which to stand” (Baldwin, 2000, p31). For instance, threatening to fire or suspend someone for not allowing them to be in control is the same attitude people had back then. Because of this, some blacks feel that they need to respond in any way possible to make their point. In other words, the attitude that some blacks have express at some point could be aggressive at time.
To wrap it up, African Americans lived an unfair past in the south, such as Alabama, during the 1930s because of discrimination and the misleading thoughts towards them. The Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow Laws and the way they were generally treated in southern states all exemplify this merciless time period of the behavior towards them. They were not given the same respect, impression, and prospect as the rest of the citizens of America, and instead they were tortured. Therefore, one group should be never singled out and should be given the same first intuition as the rest of the people, and should never be judged by color, but instead by character.
Levy, Peter B., The Civil RIghts Movement, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1998. Web. 24 June 2015.
"The History of Jim Crow." The History of Jim Crow. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2011. .
Chafe, William, Raymond Gavins, and Robert Korstad. Remembering Jim Crow. New York: The New Press, 2001.
The most prominent demonstration of racism in America had to be the slave codes that were in place in all states where slavery was practiced. In “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans,” John Hope Franklin went into detail on slave codes on pages 137-138, “…these laws varied from state to state, but most of them expressed the same viewpoint: that slaves are not people but property and that laws should…protect whites.” One law stated that those enslaved could not bear arms or strike a white person, even in self-defense, but when a white person killed a slave it wasn’t even considered murder. Africans had no standing in court, they couldn’t testify or be a party to a lawsuit and their marriages were not legally binding. Raping an African American woman by her master wasn’t considered a crime either. The slave codes were designed to oppress, persecute, and humiliate blacks by the hands of the whites. With the slave codes and the eventual Jim Crow laws and any oppressive laws and segregation practiced in America, the idea of blacks being inferior was stamped into the minds of any person living in the country. African Americans were treated as subpar, they weren’t considered human beings and to this day the same belief is held unto, although not nearly as outright or not as blatant as in the past centuries. Slavery in itself is a large example of how racism is and may always be embedded into American society; blacks had to fight to even be considered citizens, be able to vote, and be given basic human rights. Though many would deny the existence of racism, the sad truth is that racism may be an ever-present concept in American society.
"5. Civil Rights: Demanding Equality, Topic Overview." 5. Civil Rights: Demanding Equality, Topic Overview. Annenberg Learner, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.
F. Hasan, Asma Gull (2000). American Muslims; The New Generation. New York. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.